Man was Created in God’s Image to Express God

Genesis 1:26: “God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Man was created to be able to receive God as His life and, by living that life, to express God in man’s humanity. Here is one nugget from each post in this group, with a key verse and a link to the post. These present examples, now and at the Lord’s return, of the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating man. The consummate fulfillment will be New Jerusalem, radiating the glory of God.

God’s ultimate manifestation will be New Jerusalem. But He also is manifested now. Ephesians 3:10 tells us that “now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church.” Verse 11 says this is according to God’s eternal purpose.

New Jerusalem is God’s eternal golden lampstand. For His manifestation today, Revelation 1 presents “seven golden lampstands.”

Man was created with God’s image to be able to express God’s many attributes. One of these is righteousness. For God’s expression today, we can be “filled with the fruit of righteousness, which is through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).

Another attribute of God to be expressed today and in New Jerusalem is oneness. The Lord Jesus prayed for this in John 17. “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (v. 21).

The expression of God is “God manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:15-16). This manifestation was individual by the Lord Jesus in the gospels and is corporate today by the church and will be much greater with New Jerusalem.

First Corinthians 14 speaks about the manifestation of God in proper church meetings. This is accomplished by the participation of all the members.

We turn our heart from everything else to the Lord that we “beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord” my express the glory of New Jerusalem to others now.

First Peter 2:8 says, “”you exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.” This exulting is our current manifestation of Jesus Christ with the glory that characterizes New Jerusalem.

God is manifested through created, redeemed, and regenerated man. Ephesians 2:7 speaks of the manifestation in the coming age, that God “might display in the ages to come the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

The resurrection life of Jesus Christ, the life which characterizes New Jerusalem, can be manifested even in difficult circumstances. Paul and his co-workers were “always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”

For this manifestation of God, Peter instructs the believers to have “your manner of life excellent among the Gentiles, so that…they may, by your good works, as they see them with their own eyes, glorify God in the day of His visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

Second Thessalonians 1:10 tells us that our Lord is returning “to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed in that day.”

When the Lord returns in glory He will glorify His believers and “the righteous will shine forth like the sun” (Matt. 13:43). Like all the manifestations of God in man, this shining will increase and continue eternally in New Jerusalem.