In Genesis 1:26 and 27 we have the container but not the content. The content is found in Genesis 2. According to the record in Genesis 2, after God created man, He prepared a garden and placed man in it. Two trees are mentioned by name: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s intention was that the man created by Him would take of the tree of life and live. But if man took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would die. Man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he died.
We cannot understand the significance of the tree of life simply by Genesis 2. By reading the entire Bible we see that the tree of life is a symbol of God as life. For example, Psalm 36:9 says, “With thee is the fountain of life.” In the Gospel of John we see that when Jesus, the Son of God, came, life was in Him (John 1:4). The Lord Jesus said that He was life (John 11:25) and that He came that we may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). In Colossians 3:4 Paul says that Christ is our life. Furthermore, 1 John 5:11 and 12 say, “And this is the testimony, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life.” Finally, the book of Revelation speaks clearly of the tree of life, with which the entire city of New Jerusalem will be nourished in eternity (Rev. 22:1-2, 14). Therefore, by considering the whole Bible we see that the tree of life symbolizes God as man’s life. God’s intention was that the man created by Him as a container would take Him in as his life and content.
Let us now consider further what God’s image is. The New Testament tells us that God’s image is Christ. But still we need to ask how we should describe the image of God.
The Bible tells us that God is love and that He is light (1 John 4:8; 1:5). Love is the nature of God’s essence, and light is the nature of God’s expression. The Bible also reveals that God is righteous and holy. The adjective “righteous” used with respect to God refers to God’s way. God’s way of doing things is always righteous; He never does anything unrighteously. The adjective “holy” refers to God’s inward nature. God is righteous in His doings and holy in His nature. Therefore, God is love and light, and God is righteous and holy. This is a description of God’s image.
In describing the image of a person, it would not be accurate to speak of his height, weight, and hair color. If you would describe a person’s image, you need to say what kind of person he is. This means that you need to describe his attributes as a person, the characteristics of his personality and temperament. In a similar way, if we would describe the image of God, we need to describe His attributes.
God’s image is depicted by these four words: love, light, righteous, and holy. These are God’s attributes. Hence, when we use the term “divine attributes” we are referring to God’s love, light, righteousness, and holiness. Our God is love and light, and our God is righteous and holy. This is not a description of God’s likeness; it is a description of God’s very being. God is love; that is, love is His being. God is light; that is, light is His being. Furthermore, the being of God is righteous in His acts and holy in His nature. This is the image, the description, of our God. The four main features of this description are God’s attributes.
Man was made in God’s image. The man created by God, therefore, has love, light, and the capacity to be righteous and holy. Even though we are fallen, we still have in our fallen condition love, light, and the capacity to be right and to be holy like God. For God to create man in His own image means that God created man with the capacity to have His love, light, righteousness, and holiness. Human love, light, righteousness, and holiness are what we call the human virtues. These virtues were created by God.
God created man in His own image in such a way that man has the capacity to contain God’s love, light, righteousness, and holiness. The human virtues were created by God to contain His attributes. Human love, light, righteousness, and holiness are created capacities to contain the divine love, light, righteousness, and holiness.
People everywhere agree that hating others is contrary to our conscience. Furthermore, it is also contrary to our conscience to lie, steal, and do things in darkness. Even an unsaved person may have the sense that it would be unrighteous to keep extra change given to him by mistake in a restaurant or store.
The point here is that man was made by God to have love and light and to walk righteously and to be holy. Man has these virtues because he was created in God’s image, in the image of God’s love, light, righteousness, and holiness. The human virtues created by God are the capacity to contain God’s attributes. God created man in this way with the intention that man would take Him as the tree of life to be his life and content.
If Adam had eaten of the tree of life and thereby had taken God into him as life, he would have been filled with God, and his human virtues would have been filled with God’s attributes. Then man’s virtues would have expressed God’s attributes. If Adam had done this, he certainly would have become a God-man. There would not have been the need to wait thousands of years for a God-man to be born in Bethlehem. If Adam in the garden had partaken of the tree of life, he would have become not only a man made by God in His own image and after His own likeness, but also a man filled with God as his life and with the divine attributes filling his human virtues. If Adam had become such a person, a God-man, he would have been a man living God.
As we know, Adam failed to fulfill God’s purpose, and he spoiled God’s design. God had made Adam according to His design. But because Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life, he spoiled God’s design. The humanity created by God was damaged and, in a sense, lost. However, as we shall see in the following message, the Man-Savior’s incarnation fulfilled God’s purpose in the creation of man.