To live in God’s image means to live in unity and harmony with one another. When we become new creations in Christ, our ability to love is enhanced, for the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5).
God said, ‘Let us make man in our image…’ This is a clear indication of the community that exists in the Godhead. There is one God, yet he exists in three Persons.
The nature of God is unique. He is one Person in Three–or if you like, Three in One. In the Godhead we have a divine mystery–a unity in plurality and a plurality in unity. How can you define the indefinable? Which is, no doubt, why the Bible itself never attempts to do so.
But no-one can honestly read the Scriptures without seeing the fact of the Trinity, plain and clear. So here in Genesis we are told that when God wanted to create living beings in his image, he made two of them, both male and female.
Why not one or the other? The answer is that one was not enough. Only in community can we rightly convey the concept of God’s plural personality. It is in our relationships with each other that we most truly reflect God’s image on the earth.
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.