The Implications of “Image and Likeness” in

Irenaeus and Genesis

From what I can tell, the theological distinction between the idea of the “image” in which the human
family is created and the “likeness” into which she is glorified is not rooted in the Hebrew words
used, but the distinct prepositions that are used for the two terms in Genesis 1:26. For example, the
preposition used in conjunction with “likeness” is next used to describe the creation of Eve after
Adam names the birds and beasts. When God creates the human family, He creates it with a view
towards its exaltation in the heavenly council and its robing in divine glory. That its glorification is
intrinsically a *conciliar* reality is no accident, for God is glorious in the Holy Trinity, and the creation
of the Heavenly Court with its angelic hosts is an *expansion* of that eternal reality. We therefore
see God addressing the council in Genesis 1:26- “Let us create Man in our Image, after our
Likeness.” Comparable texts in Isaiah 6 and elsewhere demonstrate the context for this first-person
plural to be the heavenly council. That council exists in the glory-cloud of God which is
theophanically present throughout the Old Testament. The creation of the “heavens” in Genesis 1:1
introduces this heavenly court, as later retellings of the creation days make clear that the Heavens
in which the stars are placed are a symbol of this “Heaven of Heavens.” The Spirit of God “hovers
over” the primeval waters and gives light to the world. Exodus 14 recapitulates the creation days
one by one, and in its retelling of the first day, the Spirit of God corresponds to the glory-cloud
before Israel, which “lit up the night.” God is gloriously present with His court in the Spirit, and in the
six days He blows through and shapes the stuff of the world, transfiguring and heavenizing it.

The sixth day brings the “Image of God” into being, a singular reality referring not to particular
human persons, but to the consubstantial human family whose unity signifies the unity of God. Its
destiny on the divine council is reflected in the plurality of that unity. The “let us make” is answered
by the dyad of male and female. Later in Genesis, when man refuses to multiply into an authentic
plenitude of distinct nations and cultures, God again says “let us” and so constitutes the one human
family as a commonwealth of nations. Its unity of worship must be restored, and is so restored at
Pentecost, but its distinctness of peoplehood is one of its glories. The number “seventy” is
frequently associated with the divine council, referring to the symbolism of seventy archangelic
powers managing the nations until mankind is prepared for its crown of glory and honor “over the
angels.” The seventy nations will themselves become the council of God.

The preposition used with “likeness” in Genesis 1 appears thus in that precise context where God is
working to shape mankind into its ultimate glorification. God named the creatures in Genesis 1, so
Adam names creatures in Genesis 2. Adam progresses in wisdom and comes to understand the
necessity of communion with another consubstantial hypostasis who is irreducibly distinct from him.
And so the preposition is used in describing the helper who will be “fit” (as it is rendered in English)
for him. God is calling mankind into a deeper likeness to Himself, and that entails existing in
communion and with wisdom. Adam has begun his project of studying the world and learning its
inner logoi, deepening his own humanity and drawing him closer to that for which he was made.
The Hebrew word for “bone”, notably, can refer to “self.” Adam comes to know his own personhood
in union with another human person who shares the same nature. [This is why Christ’s bones
cannot be broken- theologically, it concerns the absolute unity pof the divine hypostasis in union
with human nature.]

We next see this preposition in the story of the Fall. Recall that the heavenly council is constituted
by innumerable ranks of angels. These angels have among their chief tasks the education of the
human family and their preparation to receive crowns. As Paul says, the Torah, given to spiritual
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children, came “through angels.” Textually the reference is to Deuteronomy 33, where God comes
with ten-thousands of his angelic “saints” or “holy ones.” We see throughout the Old Testament how
angels are always working with God and with man to prepare him for the Incarnation and
consequent coronation. Angels are set to manage the garden, angels formally bear witness to the
divine prosecution of Sodom, angels make manifest the ladder to heaven on which they ascend
and descend, angels personally announce the coming of Christ, and so on. As David tells us, we
are “for a little while lower than the angels” to be “crowned with glory and honor” in Christ. The chief
of the angelic hosts in the Old Testament is the Eternal Son, who assumes the function of “Angel of
Yahweh” and “Captain of Yahweh’s Host.”

Words referring to heavenly beings are very often associated with serpentine language. For
example, “seraph” means “serpent.” When it is rendered as a substantive adjective, it is “burning
one.” Seraphim are glorious heavenly beings with serpentine aspects. The word “nachash” is
another one of these words. It is the name given to the figure of Genesis 3 who approaches Adam
and Eve. As an adjective, it means “Bright.” Understand that the garden of Eden is centered on a
spring at the top of the mountain, where the heavenly council is made manifest. Think of the
countless ancient traditions of the gods holding court on a particular mountain. The temple is the
palace of God, where God sits enthroned and holds court. The Holy of Holies has four cherubim,
signifying the council which surrounds Him. In Isaiah 6, we see the Lord enthroned in the Temple
and visibly surrounded by His council. The Holy of Holies corresponds with a spring of the water of
life which is promised to flow forth and sacralize the whole creation. When these things are
understood, we are primed to understand what is actually occurring in Genesis 3.

The “nachash” or “serpent” is a heavenly being of immense brightness. Adam and Eve live in the
area immediately adjecent to the throne-room of God, and they are promised thrones in that very
court. To angels are committed the rearing of the infant human family, and the most glorious of
these angels possesses deep treasures of wisdom with which to educate Adam and his offspring.
We are told that he was cleverer in wisdom than all the beasts. This actually does not indicate of
necessity that the serpent is considered one of the beasts. Instead, we see that just as Adam had
learned wisdom from the beasts, now he was to receive from the chief archangel wisdom that
exceeded the beasts. Man was destined to be robed in glory, but he was innocently “naked” at his
creation. The word “crafty” actually sounds almost exactly like the word “naked”, and a contrast is
established. Lucifer (not a proper name but what we will call him- it means “Bright”), as a heavenly
being, was not the sort of being who matured gradually and over time. He had what was to be his
from the beginning. And so Lucifer had much of the wisdom and glory that was meant to robe the
human family.

We understand from the above that Adam and Eve are near the Council of God. It is no surprise
that the prince of the angels is there to meet them as they prepare to receive their instruction from
the Lord. It is worth mentioning how in many pagan traditions, the god who is thought to be ruling
the Heavens obtained his position by forcibly overthrowing the original Lord of Heaven. Like the
Mesopotamian story that the gods were hiding the divine potential of the human family out of
selfishness, what we see in such traditions of the war in Heaven is the diabolical perspective
transmitted through pagan stories.

The first question posed to Eve is an invitation to meditate on the words of God. By asking her
whether God said that she could eat no tree of the garden, Lucifer has stirred Eve to meditate on
the generosity of God and the purpose of that generosity. This is a similar technique to what is
found in Exodus 33 when God proposes to Moses the idea of breaking the Abrahamic promise. It is
when Eve shows signs of having grown in wisdom that Lucifer engages in his project of deception.
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She says that man is not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge nor to “touch it.” This is not
“adding to the word of God”, it is wisdom. If you want to stay faithful in marriage, you don’t flirt for
fun with other people. That which is forbidden shall not be approached. This is the logic of the purity
laws in Leviticus as well.

And so we come to the next use of the aforementioned preposition. Eve is told that if she partakes
of the fruit, she will be “as [a] god, knowing good from evil.” The word *as* roughly corresponds top
the preposition previously used of the likeness of God. Consider the framing of this argument. Eve
is told that God *knows* that which He is intentionally hiding, but that this very knowledge can be
obtained from the Tree of *Knowledge.* Mankind was destined to be robed in glory and ascend to
thrones on the heavenly council. That authority is described in the language of “knowing good from
evil.” Reigning over the creation gives one the capacity to shape and mold it after the divine pattern.
We become co-creators with God, taking the stuff of the world and making it into more glorious
stuff. God’s capacity to create perfectly is rooted in His perfect ability to “see” what is “good” in the
creation. God has a particular purpose, He sees exactly what is suited to achieve that purpose. We
read in 1 Kings 3 that Solomon was given the wisdom to “discern between good and evil.” He sat
on a judgment seat and was able to reason out what he ought to do when no explicit answer from
the scriptures was given. Man needed divinely fashioned garments to carry out this task faithfully.
Only by sharing in the divine operations through which the world is upheld can man fully operate in
harmony with the goods of all things. Garments are signs of rule, authority, and office. Priests are
robed and vested as those with keys to oversee the house of God. Kings are robed with glory as
signs of their office.

The satanic deception and the fall of man leads to the curses of Genesis 3. Satan is cursed to “eat
dust”, that is, to be placed in Sheol, the grave, under the Earth. Psalm 82 reverses the lie of Satan.
Whereas Adam and Eve were told that, being men, “you shall be as gods”, in Psalm 82 the
rebellious heavenly beings on the council of God are told “you are gods, every one of you,
nevertheless you shall die as Adam.” Death in this context means the absolute cessation of any
effectual operation. That is, all traces of the devil’s power and operation given him by nature will be
rendered utterly inoperative. He will not have a whit of influence. This is not an etiology of snakes, it
is a prophecy. Just as the prophecy of the seed refers to a messianic future, so also the “eating
dust” refers to the same future. Isaiah 14 describes Satan as the king of Babel, the overseer of the
prototypical wicked city. He is described according to the characteristics of the word “nachash” as
“Day Star, Son of the Dawn.” Just as in Isaiah 53 describing the work of Christ, we read the past
tense here even though it is Isaiah’s vision of the future. Having sought to ascend to the highest
point of the divine council, satan is placed under the grave, in Sheol, where he meets his
associates among the Nephilim and Rephaim.

The text is both chiastically and literarily linked with Isaiah 53. The king of Babylon sought to exalt
himself above all the stars and is placed in the grave, while the Servant, the king of Zion humbled
himself even to the point of being cut off from the land of the living, but is “high and lifted up” and
“shall be exalted” (Isaiah 52:13). It is the accomplishment of the Servant which enacts the fall of the
serpent.

We find, then, that the preposition used with “likeness” in Genesis 1 is associated with man’s having
a share in the divine council- or, in other words, man’s sharing in the uncreated graces of God. The
glory of God is the power by which Christ subjects all things to Himself, as Phillippians 3:21 says.
We are given thrones by sharing in that glory. We see the preposition used identically in Genesis

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3:22, where God says that man and woman have “become as one of us” (speaking to the heavenly
council) and exiling them so that they are not immortalized in perpetual misfortune. They are
promised redemption through the Seed of the Woman.

I will note only a few more uses of this preposition in the primeval history. Two are in Genesis 4:17
and 5:1-2. In both cases it is used in close assocation with the idea of “naming.” Cain names a city
after his son, Adam names Seth who is born in his likeness, according to his image. The nouns in
Genesis 1:26 are actually reversed in terms of which preposition is used with which noun. The
theology of naming is crucial. Recall that in the scriptures what has actually brought us into glory,
what has actually “seated us in Heaven with Christ” and “crowned” us “with glory and honor” is
being incorporated into “the Name of Jesus the Messiah.” Jesus, the Heir of the Household, has
won by conquest as well as by right the title to the whole creation which is His to do with as He sees
fit. In baptism and a life of grace, the Father *adopts* us into that very sonship and gives us “a new
name” with all associated rights, titles, and privileges. We are now heirs of the household, sons
brought to glory, saints robed in honor. A name denotes the intrinsic qualities of a thing, and the
transmission of names in a family signifies the development of the single family as an organic whole
with a well-distributed set of qualities.

Seth is the one who appears to initiate the covenantal “calling upon the Name of the Lord”, and he
is described as “named” immediately after we read this. His position at the head of the genealogy
points to its significance: the act of naming designates Seth as the heir of the household, the true
bearer of the Adamic legacy particularly in its priestly calling. The preposition’s use in describing the
naming of the city of Cain is pertinent as well. The city of Cain is described as having been “built”, a
word previously used (and unusually so, as it is an architectural term) to describe the creation of
Eve from Adam’s side. Cities are feminine, taking to themselves the qualities of those who husband
them. In Revelation, the attributes of the glorified Christ at the beginning of the book are matched,
blow for blow, by the attributes of the glorified church-city of God at the end of the book.

Finally, the preposition is used in Genesis 7:5, 7:9, and 7:16. It describes the exact likeness had
between what God had instructed Noah and what Noah carried out. In developing the theme of the
biblical “likeness of God” as deification and exaltation to the divine council, this is very significant.
The ark is a three-story miniature of the creation, bearing all the signature marks of a temple. Its
layout is described in a text which very neatly follows out the creation days. The temple, as the
palace from which God and His court rules and the sanctuary in which the uncreated glory resides,
has everything to do with the themes I have suggested are found in the destiny of the “likeness.”
The story of Noah concerns a true example of faithful glorification into the divine life. Compare
Genesis 1-3 and Genesis 9- in Genesis 3, God plants a garden, rests sabbatically, and issues
curses and prophetic blessings governing the destiny of the human family. In Genesis 9, it is Noah
who rests sabbatically with wine, plants a vineyard, and issues prophetic blessings and curses.
Noah’s words about his children define the arc of history up to the coming of Christ and the birth of
the Church.

Noah has been faithful in all the commandments of God and provides strong evidence that the
intention of mankind extended beyond a mere retention of grace and concerned glorification. The
likeness is found in his perfect imitation of God’s pattern for the ark. God makes known Himself
through the Logos, in whom are the forms and structures of all things. Architectural symbolism
represents it as an ordered house irradiated with the divine presence, a temple, palace, ship, and
os on. When we are told that “Noah walked with God”, the text can actually be understood as “Noah
walked among the gods.” In other words, the heavens were opened and Noah was caught up into

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the heavenly court as so many prophets after him. He beholds God upon the throne rendering a
verdict of guilty and sentencing the world to the universal flood. God reveals Himself to Noah and
Noah participates perfectly in that likeness, attaining to glory.

Anyway, this is fundamentally meant to argue that the teaching of Irenaeus concerning the
distinction between the given image and the promised likeness is rooted in the theology of Genesis
itself. However, the theological significance found in the two concepts is *not* to be found in the two
Hebrew words whose LXX rendering has provided the language for this teaching. Instead, it is to be
found in the two distinct prepositions used for image and likeness. The preposition used for
likeness, when traced through the primeval history and contextualized in the theology of the Bible
as a whole, carries the strong connotation of being a likeness to God that is acquired by a constant
deepening in the life of grace, an ongoing reality whereby spiritual infancy is transformed into
theosis.

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