The Bible tells us, with disarming simplicity, that humanity is made “in the image of God.” And then it largely refuses to explain what that means.
In fact, surprising though it may seem given the importance we have attached to it, this phrase that humanity is made “in the image of God” appears remarkably rarely. Beyond its initial appearance in Genesis, it surfaces only a handful of times across the whole sweep of Scripture. There is no extended definition, no systematic development, no attempt to pin the idea down. Given the importance later theology has placed upon it, this biblical reticence is striking.
That silence should give us pause.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, our lives are shaped by images. People take their cues—consciously or unconsciously—from what they admire: pop stars, actors, sporting personalities, politicians, public figures, fictional heroes. Some of these images inspire generosity, courage, or resilience. Others foster domination, entitlement, or cruelty. The consequences are not merely aesthetic or cultural; they are moral and spiritual.
The question, then, is never whether we will be shaped by an image, but which image will claim our imagination. This is why the biblical language of “image” matters so much. To be made in the image of God is not simply a statement about human origin; it is a claim about human formation—about what kind of life we are being drawn into.
Instead of offering an abstract account of what the image of God is, Scripture directs our attention elsewhere—to relationship, to calling, to the lived story of God with humanity. The meaning of the image is not dissected; it is disclosed, gradually and concretely, through the way God chooses to make himself known.
The New Testament sharpens this decisively. When it seeks to speak clearly about the image of God, it does not turn inward to human potential, nor outward to philosophical speculation. It points to a person.
Christ is “the image of the invisible God.”
Over the centuries, many explanations have been offered: rationality, conscience, creativity, spiritual awareness, moral agency. Some have been helpful; others less so. But one thing is striking: Scripture itself never encourages us to treat the image of God as a hidden inner divinity waiting to be unearthed.
In fact, the biblical story moves in quite a different direction.
God Is Revealed, Not Discovered
One of the most pervasive assumptions in contemporary spirituality is that God is primarily found within: by introspection, awakening, consciousness-raising, or spiritual technique. The language varies, but the direction is consistent—inward, upward, self-referential.
God does not wait to be discovered. God reveals himself.
If we stop and think about it, this should not surprise us. To “discover” God would be as unlikely as an ant discovering the nature of humanity, or a microbe intuiting the meaning of love. The gap is not simply one of scale, but of kind. Knowledge of God can only arise if God chooses to make himself known.
And Christians claim precisely that: God has done so—not as an idea, but as a person.
For the first disciples, this revelation was concrete and immediate. Jesus entered their lives as a man they could hear, question, argue with, follow, and sometimes resist. They witnessed his actions, struggled with his teaching, and were confronted by his presence in ways that left little room for abstraction. Our situation is necessarily different. We encounter Jesus not as a physical presence, but through testimony—through Scripture, tradition, community, and story. What comes to us is mediated, narrated, and received over time.
This creates an unavoidable vulnerability in faith. We cannot always tell with certainty where revelation ends and projection begins, where trust shades into wish, or where imagination becomes fantasy. In times of suffering or felt absence—precisely when we long most for God’s nearness—this vulnerability can feel unbearable. Yet the Christian response is not to eliminate that risk by turning inward in search of something more controllable, but to accept faith as trust rather than possession. Revelation does not remove ambiguity; it calls us to live faithfully within it.
The Image Has a Face
The New Testament makes a bold and decisive move. When it wants to speak about the image of God, it does not speculate about human potential. It points to Jesus.
Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15).
He is “the exact imprint of God’s being” (Hebrews 1:3).
This means that the image of God is not finally an abstract quality we possess, but a living reality we encounter. The image is not something we define; it is someone we meet.
And that encounter changes everything.
If Jesus is the image of God, then the image looks like self-giving love rather than spiritual mastery; like faithfulness rather than dominance; like compassion rather than control. It is revealed in healing touch, truthful speech, boundary-crossing mercy, and—ultimately—in costly love that refuses violence even when it is justified.
This image cannot be generated from the ego, however refined or spiritually dressed-up. It is given, not achieved; received, not extracted.
This also helps us understand the place of the Holy Spirit in Christian life. Jesus promises the Spirit not as an alternative source of revelation, but as the one who “will remind you of everything I have said to you” and “guide you into all truth.” The Spirit does not turn us inward to discover a different God within ourselves, but works within us to conform us to the image already revealed to us in Christ.
The indwelling Spirit is not a private spiritual possession, but a relational gift—the presence of God shaping us from the inside toward Jesus. What the Son reveals, the Spirit internalises. What is shown to us in Christ is slowly formed within us through love, trust, and obedience.
The Burden of Inward-Only Spirituality
This distinction matters pastorally more than we might realise.
When spirituality is framed primarily as an inward project—awakening, alignment, realisation—people quietly absorb the message that their healing, transformation, or enlightenment depends on their own capacity. Those who flourish feel validated; those who struggle feel deficient.
I have met many people crushed by this weight: sincere, prayerful, searching souls who cannot seem to access whatever it is they are told lies within them. The result veers towards spiritual self-surveillance rather than freedom, anxiety rather than faith.
The Image as Reflection, Not Projection
One reason inward-only spirituality proves so fragile is that it misunderstands what an “image” is meant to do. A helpful way of thinking about the image of God may be to think in terms of a mirror.
A mirror does not generate an image of its own. It reflects what is placed before it. If it turns inward, it reflects only darkness or distortion. But when it faces the light, it faithfully reveals what it receives.
To speak of humanity as made in the image of God, then, is not to suggest that we contain a miniature version of God within ourselves. It is to say that we are created to reflect God—to receive and respond to what is given, not to project our own likeness outward and call it divine.
This is why the image of God becomes dangerously distorted when God is treated primarily as an inner possession. The mirror quietly turns away from the light and begins to reflect the self instead. God starts to look like our preferences, our fears, our ideals—or our unresolved wounds clothed in spiritual language.
Seen in this light, the New Testament’s insistence that Christ is the image of God is deeply clarifying. Jesus is not a mirror turned inward, but a life wholly oriented toward the Father. As we learn to live in Christ, the mirror is slowly realigned—and what is reflected in us begins, however imperfectly, to resemble the love we see in him.
It is no accident that Scripture is so careful, and at times so severe, about the images we allow to stand in God’s place.
This concern runs deep in the biblical tradition, and it is given explicit voice in the Second Commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image.” (Exodus 20:4–6 NRSV) This prohibition is not primarily about sculpture or art, but about the human impulse to make God manageable—to fix the divine likeness according to our own fears, needs, or desires. An image fashioned by us may feel reassuring, but it is no longer a revelation; it is an idol.
In this light, the commandment reads less as a restriction and more as a protection. It guards against the danger that our longing for certainty might replace the living God with something more controllable—a God who reflects us rather than confronts us, who confirms our assumptions rather than reshapes them. The refusal of images is, paradoxically, what keeps faith open to a God who cannot be reduced to our projections.
The Gospel tells a different story.
Transformation does not begin with technique, but with relationship. We are not asked to generate the image of God from inside ourselves; we are invited to be conformed to the image revealed in Christ, over time, through grace.
This is why the New Testament speaks so consistently of growth, formation, and becoming—not sudden inner discovery. The image of God is restored in us as we learn to live in Christ, not as we search endlessly within ourselves.
The New Testament imagines transformation less as sudden insight and more as apprenticeship. The disciples are changed not by discovering something hidden within themselves, but by following Jesus—often faltering, sometimes failing, yet slowly reshaped through relationship, forgiveness, and grace.
This is not to dismiss silence, contemplation, or inner attentiveness—all of which have deep and honoured places within the Christian tradition. But Christian contemplation is not a technique for uncovering our own divinity. It is a way of receiving God’s self-giving, not discovering a hidden spiritual essence within ourselves.
Figures such as Thomas Merton understood this clearly. For Merton, contemplation was not self-realisation but self-surrender: a consenting openness before the God who addresses us, not a method for mastering interior states. Silence, in this tradition, is not where the ego becomes powerful, but where it becomes quiet enough to listen.
When contemplation is detached from revelation—from the God who comes toward us in Christ—it subtly shifts from trust to technique, from grace to attainment. The fruit may feel spiritual, but the burden quietly returns to the self.
“With” — Not “In”
Jesus himself offers a decisive corrective to inward-only spirituality in his teaching.
In Matthew 25, he does not say, “I was hidden within you, waiting to be found.” He says:
“I was hungry and you gave me food… I was a stranger and you welcomed me… I was in prison and you visited me.”
The astonishing claim is not that God is located inside us as a spiritual possession, but that God meets us with those in need.
This is a profoundly different spiritual geography.
God is not encountered by turning away from the world into private enlightenment, but by turning toward others in love. Presence is discovered relationally, not interiorly; ethically, not esoterically. The image of God is recognised and honoured where love takes costly, concrete form.
Becoming Truly Human
To say that we are made in the image of God, then, is not to flatter us with hidden divinity. It is to name a vocation.
We are created to reflect what we receive: to mirror the self-giving love revealed in Jesus. This reflection is imperfect, fragile, and unfinished—but it is real. And it is sustained not by striving, but by trust.
The great gift of the Christian faith is that we do not have to invent our own salvation, manufacture our worth, or discover God by spiritual archaeology. God has come looking for us.
And in Jesus—the true image—we are shown both who God is, and who we are becoming.
Jeremy Marks, 15th January 2026