8 Genesis 2:3
seventh day he rested from all his work.
3 T hen God blessed the seventh day and
made it holy, bec ause on it he rested
from all the work of creating that he
had done.
Adam and Eve
4 T his is the account of the heavens and
the earth when they were created, when the
Lord God made the e
arth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the
earth a and no plant had yet s prung up, for
the Lord God had not sent rain on the e
arth
and there was no one to work the ground,
6 but streams b came up from the e
arth and
watered the whole surface of the g round.
7 T hen the Lord God formed a man c from
the dust of the g
round and b
reathed into
his nostrils the b
reath of life, and the man
became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in
the east, in Eden; and t here he put the man he
had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of
t rees grow out of the ground — trees that were
pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the
middle of the garden were the tree of life and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river wateri ng the garden f
lowed from
Eden; from t here it was sepa rated into four
headw aters. 11 T he name of the f irst is the
Pishon; it w inds t hrough the ent ire land of
Hav il ah, where t here is gold. 12 (The gold of
that land is good; arom atic resin d and onyx
are also t here.) 13 T he name of the second riv
er is the Gihon; it w inds t hrough the ent ire
land of Cush. e 14 T he name of the t hird river
is the Tig ris; it runs a long the east side of
Ashur. And the f ourth river is the Euphrates.
15 T he Lord God took the man and put him
in the Garden of Eden to work it and take
care of it. 16 A nd the Lord God comm anded
a 5 Or land ; also in verse 6 b 6 Or mist c 7 The
Hebrew for man (adam) sounds like and may be
related to the Hebrew for ground (adamah) ; it is
also the name Adam (see verse 20). d 12 Or good;
pearls e 13 Possibly southeast Mesopotamia
IMAGE OF GOD (IMAGO DEI)
(CONTINUED)
Genesis 1:27
of human dignity form the basis for the Judeo-Christian conception of human rights and
the protection of human life from conception until natural death.
STORYLINE
The image of God (Latin: imago Dei) is one of the foundational concepts revealed in the
opening chapter of the Bible. Establishing a unique relationship with humans, the triune
God declared, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26a). In
short, the Bible teaches that to be human is to image God and to image God is to be human.
The doctrine of the image of God plays an important role in the history of salvation. The
author of Genesis teaches that Adam’s (see article, p. 17) son, Seth, was an imager of God
just as his father was (Genesis 5:1–3). Moreover, in the covenant God made with Noah
(see article, p. 24) and his children after the flood (see article, p. 22), the image of God is
provided as the reason human life is distinct from animal life (Genesis 9:6). Furthermore,
the apostle James says that because all people are imagers of God, we should not curse
other humans (James 3:9).
FOR FURTHER STUDY
G. C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962); D. J. A. Clines,
“The Image of God in Man,” Tyndale Bulletin 19 (1968): 53–103; Anthony Hoekema, Created
in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986); Bruce Ware, “Male and Female Comple-
mentarity and the Image of God,” in Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood, ed.
Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002): 71–92.
1. Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3. In other editions, see
the beginning of book 1.