The Image of God and Imaging God
What does it actually mean for human beings to be created in the image of God?
In this lecture, Dr. Michael Heiser examines the biblical language of Genesis 1:26–27 and challenges several common explanations of the image of God. Intelligence, rationality, self-awareness, moral capacity, the possession of a soul, and the ability to communicate are often proposed as the qualities that distinguish human beings. Heiser argues, however, that none of these provides a sufficiently secure basis for the equal dignity and sacredness of every human life.
Instead of treating the image as a particular faculty or substance placed within us, Heiser presents it as a status and vocation. Human beings were created to function as God’s representatives on earth—to image him, exercise stewardship over creation, and carry out their work as his embodied proxies. This status belongs equally to every human being and is neither acquired gradually nor lost through weakness, disability, diminished capacity, or the fall.
The lecture also explores the ethical implications of this understanding, particularly for the sanctity of human life, before turning to questions about the plural language of Genesis 1:26, the divine council, the meaning of elohim, and the relationship between humanity’s imaging role and the wider biblical story.
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