Image and Identity Part 1: Imago Dei
God made you and I in his image, his likeness. We bear His stamp – his multi-faceted nature. In being a child of God, we find our identity. We can know who we are because we have God’s stamp. Scripture tells us we’ve already been given an image; we don’t have to create one. If we let it, this can provide so much freedom – from the worry of how we’re being perceived, and from the need to compare ourselves to others.
Genesis 1 says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Days 1 through 5 can be summarized this way:
God created light which he used to create days and nights.
He separated and organized the waters creating the sky and sea.
He made land appear and made plants and trees.
God created the sun and moon and stars.
He made animals to live in the sea and in the sky. Then he made animals to live on the land.
All these things that God had made he called good.
Then he gets to Day 6 of his making of the world. Genesis 1:27 says,
“God said, “’Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
The phrase we see in verse 27 originated in Latin: the image of God or Imago Dei. Imago Dei is the theological truth that all humanity has the Creator God’s image stamped on them. It means we were made in likeness, or similarity, or resemblance to God & this is what separates us from all other creatures of the earth. Imago Dei means that all humans have inherent value and dignity that comes from Creator God alone. Humans don’t earn their worth, dignity or value through any other means other than God alone.
David Seamands in a book called Healing for Damaged Emotions says that “Satan’s greatest psychological weapon is a gut-level feeling of inferiority, inadequacy, and low self-worth.” Knowing we’re made in God’s image is hugely different than feeling like we’re made in his image.
Seamands goes on to say that despite their faith and knowledge of scripture, many Christians are “bound by a terrible feeling of inferiority and chained to a deep sense of worthlessness.”
We all feel this way from time to time, but when these feelings persist, we allow Satan an effortless way to derail our impact and service, keep us small, and our gifts well-hidden. Left unexamined and unprocessed, these feelings Seamands describes (inferiority, inadequacy, low self-worth, worthlessness) can easily lead to deep shame and even symptoms of depression and anxiety.
When we don't feel worthy, we often look outside of God to find that worthiness. We may become a rule follower, legalistic in our interpretation of scripture. We may become judgmental of others because we have determined that our worth comes from keeping all the rules. We then keep score to make sure everyone else is keeping the rules, too. We may become obsessed with our performance and convinced our worth derives from being successful. We may look to relationships with romantic partners or friends or even parents to be the source of the validation we crave. All these attempts fail eventually. They can’t measure up.
(Image and Identity - Part 1 of 3)