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The image of God

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “we look in a mirror darkly, but then face to face.” Mirrors in those days were made of bronze or polished stone. When they looked at other people’s reflection in a mirror, they saw “darkly.”

According to the Roman scholar, Pliny the Elder, who lived from 23-79 A.D., glass mirrors began to be made in Sidon during his day. They blew a glass bubble and then cut off a small circular section of it and backed it with lead or gold. Of course, such mirrors were usually expensive, distorted, and small (4-8 inches, or 10-20 cm).

Polished silver mirrors were much better, and these had been used in China as early as 500 years before Christ. But it is doubtful that Paul had ever seen one. So he spoke of mirrors in terms that were well known in his day. Nonetheless, Paul understood the idea of perfect mirrors, because the Bible speaks of Christ being in the image of God. Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is… the exact representation of His nature.” Furthermore, we read in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image…

This “mirror” is not the same as the one in 1 Corinthians 13:12, where we see only “darkly.” Paul used these two types of mirrors to express the difference between our present earthly viewpoint and the heavenly viewpoint that we will attain when we are in the image of God. Man today has a dark and distorted image, but we are being transformed by the Spirit of God into an undistorted image which God intended for us at the beginning.

Paul put it another way as well, telling us in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now I know in part, but then I will know fully.” Seeing a reflection in a bronze mirror was to “know in part.” But the day will come when we will see and know others “fully” and as they really are through the divine mirror of truth.

We talk about getting to know people over a period of time. But do we ever really know them? They say, each of us is the sum total of our experiences. We are more than that, of course, because we, along with all of creation, came into existence by the word of God at the beginning (Romans 4:17). The sum of our experiences began when we were manifested in the earth.

These experiences were necessary in the divine plan, but when God spoke us into existence, He created us in His mirror image. This undistorted image, too, was the pattern that is to be brought into full manifestation at the end. What God spoke about us at the beginning will surely come to pass, because His word cannot be broken. Though everyone’s path differs, and each set of experiences on earth will include a different combination, God created man in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26), and nothing can stop it from manifesting in the earth.

The natural (or soulish) man (1 Corinthians 2:14) has followed the pattern of Adam, who was made a living soul. Hence, all who were born by natural childbirth have reflected all of the distortions of bronze mirrors. But the spiritual man, which has been begotten by the Spirit of God, reflects the perfect image of Christ, who was “a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).

So Paul explains to us in 1 Corinthians 15:46-49,

⁴⁶ However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

The word “earthy” is the very definition of the name Adam. His name comes from the Hebrew word adama, “earth.” He was named after the earth from whence he came. We were all begotten and born “earthy” before we experience a spiritual begetting from heaven. Those who have been begotten from above are experiencing the beginning of the manifestation of the original image of God that was prophesied by the word of God at creation.

This spiritual man within us, begotten by the Spirit, has yet to be “born.” We are not yet truly “born again,” as so many assume. We are begotten from above through the feast of Passover and are now in the developmental stage, as with a divine pregnancy, awaiting the time of full birth through the feast of Tabernacles.

So we read in 1 John 3:2, 3,

² Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

John says that the present reality is that we are children of God, and yet we are still in a time of purification. We are not yet what we will be, even as an embryo is not yet what it will be at its time of birth. Nonetheless, that inner spiritual man (or “self”) is what we are becoming, and when the process is complete, then the word of God, spoken at creation, will be fulfilled. That which was created at the beginning will be fully manifested in the earth.