Made in God’s Image

The biblical concept of being “made in God’s image” has huge implications for how we are to think about childbearing, how we are to think about treating fellow humans, and thus, how we are to think about abortion. Being made in God’s image is something unique to humankind. Both humans and animals are said to have the “breath of life” (see Gen 2:7; 7:15, 22), but only humans - both male and female – are said to be “in God’s image.” This means that God has invested something of his own reputation into human beings, as we have the special role and responsibility of representing the one who created everything. This fact alone means that each and every individual human has great significance and worth.

The first text that mentions humans as created in God’s image is Gen 1:26-28:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” And God blessed them. And God said them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This text explains the privileged position humans have in the world. Humans are uniquely made to both represent God and rule over the earth. And, in some sense, child bearing is connected to this special role. Since “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” is the first instruction given to humans, at very least each new human person that comes into the world (which is only possible through childbirth) is a new “image-bearer.” The more humans that are born, the more humans there are to subdue the earth and spread “the image of God.”

A second text that mentions humans as created in God’s image is Gen 9:1-6:

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

This text comes after the Fall and after the Flood. After the disobedience of the first humans, the earth became violent and corrupt (see Gen 6:11), which led to the Flood and God starting over with Noah. What God tells Noah and his sons is similar to what is said in Genesis 1:28, but this time there is a specific warning against the shedding of blood. And the reason: “for God made man in his own image.” Therefore, not only does being “made in God’s image” impact how we think about and value childbearing, but it also impacts how we think about and value fellow human beings. We ought not kill fellow humans because they have significance as God’s “image-bearers.” (In the New Testament, James 3:9 mentions that we should even be careful in what we say to fellow humans because they “made in the likeness of God.”) To devalue a fellow human is to devalue God himself. To do harm to humans is to do harm to God.

So now, if childbearing is a way to advance the representation of God on earth, with humans as bearers of God’s image, and if we should be careful in how we treat those who are made in God’s image, what might we say about abortion? Well, we ought to conclude that the deliberate killing of life in the womb completely disregards God’s personal investment of himself in human beings as the unique bearers of his image. It seems to me that if humans are basically similar to animals, then abortion does not matter all that much – let the fittest survive. But, if humans are set apart from the rest of creation, as the ones who bear the image of the creator, then each and every person, including the unborn, matters a great deal. Abortion, and all other ways to harm human beings, does not merely devalue and disregard human life, but it devalues and disregards God himself.