“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” (Genesis 1:27).

The Lord Jesus Christ “is the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4), “the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3), “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). Human beings were created “in” God’s image. From the beginning we were made to be like Jesus, God the Son, but we miserably failed.

God the Father did not forsake His purposes, however. In the fullness of time He sent His Son to take on our flesh so that the believer might “be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29), “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him” (Colossians 3:10).

Animals do not share this privilege. They were not made to resemble Jesus. Animals have instinct; humans, creativity—like the Creator! He reasons with His human creatures and wants us to reason back (cf. Isaiah 1:18). Like Jesus, we also have authority. He calmed the storm; we tame killer whales and whole herds of cattle. Yet, our rebellion against God shows up in many and varied abuses, but the ingredients are stamped on our beings nevertheless.

The fact that we can worship God and commune with Him in prayer is a tremendous truth. God is tripersonal; each Person of the Trinity communes with the Other. But God also invites us into His fellowship. Let us be what we were meant to be. Let us imitate the Lord Jesus Christ—trusting solely in the merits of His cross, commune with the Father through the Son, and experience the joy of fellowship with the Spirit for all eternity so that “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18). PGH