If we are God’s image bearers what does that make Jesus?

Christ as the Functional Image of God 

imago dei (post 5 of 5)

In the last post on the doctrine of the image of God I described what I think it means to function as God’s image bearers to his creation. We are to represent who God is to the rest of creation, not to become miniature gods ourselves, but to point back to the one true God. The image of God is not simply something we are but something we become.

If we are God’s image bearers what does that make Jesus?

Jesus is the only person to be a fully functional image of God. He has been the only one in history to truly reflect God the way man was originally intended to. To quote N.T. Wright “Jesus could be and do for Israel and the world what only God could do.”  This is why Jesus is the paradigm for how we should live our lives. He oriented his life toward God in a way that demonstrated to all creation the nature and character of God. He not only fulfilled the divine function by being God himself, he demonstrated what it meant to be human by living out the God given role of image bearer.

Historically the Eastern Orthodox church has done a much better job of incorporating the imago dei doctrine into theology than the Western church.  For example they are more prone to view the salvific process of sanctification through the lens of better filling the role of image bearers.

But I can never be like Jesus. Isn’t this a hopeless chase?

The Orthodox tradition might say that sin cannot completely destroy God’s image in us, but our likeness to God does depend on the choices we make. We will never completely loose God’s image in us because it will always be the purpose of our existence. But the extent to which we find that purpose in life depends entirely on how well we mirror Jesus.

We are saved by grace alone, but our desire to become the people God intended us to be should fuel the pursuit of a proper relationship with Him. I will never get there in this lifetime, but I will experience a much greater depth in this life by fulfilling my role as image bearer.

At the top of my blog I borrowed and somewhat repurposed some words from the Apostle Paul.

“To know only Christ and him crucified.”

At first this comes across as the unfortunate Western habit of over-identifying with Jesus at the expense of neglecting the Father and the Holy Spirit. But this phrase is not intended to be an intellectual acknowledgment but a functional statement. This is meant to describe the way I hope to live my life. My hope is to attempt to fill my role as image bearer to the extent that Jesus fulfilled that role. When I do that I find myself much more in tune with the Spirit and the Father. I fulfill my task as image bearer best when I take on the sacrificial nature of Jesus on the cross.