God created man on the sixth day of Creation.

God created man on the sixth day of Creation.

The words "image" and "likeness" used in Genesis 1:26-27 express the idea of the whole man being created in this way. In some sense, both a man's material and immaterial aspects are included in this assessment. Now, we know that strictly speaking man's physical body is not patterned after the physical appearance of God. We are taught in John 4 that God is Spirit and does not reside in a physical body. However, this does not preclude the physical body being some part of the image of God. We exist currently as body and soul together. It is meaningless to talk of us a just a soul or just a body when we are alive on earth. Both are intricately intertwined to make you the person you are.

The body reflects God's image by first of all being one in substance. God as a trinity is one being, acting with as much unity as our soul acts with our body. Our bodies are living, and Paul emphasizes that we serve a living God, not one of gold or silver or stone (Act17:29). In fact he says that those idols cannot be God because it would take a living being to create us as living beings.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day."

GENESIS 1:27-31