Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Man, Part 4.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

In our study of the Doctrine of Man, we now come to point C on our outline, evaluation. Let's

talk first about man in the image and likeness of God. What might we say about these alternative

construals of the image of God by way of evaluation.

Well I think first of all that we have to agree with the Protestant reformers that there

is no difference between the image and likeness of God.

I already indicated that when we looked at the biblical material from Genesis, that these words

are used in parallel and synonymously. To say that man is created in God's image and according

to his likeness is just an example of Hebrew parallelism. The terms have virtually the same meaning. So they are

not meant to indicate two different aspects of human being. Rather, these are synonymous ways

of designating man as in some way reflecting God in a special way that sets him apart from the rest of creation.

But then I think we have to say, contrary to the reformers, that the image is not lost in the fall, because fallen man clearly is in the image of the image of the image of the image of the image of the image of the image is not lost in the fall because fallen man clearly is in the image of God,

as we saw. In Genesis 9.6, fallen man is referred to as being in God's image.

Therefore, the image of God is not the original righteousness

or something of that sort which could be lost in the fall. We shouldn't think of the image

of God as something that is given up or lost as a result of man's fall into sin.

So the first point is that the image and likeness of God are identical, they refer to

the same thing and that they are not lost in the fall. When it is said that Christ is the image of God, here I think we're

dealing with a totally different concern. The word may be the same image, but it

isn't in the same sphere of discussion as when we talk about man created in God's image.

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