What the Bible says about Image of this World
(From Forerunner Commentary)
The last part of God's curse on Adam involves the brevity of physical life. To this point, death had been mentioned only as a threatened punishment for sin (Genesis 2:17), so it must be assumed that, as long as Adam and Eve remained sinless, they would not die. Paul writes in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned."
God designed His wording of Adam's punishment to link mankind with the earth: He was created out of it, and when he died, he would return to it. His sin had removed him from the environs of the heavenly and forced him to dwell, labor, and die in the earthly. Yet even this has a silver lining:
And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. (I Corinthians 15:45-49)
The benefit of a physical body is that it can die! This may sound strange, but it is exactly this fact that makes man able to become immortal sons of God! Men can die and be resurrected, following the pattern set by Christ, receiving eternal life and the rewards of His Kingdom. It is our righteous living in the flesh through the grace of God that qualifies us for this glorious potential.
On the flip side, our physical nature also makes it possible for God to rid the universe of anyone unwilling to submit to Him. Unlike angels, men can be completely consumed in the Lake of Fire—totally destroyed for all eternity and unable to defile the holiness of God's Kingdom. Though God desires "all [to] come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9) and "all men to be saved" (I Timothy 2:4), He has this option should it be needed. Revelation 19:20 shows that it will indeed.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The First Prophecy (Part Three)Related Topics: Children of God | Curse on Adam | Curse on Ground | Curse on Mankind | Curse upon Generations | Curse, First | Death | Death as Permanent Cessation of Life | Death Penalty | Eternal Life | Eternal Life as Quality of Life | Eternal Life, Conditions for | First Adam | God's Children | God's Family | Heavenly Host | Image of Adam | Image of Christ | Image of the Heavenly | Image of this World | Lake of Fire | Physical Life Temporariness of | Second Adam | Sin Produces Death | Sin, Consequences of | Sin, Universality of | Spiritual Body | Spiritual Life, Permanence of
Are we sons of Adam? Why do we have this image? Why are we like him? Because we are his offspring! We have been born into this earth, the offspring of Adam, as Acts 17 clearly proves. When we are resurrected we will bear the image of our Father. We will be just like Him (I John 3:2), even as we are now just like Adam was. We will be God!
Incidentally, the word image means "that which corresponds to and reproduces the original." No image—whether it is a reproduction in a flat mirror, a three-dimensional hologram, or a living child of a parent—is an exact replica or image, because each person has his own peculiarities. That is so evident and logical that everybody should be able to understand that nobody can be God exactly as God is God, because each person is an individual personality. We will be a reproduction of Him, but we will be unique—because we are who we are, and He is who He is. He has His life and His history, and we have ours. However, we will still be God. We will be just as much "God" as a baby in the human family is a "human" like its parents.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part One)Related Topics: Adam's Geneology | Adam, Sons of | Family of God | God as Family | God as Parent | God's Children | God's Family | God's Geneology | Image | Image and Likeness of God | Image of Adam | Image of Christ | Image of God | Image of the Heavenly | Image of this World | Image, Spiritual
I Corinthians 15:49 shows the end of the process, which it encompasses in just a brief phrase, "we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." We were born into the human family, and we have borne the image of that family, an image that all of mankind has in common. All of us have the human spirit. We may be different ethnically. We may look different from the person sitting next to us, but now in Christ Jesus He is building a commonality, one God intends us to use to increase our fellowship with Him, as well as increase and deepen the respect and fellowship that we have for each other until we come to bear the image of the heavenly. Then, of course, the fellowship will be in totality. That is where Christians are headed.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Truth (Part 4)
The heart changed. How man is like God does not have so much to do with form and shape as it does with qualities of mind. It is while we were in the world that the mind became corrupted because we just absorbed - we conformed to - the image of this world, the image of Satan the Devil in its many forms. Therefore, we have to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, to be created in the image of His Son.
Related Topics: Conformed to God's Image | Conformed to this World | Conforming to Christ's Image | Corruption | Corruption of the Human Heart | Heart, Change of | Heart, Corruption of | Heart, Deceitfulness of | Image and Likeness of God | Image of God | Image of Satan | Image of this World | Renewal of Mind | Renewing of Mind | Transformation | Transformed into His Likeness