No.10. The Teaching of the N.T.
regarding the “Image”.
There are many references to ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ in the O.T. that await examination, but some of them will come under the head of practical application of the truth involved, and therefore we pass from the O.T. usage to that of the N.T., where we shall find the interpretation and fulfillment of what is intended by the Lord in these two significant words. The words employed by the Septuagint Version for ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ are eikon and homoiosis. Eikon is derived from an almost obsolete root eiko ‘to be like’ which occurs in James i. 6 and 23:
“He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea.”
“He is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.”
Homoiosis is derived from homoioo ‘to be, or to make like’. This word occurs in James iii. 9 where we read:
“Men, which are made after the similitude of God.”
The distribution of the word ‘image’ in the N.T. issignificant. The first group is that of the Gospels (Matt. xxii. 20; Mark xii. 16; Luke xx. 24). The second group the Epistles of Paul, and the third group- that of the Revelation (Rev. xiii.-xvi., xix. and xx.).
1st Group. The image of Caesar. Gentile dominion recognized by the Lord. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
2nd Group. The doctrinal steps that lead to the goal of the ages.
3rd Group. The image of the “Beast”. Worship demanded and denied. Gentile dominion comes to a terrible end. Caesar at length set aside, for “theKingdoms of this world” must become “the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ”.
Every one of these passages contribute their quota to the general impression and teaching of the Scriptures regarding the ‘image’, but those references which must occupy our attention before all others are those that occur in the epistles of Paul. These references are distributed as follows:
1. One occurrence in the epistle to the Hebrews.
2. Seven occurrences in the pre-Mystery epistles.
3. Two occurrences in the Mystery epistles.
We have already suggested, that, just as Adam was only a ‘shadow’ of the intended ‘image’, so all the sacrifices like typical law were ‘shadows’ and not the ‘very image’. Both Adam and the types find their realization in Christ.
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year, continually make the comers thereunto perfect” (Heb. x. 1).
The import of the word “image” here is decided by the antithesis “shadow”. In Heb. viii. 5, the Aaronic priesthood:
“Serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.”
The ‘shadow’ of Heb. x. 1 is to the ‘image’ as the ‘example’ of Heb. viii. 5 is to the ‘pattern’. These heavenly patterns, not the earthly copies, are “the very image” of unseen realities. When the Apostle wished to teach much of the same truth to those not so familiar with O.T. typology, he uses the contrasting words ‘shadow’ and ‘body’ instead of ‘shadow’ and ‘image’. This is found in Colossians, where he sets aside meats, drinks and holy days, and says:
“Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col. ii. 17).
To use the word ‘body’ here as though it referred to “the church which is His body”, is just the same error as it would be to use the word ‘image’ in Heb. x. 1 as one of a series of references to the doctrine of the “Image of God”.
The way is therefore clear to consider the remaining references, all of which are found in Paul’s epistles. These references form a doctrinal chain, having seven links, which carry the doctrine of the Divine Image from Creation to Restoration, as will be seen by the following analysis:
1. The distinctive position of man by creation (I Cor. xi. 7).
2. The degradation of that position by idolatry (Rom. i. 23).
3. The earthly and heavenly image, the first Adam and the Last (I Cor. xv. 49).
4. The transfiguring character of grace (II Cor. iii. 18; iv. 4).
5. The Divine determination (Rom. viii. 29).
6. The pre-eminent position of Christ (Col. i. 15).
7. The present anticipation of the restoration of the Divine Image (Col. iii. 10).
Reverting for a moment to an earlier observation, we remember that in the Gospels the Image of Caesar was tolerated, but that in the Revelation it had assumed such blasphemous pretensions that it had to be entirely abolished. The degradation that is manifested among kings and rulers, has taken place in individual man, and while at the moment “the powers that be” are permitted by God, the ideal toward which all history moves, will be that day when “all rule and all authority and power” shall be subjected beneath the feet of Christ, and when the Son Himself voluntarily submits, that “God may be all in all”. The fact that this will be a moral realm, necessitates a long process of time for its attainment. Creation with its innocence gives place to conscience. The Patriarchal rule is followed by the reign of law. The Kingdom of David faintly foreshadows the reign of Christ. In this process the original purpose of man’s creation is kept in mind. The new world that came into being after the Flood was not allowed to forget that man was made in the image of God:
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man” (Gen. ix. 6).
We must however leave these outlying phases of the subject, and turn our attention to the doctrinal features that are characteristic of the references to ‘image’ in Paul’s epistles. The first reference to Paul’s epistles which must be studied, appears on the surface to contradict the testimony of Gen. i. 26, 27. It reads:
“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (I Cor. xi. 3).
In Gen. i. 27 we read:
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He . . . . THEM” (Gen. i. 27),
and in the book of the generations of Adam we have the additional statement:
“Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called THEIR name Adam, in the day when they were created” (Gen. v. 2).
Now whatever interpretation we may have accepted regarding Gen. i. 26, 27, we have proof positive that the Adam of Gen. v. is the Adam of Gen. ii., who was the husband of Eve and the father of Seth (Gen. v. 3). We also know that Adam was created first and alone (Gen. ii. 7, 18) and that his wife was ‘built’ from a ‘rib’, or preferably a cell taken from Adam while he slept, which occasioned the exclamation of the man upon the presentation of the woman:
“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man” (Gen. ii. 23).
In the creative purpose, Adam and all his posterity, whether male or female were given dominion over the works of God’s hands. All were blessed, and all received the command to be fruitful and multiply. Does I Cor. xi. 3 ignore this patent fact? No, it looks at the matter from another angle. It grants all that may be said as to the oneness of the race in Adam, irrespective of age and sex, and does not question the full application of Gen. i. 26, 27 or Gen. v. 2 to woman equally with man.
But the home or the Church is a unit, and in both there must be some sort of order and rule. Now, says Paul, it is evident that, while both Adam and Eve were linked together in the purpose of creation as expressed in Gen. i., it is equally true that “Adam was first formed, then Eve” (I Tim. ii. 13), and this fact is made the basis of the Apostle’s argument in I Cor. xi. 8, 9, to show that within the human circle, whether in the home (Eph. v. 23), or in the Church viewed as an assembled company on earth (I Cor. xi.), the ‘image’ of God as expressed in headship is vested in the man, and that, just as the head of Christ is God, and the head of man is Christ, so the head of woman, within this circle of humanity, is man.
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man” (I Cor. xi. 7).
It may appear on first consideration that this passage need not have been included in the references, seeing that we are concerned with the goal of the ages, and the ultimate realization of the Divine image in man, but no examination of Gen. i. 26, 27 would be complete without the light received from I Cor. xi., and further, one features emerges which is important, namely, the fact that the divine Image, finds one of its expressions in headship. Now all rule, authority and power are to be subjected beneath the feet of the Lord in that day, and that leads us to see, at least two things:
(1) The headship of man, foreshadows the universal headship of Christ, continuing in the frail successors of Adam what he himself only very dimly represented.
(2) This headship of man is temporary. When the goal of the ages is reached ALL rule and authority will have gone; and this indicates that man’s headship now does not foreshadows the END, but foreshadows the Mediatorial office of Christ that leads up to the end, when God shall be all in all.
A great deal of heartburning on the part of Christian women, and a great deal of foolish self-assertion on the part of Christian men, would never have been had BOTH men and women realized that they were but playing an appointed part. Neither men nor women in themselves are either superior or inferior to one another, and before Paul enjoins the wife to be ‘subject’ or to ‘submit’ to her own husband he exhorts BOTH to ‘submit’ or be ‘subject’ to one another. It is just as foolish for a man to assume that he is intrinsically superior to a woman because he has been cast for the role of ‘head’, or for a woman to think that she has been degraded because she has been cast for a lower part, as it would be for an actor to assume royal airs and insignia simply because for a brief hour he played the part of a king in a Shakespearean tragedy. Neither the man nor the woman are anything else in this matter than ‘shadows’, and it would not do any harm to us all, sometimes to remind ourselves of the fact. The ‘submission’ enjoined in this relationship is but an anticipation of the greater ‘submission’ of I Cor. xv. 27, 28; for the same word hupotasso is used by the same writer in each epistle.
The remaining references to the ‘image’ that we have listed must now be considered. Meanwhile let us gladly yet humbly accept the role that Divine wisdom has appointed, remembering that it is an unspeakable honour to have ANY part in the outworking or the foreshadowing of our heavenly Father, and to be allowed, both in our homes and in our church order, to anticipate however faintly, the relation of Christ to His believing people.
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