The Liberating Power of God’s Image
Against the backdrop of empire and oppression, the biblical view of the Imago Dei fueled movements of compassion and justice. Early Christians founded hospitals and rescued abandoned infants because they saw each person as “a neighbor who bore the image of God”.
Centuries later, abolitionists in the Caribbean and the Americas — from Maria Stewart to Bartholomé de las Casas — reclaimed this truth as a moral weapon. To enslave or demean another was to assault God Himself. Their rallying cry: “We are formed and fashioned in His image.”
This conviction ignited not just activism but also human rights philosophy itself. As Kilner notes, even secular frameworks for human dignity trace their roots to Genesis 1:27, whether they acknowledge it or not.
The Image in Christ: From Creation to Redemption
The movie of human history shifts from Eden to Calvary — from creation’s perfection to the cross’s redemption.
The Fall shattered man’s reflection, but not God’s design. Christ, the “radiance of God’s glory and exact imprint of His being” (Hebrews 1:3), entered the scene as the true image-bearer — restoring what Adam lost.
Paul calls Jesus the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45–49), whose obedience reverses Adam’s rebellion. Those “in Christ” are now being transformed into His image (2 Corinthians 3:18), reflecting again the glory of God. Kilner calls this both destiny and dignity:
“God’s purpose in Christ was not to make people something they were not, but to restore them to what they were always meant to be.”
Thus, Imago Dei is no static doctrine — it’s a divine drama of creation, fall, and redemption, with Christ as both protagonist and promise.
