I’m not a mother, at least of biological children, but I have been in the room when a baby was born. I was just sixteen years old when my mother (a registered nurse) took me up to the obstetrics floor of Eliza Coffee Memorial in Florence, AL to see a live birth. One of her friends was in labor and had given permission for me to be in the room. I stood in the corner, bewildered at the sights and sounds as doctors and nurses attended to the screaming woman on the hospital bed. I’m certain my eyes were wide as I stood there quietly wondering why I had been invited to witness something that seemed both terrifying and sacred. Yet, I’ll never forget hearing the cries of that child as he made his entry into the world. Only minutes old, the sweet baby boy, with all his life before him, was remarkably and wondrously made because it was God who had created him and knit him together in his mother’s womb.
Isn’t it interesting how we’ve all lived through the same moment of entry into a bright and bustling world, after nine or so months in our mother’s womb? As human beings, we share the same origin story: knit together by God, delivered by a mother. We would do well to proclaim with David, “For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made” (Psalms 139:13-14). Psalm 139 tells us so much more—how God knows us intimately (our goings and comings), and how His presence is inescapable; how He has known us before we were formed and how all our days are written and planned by Him. Yet another Psalm speaks about God knowing us and thinking of us. This Psalm is none other than Psalm 8, quoted earlier, which asks in verse 4, “what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?” The very next verse in Psalm 8 draws upon Genesis 1 and the topic of man’s vocation:
You made him [man] little less than God
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all the sheep and oxen,
as well as the animals in the wild,
the birds of the sky,
and the fish of the sea
that pass through the currents of the seas.
Psalms 8:5-8
Compare this with what we learn about mankind in Genesis 1:27-28:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth. Genesis 1:26-28
Having discovered that we are remarkably and wondrously made in the image of our Triune God, being crowned with glory and honor and made ruler over the work of his hands, we still have more to consider: exactly how does being made in the image of God impact our daily lives?
Theologians throughout history have offered various proposals to convey what being made in the image of God means. At least three categories arise when considering the connotations: 1) substantive, 2) relational, and 3) functional. The first view, substantive, posits that to be made in the image of God indicates something substantive about a person, contra animals. Thus, the image of God in man consists of traits or characteristics unique to human beings, such as rationality, agency, morality, and emotions. The second viewpoint, relational, reasons that only human beings are made with the capacity to enter into a relationship with both God and other fellow human beings. The third view, functional, draws from the context in which the phrase, image of God, first appears in Genesis, to reveal that man and woman have a unique function: to represent God and rule as His regents over Earth, under the authority delegated to them by their Creator. The functional viewpoint is the main consideration for the purposes of this book. While all viewpoints have valid, instructive insights, we’ll root our conversation in the vocation to which God called Adam and Eve.
Both Gen. 1:26-28 and Psalm 7:5-8 contain several phrases which support a functional view of the image of God. Each speaks of human beings as “ruler” or plainly states that “they will rule . . .” highlighting that Earth and all it contains falls within the purview of both the man and the woman. In Genesis 1:28, man and woman are to not only populate Earth but they are to subdue it, and the term “rule” is repeated. While the Hebrew terms for rule in Genesis 1:26-27 and Psalm 8:6 are different, both imply ruling, having dominion, and reigning. It should not be lost upon us that the original design for male and female included the blessing from their Creator to rule over the entire animal kingdom and the whole of Earth.
From these truths rooted in Genesis 1 and the Psalms we discern both identity and purpose for man and woman and that is one and the same: our identity is that we are both made in the image of God as male and female and our purpose is to rule together as co-regents in the stead of our Creator King.
This is an excerpt from Julia B. Higgins’s new book, Christ and His Bride. Get to know Julia more here!
About Julia B. Higgins
Julia B. Higgins, PhD (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as Assistant Professor of Christian Ministry at Samford University. Her passion is equipping students to teach the Bible, make disciples, and serve their local church. She co-edited and contributed to The Whole Woman: Ministering to Her Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength (B&H 2021) and she authored Empowered and Equipped: Bible Exposition for Women Who Teach the Scriptures (B&H Academic 2022). She has spoken at various events for Lifeway Women and serves as a doctrinal reader for ‘Missions Mosaic,’ a publication of the WMU. She and her husband, Tony, reside in the Birmingham area with their loveable Shih-tzu, Charlie.
