Adam was created in the image of God but are we? [closed]

Question

Genesis 5:3 NIV

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth.

Are we not born and created in the image and likeness of Adam?

Answer 1

That mankind was created in the image of God is recorded several times in the Bible such as: Gen 1:27, 5:1, 9:6, etc.

The original intention was that this image of God was to have been inherited by each successive generation, but that image was marred and we now inherit a fallen, sinful nature (Rom 3:10-18, 5, 12, 15, etc.)

However, it is one of the functions of God's plan of salvation that the image of God is to be restored by the mechanism of beholding Christ, as shown by the following references:

• 2 Cor 3:18 - And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His image with intensifying glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
• 2 Cor 4:4 - The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
• Col 1:15 - The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Again, one of the purposes of the incarnation was to provide Jesus, the perfect representation of God to man so that man can me imitators of Christ and have the image of God restored in mankind.

• Col 1:19-23 - For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross. Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds because of your evil deeds. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence— if indeed you continue in your faith ...

The doctrine of the imitation of Christ is very deeply embedded in the NT as the method by which the image of God is restored in mankind.

• Eph 4:20-24 - But this is not the way you came to know Christ. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him—in keeping with the truth that is in Jesus— to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
• 1 John 3:2 - Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears,a we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.
• Be imitators of God. Eph 5:1.
• Partakers of the divine nature. 2 Peter 1:4.
• Love as Jesus loved. John 13:34, 35, 15:12, 1 John 4:8, 11, 19, Eph 5:1, 2.
• Lay down life for friends. John 15:13, Eph 5:2.
• Jesus’ suffering leaves us an example. John 16:33, 1 Cor 7:28, 2 Tim 1:4, Heb 13:12, 13, 1 Peter 2:21.
• Conformed to the likeness of the Son. Rom 8:29.
• Transforming our will and bodies to conform to God’s will. Rom 12:1, 2.
• Jesus was baptised (Matt 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, Luke 3:21, 22) and so should we be baptised, Matt 28:19, Acts 2:38, 10:48, 16:31, 22:16, Rom 6:1-9, etc. See “Baptism”.
• Forgive as Jesus forgave. Matt 6:12, Eph 4:32.
• Be holy as Jesus is holy. Lev 11:44, 45, 1 Peter 1:15, 16.
• Be pure as He is pure. 1 John 3:3.
• We are being changed into Christ’s glory (= reputation). 2 Cor 3:18.
• Pray as Jesus prayed. Luke 11:1.
• We are to have the mind of Christ. Phil 2:5, 1 Cor 2:16.
• Be kind because God is kind. Luke 6:34, 35.
• Be merciful because God is merciful. Luke 6:36.
• Be servants to others as Jesus was. John 13:15-17, 1 Peter 4:11b, Matt 20:24-28.
• Be patient as Jesus was patient. 1 Tim 1:16.
• Talk/speak as Jesus speaks. 1 Peter 4:11a.

... and so forth.

Answer 2

Genesis Rabbah 23:6 notes that Genesis 4 ends with Enosh (and that only in the next chapter does it continue with the subsequent generations), and also that I Chron. 1:1 lists only those three generations (and again, the subsequent generations are listed only in the following verses). Based on this, then, it says (translation mine):

Up to this point [when Enosh was born] they were "in the [divine] image and form"; thereafter the generations deteriorated, and they were created as kentorin... their faces became like those of apes.

(Kentorin may mean "centaurs" - i.e., creatures halfway between human and animal - though a number of the commentaries there relate it to an Aramaic root meaning "reversed.")

Which would mean, then, that the answer to the OP's question would be: not fully (although, as per Genesis 9:6 cited by Dottard, we still retain it to a certain degree, distinguishing us from other forms of life).