The Legacy of Image-Bearers

I would venture to guess that Biblical genealogies are one of the most commonly skipped over portions of Scripture for the average reader. When I was first starting to read the Bible for myself as a child, my main interest in reading the genealogy of Adam in Genesis was to see how old each person lived to be. I can remember counting up all the years to see just how much time had passed between Adam and Noah.

The primary function of these geological sections is to show a historical progression of time, tracing a person’s lineage. But there are certainly studies that can be done into these people’s lives, particularly with the genealogy of Jesus, since the Old Testament gives us pictures of many of these people’s lives.

The genealogy of Adam, however, is different, since we know basically nothing about most of these characters. We know that Methuselah was the oldest (969 years), and we know that Enoch walked with God and was taken by God (and Hebrews 11 gives us a bit more commentary). We know that Lamech spoke a prophetic word over Noah (5:29). But aside from these details, the Biblical account gives us nothing else to go on for these people. All we know is how long they lived and that they all fathered children.

But there’s a fascinating description that comes at the beginning of this genealogy.

Chapter 5:1-2 gives us a review of 1:27, reminding us that Adam was made “in the likeness of God.” But 5:3 reveals something interesting: “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his own image…” In other words, this is the genealogy of Adam reproducing the image of man.

What does this mean? That Adam’s descendants (and even Adam himself) were no longer made in the image of God? Genesis 9:6 rejects that conclusion. There, God gives Noah a command against shedding blood, basing the reasoning on the fact that each person is made in the image of God: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

Instead, the focus on Adam multiplying the likeness of man is similar to what is described of Jesus in Philippians 2. There, Paul bases his appeal for humility among Christians on the example of Jesus, showing that even though Jesus was “in the form of God,” he humbled himself by “taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men” (2:7). He maintained the form of God, but he was now literally “found in human form” (2:8). In the same way, Adam’s descendants continued to be God’s image bearers. But while they were originally created to multiply the image of God and spread it throughout the earth, they were now blurring his image with the image of man—sinful man. Augustine described this poetically: “The image of God persists, yet it is marred, like a face in a broken mirror.”1

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul anticipates a day when the broken (or dim) mirror will be exchanged for the real thing: “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (13:12). When he speaks directly to the resurrection later in this same letter, he expands this, anticipating the redemption of our distorted image through the work of Christ: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (15:49).

The wonder in all of this is that God’s image persists in mankind, even in the midst of our sin-stained distortion of his image. Underneath every marred sinner lies a being created in the image of God. We are all prodigal children, whose scars and tattoos can’t hide the innate mannerisms that reveal our true parentage. Every time we show love to our fellow man, we are like rebellious children who can’t help but speak and act just like their Father. We can’t escape our ancestry, and the Bible is one massive genealogy, reminding us that we were all created in the image of one Father. Christ has come in the likeness of fallen mankind to clear the stain and bring us face to face with our familiar Father—who has never been far from any one of us.2

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1

City of God, XIII.23

2

Acts 17:27