Imago Dei J (for Jesus)

One thing is clear about the Imago Dei in the pages of the New Testament: Jesus is the ‘image of God.’ Colossians 1.15: ‘[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation’; 2 Corinthians 4.4: ‘The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.’ Hebrews 1.3a: ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.’

Whatever else is said about humans being made in ‘God’s image’ or about the ‘image of God’ at all falls short if it does not find its centrality in the person of Jesus Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section 359: ‘“In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.” St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ…The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life…The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: “I am the first and the last.”’

What is said in the New Testament about Jesus’ relationship to God is to a much higher degree than that of the first Adam. While the author of Genesis maintained that the first humans were made in or ‘according to’ God’s image, the New Testament contributors say Jesus ‘IS’ God’s image. This leads John, Paul, Irenaeus, and the Catechism above to show that the last Adam (i.e., Christ) is the original and is the one according to whose likeness the first Adam (in Genesis) was made. There is a ‘oneness’ between Jesus and the Father that was not spoken of in terms of Adam and God. Gregory of Nazianzus, among others, helps us understand this distinction by identifying Jesus Christ as God (Orations 30.20): ‘The ordinary image is a motionless copy of a moving being. Here we have a living image of a living being, indistinguishable from its original to a higher degree than Seth from Adam and any earthly offspring from its parents.’ This is also illumined by the creedal phrase that Christ is God’s Son ‘begotten, not made.’

I had lunch with a friend with whom I had a few classes in seminary. He reminded me of the hermeneutics of Eastern Orthodoxy, whose tradition reads all of Scripture Christologically (i.e., ‘Christ is the voice and the subject of the Scriptures’). This was the hermeneutical principle of the Church Fathers and remains such in Eastern Orthodoxy today. That does not mean that everything in the Old Testament refers specifically to Jesus, but prefigures something to do with the Incarnation…i.e., everything is fulfilled in the New Covenant in some way. For example, my friend mentioned, the ark of the covenant was a prefiguring of Mary in that they ‘carried’ or ‘bore’ [as in pregnancy, not as in boredom...ha ha] God; the twelve tribes of Israel prefigure the twelve apostles; etc. I don't think it's so much that the old predicts the new, but rather that the old finds its fulfillment, reality, and culmination in the new. Maybe 'foreshadowing' is a better word. I remember one comparing Scripture to a mystery novel...in a (good) mystery novel, the truth is not completely unveiled until the climax or the end. And when one comes to the climax, it illumines what the story has been about all along. Hence, we as Christians now read the old in light of the new…the 'mystery' of the Incarnation is our lens into rightly reading and interpreting Scripture!

Basil of Caesarea, for instance, takes passages such as Colossian 1.15 back to the creation account and interprets Genesis 1 accordingly. He insists that the use of the second person plural pronoun for God in Genesis 1 is a reference to the Son, the second Person of the Trinity. The historical critic laughs and cries, ‘anachronism.’ Basil furrows his brow in confusion and would say, ‘No, Jesus shows us what Genesis was about all along…humanity was not ready for that revelation until now (or) God didn't reveal that until now.’ In actuality, Basil said, ‘To Whom does He say, “in our image,” if not to Him who is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,” “the image of the invisible God”? It is then to His living image, to Him Who has said “I and my Father are one,” “He that has seen me has seen the Father,” that God says “Let us make humankind in our image.”’ (Homily 9.106).