God Made Us in His Image and Likeness
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As we have learned last week, God is a Trinity of Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
By His nature, God does not have a body. He is a pure spirit. However, God the Son, the second Divine Person of the Trinity assumed a human nature and came to earth. Even though we say that creation is the work of God the Father, everything God does is really the work of the whole Trinity.
From its very first pages, the Bible reveals to us one of the most important truths about being human: we are made in God’s image and likeness. Read the verse from Genesis below.Genesis 1:27
God created mankind in His image; in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.Being made in God’s image and likeness means that there are certain characteristics about us that are like God; specifically, we are made with an intellect (reason), free will, and a capacity for love.
- Intellect: The ability to know and understand ourselves and the world around us, and to know God.
God is pure intellect. He knows and understands all things in a unique way because He is the Creator of all things.- Free Will: The ability to choose freely to act or not to act in a certain way. Our free will depends on our ability to understand (the intellect) in order to choose one way or another. We can even freely choose what we know and understand to be bad.
Everything God does is freely chosen. God has never been required or forced to act, even when He created the universe (including each one of us). Everything He has done is a freely chosen act of goodness and love.
- A Capacity for Love: The ability to give love to others and to receive love from others. It is a requirement of love to be able to choose freely. Without free will, there cannot be love.
God is love. Everything He does is an act of love. He desires for us to love Him in return.