WHAT DOES "THE iMAGE OF GOD" MEAN?

I've heard scores of answers to this. We have moral sensitivity. We have relational capacities. We have communicative abilities. We have a will and the ability to reason.

I agree with all of these. However, I think the primary thing that God's image means in Gn 1.26-28 is that humanity was created to have dominion [1.26, 1.28]. Go read it. It's clear. And dominion is not for mere citizens or peasants. Dominion is for royalty. We were made, in some sense, to be "kings." This says something about our Creator and not necessarily our innate worth.

All of this is not mere conjecture or attempted exegetical insight. It's clearly what God's image means. Here's why:

If we read the end of the book, to what are we restored? In what way are we "co-heirs" with Christ [Rom 8.17]? Revelation 19-22 says that we will be raised to reign with Him, world without end. That is our lot in Christ - the full restoration of God's image and all that that entails. This is also why our Lord, who flawlessly bore the Father's image on earth, preached that "the kingdom is here" [Mt 4.17, Mk 1.15].

God's plan to fix the marred image could not have been accomplished by any other means except by the full image-bearer [Col 1.15, 1.19], the Second Adam [Rom 5.12-21].

romans 8, SONSHiP, and [imago Dei]

If we were created in God’s image and somehow fallen man still maintains some of that image [see Js 3.9], then what part of the image of God was lost by our fleshly father Adam in the Garden? He wasn’t conceived by normal, fallen, human means and neither was Jesus. So, I think that what was lost in the Garden has something to do with humanity’s sonship to God.

In whatever way we fell in Adam, one thing is sure, Jesus is complete in that way. This is the backdrop to what Paul says in Rom 5.12-21. Perhaps this must also be in view to rightly understand Rom 8.29. Here, Paul says that all those whom God predestined, He did so for them to be conformed to the image of Jesus. He says this because it exalts Jesus’ Sonship and makes those who were not God’s sons into His sons by adoption [Rom 8.15, 23]!

So, I think Paul supports the fact that in the fall, man’s sonship with God was lost. James appears to be on board with this. He says that with the tongue “we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God” [Js 3.9]. See the implication. Additionally, in losing sonship, somehow we also lost moral uprightness. I’ve yet to ponder how the two are connected. “When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” [Gal 4.4-5].