In God's image, or after His likeness?

This topic came up in another thread, and it seemed interesting to me (thanks @The Archangel for pointing it out).

In Gen 1:26, God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

The two phrases are "in our image" and "after our likeness", and each phrase is represented by a single word in the Hebrew, from what I can tell, so the prepositions are somewhat arbitrary. Do they mean the same thing or something different? If the same, then it seems like God is emphasizing the point by saying it twice. If different, then what are the two messages He is giving us?

The combination of phrases is used one more time, in Gen 5:3, though the order is reversed:
[Gen 5:3 KJV] And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat [a son] in his own likeness, after his image;[H6754] and called his name Seth:
(You might notice that the prepositions are switched, which made me think they were somewhat arbitrary.)

So what does "image" mean?
What does "likeness" mean?

I'd appreciate input from some of you Hebrew scholars!

 

Cool!. Thanks for posting that. (a quick shout out to @The Archangel to note the synonymous nature at least in this commentary).

I wonder (getting off topic a bit) about the statement regarding immortality. Immortality denotes, by it's construction, the idea of never dying, rather than of always having been alive. Any newborn could have immortality if that newborn were guaranteed to never die.

That's a concept that's more than hinted at with God's warning to Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, though I've heard some say that the immortality requires eating of the tree of life. Thus, they were either born immortal, but something changed with the sin, or they were born mortal, but could replenish their "lives" (to use a gaming term) by eating of the tree of life.

 

Here's another commentary on Genesis 1:26, this by Matthew Henry:
"That man was made in God's image and after his likeness, two words to express the same thing and making each other the more expressive; image and likeness denote the likest image, the nearest resemblance of any of the visible creatures."

Since the original topic had to do with emotions, here's a bit from Henry on emotions:
It is only some of God's honour that is put upon man, who is God's image only as the shadow in the glass, or the king's impress upon the coin. God's image upon man consists in these three things:-

• 1. In his nature and constitution, not those of his body (for God has not a body), but those of his soul....
• 2. In his place and authority: Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion....
  
• 3. In his purity and rectitude. God's image upon man consists in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10. He was upright, Eccl. 7:29. He had an habitual conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God. His understanding saw divine things clearly and truly, and there were no errors nor mistakes in his knowledge. His will complied readily and universally with the will of God, without reluctancy or resistance. His affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions....

Read "emotions" for "appetites and passions". In this respect, Henry suggests Adam's emotions were like unto God's, and hadn't yet been corrupted.

 

Perhaps. But the souls that go to hell at death are reunited with the body at the resurrection, some to life and others to the lake of fire, where the immortal body seems to be an impediment (the smoke of their torment goes up forever). Thus, if the souls are immortal, and bodies not, their disconnect is brief, and of little purpose.

Again, this is a side issue...

 

Agreed! That's why I question some the doctrines about hell and the damned, because if they are given a new body, why, if just to throw that new body into the lake of fire?

 

Calvin's commentary on the two phrases:
"In our image." Interpreters do not agree concerning the meaning of these words. The greater part, and nearly all, conceive that the word image is to be distinguished from likeness. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything...As for myself, before I define the image of God, I would deny that it differs from his likeness.

 

Before or after the resurrection? I.e., something definitely happens to them after the resurrection, which I already mentioned. Are you asking about that or about what happens to them before the resurrection?

 

I'm not sure how all that, as interesting as it is, is related to the OP. Are you saying that the "image of God" and the "likeness of God" are the same thing (synonymous) or different? If the latter, what are the differences?

Thanks,
Derf

 

Here’s one I got from biblehub.com. It says the two phrases are not the same (that’s one for you @The Archangel):
In our image, after our likeness.—The human body is after God’s image only as being the means whereby man attains to dominion: for dominion is God’s attribute, inasmuch as He is sole Lord. Man’s body, therefore, as that of one who rules, is erect, and endowed with speech, that he may give the word of command. The soul is first, in God’s image. This, as suggesting an external likeness, may refer to man’s reason, free-will, self-consciousness, and so on. But it is, secondly, in God’s likeness, which implies something closer and more inward. It refers to man’s moral powers, and especially to his capacity of attaining unto holiness. Now man has lost neither of these two. (Comp. Genesis 9:6; 1Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9.) Both were weakened and defiled by the fall, but were still retained in a greater or less degree. In the man Christ Jesus both were perfect; and fallen man, when new-created in Christ, attains actually to that perfection which was his only potentially at his first creation, and to which Adam never did attain.

I don’t see any mention of emotions, so I don’t know how to apply this one way or another to the previous conversation, but it does say that both our image-of-God-ness and our likeness of God are still in place, but hampered by the fall.


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How about John Wesley, @The Archangel?

That man was made in God's image, and after his likeness; two words to express the same thing. God's image upon man, consists,

1. In his nature, not that of his body, for God has not a body, but that of his soul. The soul is a spirit, an intelligent, immortal spirit, an active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of spirits, and the soul of the world.
2. In his place and authority. Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion. As he has the government of the inferior creatures, he is as it were God's representative on earth. Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will, has in it more of God's image, than his government of the creatures.
3. And chiefly in his purity and rectitude. God's image upon man consists in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, Ephesians 4:24; Col 3:10. He was upright, Ecclesiastes 7:29. He had an habitual conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God. His understanding saw divine things clearly, and there were no errors in his knowledge: his will complied readily and universally with the will of God; without reluctancy: his affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions: his thoughts were easily fixed to the best subjects, and there was no vanity or ungovernableness in them.