Let’s look first at Adam’s creation.  We read in Genesis 1:26-27, “And 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. SO GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” We also read in Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”  Let us also read Genesis 2:21-22, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

From these verses we see that the Lord created Adam and Eve in His own image.  We also see that Adam and Eve were the only two persons that the Lord ever created.  Adam was created from the dust of the ground while Eve was created from Adam’s rib.  All others have been ‘born’ rather than ‘created’.

What does it mean to be created in God’s image?  John 4:24 tells us that, “God is a Spirit…” so being in God’s image does not refer to His physical characteristics, for the Lord has none.  Being created in His image can only refer to the Lord’s moral and spiritual qualities…giving man the ability to know, love, and commune with God, and to know in his conscience when he is disobeying God and thus separated from Him.  Plus, God is a triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit), in His image we are also triune creatures (spirit, soul, and body).

James 3:8-9 tells us, “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are MADE AFTER THE SIMILITUDE OF GOD.”  So, we see that all mankind inherited the “image of God” in which Adam and Eve were made…not in its original perfection, however, but corrupted and distorted by sin.  We see that truth brought out clearly in Genesis 5:3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and BEGAT A SON IN HIS OWN LIKENESS, AFTER HIS IMAGE; and called his name Seth.”  Seth was born with a fallen, sinful nature like his parents received when they sinned against the Lord. 

Over and over again in the Bible, we see that creatures all reproduce “after their kind.”  (Leviticus 11:22, Deuteronomy 14:15, etc. for example).  Upon receiving their fallen natures, Adam and Eve’s offspring were born with a fallen nature…and all who came after them were born with that same fallen nature.  David would later write of himself in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” 

When Adam made the choice to rebel against his Creator, the image of God within mankind was marred, and Adam passed that damaged likeness on to all his descendants as we read in Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  Today, we still bear the image of God, but that image has been distorted by sin. Mentally, morally, spiritually, and physically, we show the effects of sin.

But God has offered redemption to us all, a redemption that is only available by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior from the sin that separates us from God. Through Christ, we are made new creations as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  By faith in Him, we become partakers of His divine nature as we read in 2 Peter 1:4, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”  (447.6)