Man was made in the physical image and likeness of God, which means God has real form and shape, a spirit body that served as the model for mankind. Since God authored Scripture and revealed Himself through it, His own statements should be taken at face value rather than dismissed as figures of speech or abstractions about character. Genesis 1:26-27 is read as past tense, so the image was already accomplished in physical form, and the sermon argues that commentaries reject this only because of the assumption that God as Spirit cannot have a body. The Hebrew words tselem (image) and demooth (likeness) carry concrete meanings of shape, resemblance, and bodily similitude. They are used the same way of Seth in Adam's image (Genesis 5:1, 3), of idols, and of Ezekiel's visions, so they cannot be made abstract only when applied to God. The Greek icon likewise means a resemblance drawn directly from an original, as with a child who is the spitting image of a parent or the face on a coin. I Corinthians 15 affirms that spiritual bodies exist. Luke 24 shows the resurrected Christ with spirit flesh and bones that are not vaporous, and John 5:37 speaks of the Father's visible form. Moral and spiritual likeness is also true, but the overwhelming usage points to bodily form. Denying this casts doubt on God's clear word, as Satan did in Eden, and obscures the goal of becoming like Him.

Man is made in God's image and likeness in the plain sense of bodily form and shape, so God Himself has form: a face, hands, feet, a waist, and a voice. Genesis 1's tselem, demooth, and the New Testament icon mostly refer to what can be seen, as when the same words describe idols. They also extend to intellectual, moral, and spiritual character. Scripture consistently shows God with human form. Abraham ate with the Lord, Jacob wrestled with Him, Moses spoke with Him face to face, and Ezekiel, Daniel, Stephen, and John saw Him seated on a throne. Jesus' transfiguration changed His brightness but not His shape. His resurrected body was tangible, not a ghost or an essence. Believers are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son (Romans 8:29), who is the image of God (II Corinthians 4:4). They will bear the image of the heavenly Man as they once bore Adam's image (I Corinthians 15:49), and Philippians 3:20-21 says their bodies will be conformed to His glorious body. The redeemed will see God's face in the kingdom, where no figure of speech is needed. Romans 1:19-20 says creation makes God's nature clear even to the unconverted. Human beings are the visible pattern of the invisible God, and as children who partake of the divine nature they are being reproduced in His image, as offspring resemble their parents. Spiritualizing away God's form serves the incomprehensible trinity doctrine and removes the goal of becoming God as He is God. The Greek gods reversed the principle by reflecting man's flaws.

Being made in God's image, as Genesis 1 states, means sharing His actual form and shape as well as His mental and moral capacities. No scripture limits the image to intellect and morality, and the same passages that credit man with those faculties credit God with them too, yet no one concludes that man lacks a body. God is described with hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, face, hands, arms, legs, and feet. Figures of speech about God always rest on something real, and nowhere does Scripture say He has no body, so to deny the literal meaning is to make the Bible untrustworthy. The difference between man and God is that man is mortal flesh and bone with life in the blood, while God's body is also flesh and bone but is spirit, immortal, perfect, and self-existent. Spirit is invisible like wind, yet real and substantial, and human senses must be enabled by God to perceive it, as with Elisha's servant and Paul on the Damascus road. Because God has a body, He is in one place at one time, in heaven at the right hand of the throne, yet He is omnipresent by projecting Himself through His Spirit and through union with those in relationship with Him. Image also has a character dimension. Through knowing and living by His word, believers come into union with the Father and Son, being one in mind, will, and purpose, and so become His image in how they think and act, not merely in how they look.

Humans are made in God's image in form and shape, since God has a body of substance with the same parts as ours, is located in one place at one time, and gathers information the way we do, by seeing, hearing, inspecting, testing, and sending agents to report. We also bear His image in intellectual, moral, and spiritual powers, including free moral agency: we can set our will, come to knowledge, and choose whether to fellowship with God or with Satan. God honors that freedom by limiting Himself, choosing not to know beforehand what free moral agents will do, which is why He gives commands, conditional promises, and tests (Genesis 22:12, "Now I know"). Even in omnipresence we reflect Him, because we carry His presence with us through a relationship built on knowledge, shared experience, fellowship, and memory. This union is the most important element in becoming conformed to His character image. Before calling, people were in union with Satan and carried his family name (Ephesians 2:1-3; John 8:44), but God's revelation frees them to choose obedience. Claims to know God are false without obedience (Titus 1:13-16). God's purpose is to bring us into His character image so that we may share life on His level for eternity. Father and Son are one in mind and purpose, not a mingled essence, and we can be one with Them in the same way.

Man is in God's image and likeness in a literal sense: God is Spirit, but spirit is real substance, not a formless essence. Angels in Genesis 18-19 and Daniel 10 speak, eat, grab, touch, and reason, and they are cast down and bound in Revelation, so spirit beings are tangible. The resurrected Christ invited the disciples to handle Him, showing that a spirit body has flesh and bones. Hebrews 1:3 calls Him the express image of the Father's hypostasis (substance), so seeing Christ reveals God's real being and character. John 4:24 states a fact about God but does not deny that He has a body. Scripture gives God a head, face, eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, and a heart, and shows Him walking, speaking, and living in a place called heaven. These descriptions are not figures of speech, and denying them makes God a deceiver. Likeness also extends to inner life. God speaks of "My soul" (nephesh), the seat of feelings such as delight, abhorrence, pity, grief, and love, and of "My Spirit" (ruach), associated with mind, will, wisdom, and power. Like each person's own spirit, God's Spirit is personal and distinct, though perfect and holy. Man is earthly flesh and blood, while God is flesh and bone that is spirit and immortal. Denying this likeness reduces God to a cold, feelingless abstraction. It also means God is a person located in one place at a time, not omnipresent in body.

God declares His purpose early in Genesis 1:26, stating, Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Mankind was created after the God-kind, not merely as adopted, but as sired by God Himself. Luke 3:38 records Adam as the son of God, emphasizing this direct connection. Beyond physical creation, Christians are chosen by God before the foundation of the world, as noted in Ephesians 1:4. Scripture further reveals that humans bear the image of the earthly man, Adam, but are destined to bear the image of the heavenly man, Jesus Christ, according to I Corinthians 15:47-49. David expresses confidence in this transformation in Psalm 17:15, declaring he will be satisfied when he awakes in God's likeness. Similarly, I John 3:2 assures that when this change occurs, we shall be like Christ, seeing Him as He is. Hebrews 2:5-9, quoting Psalm 8:4-6, notes that man was made for a little while lower than elohim, indicating a temporary state below the God-kind with the potential for elevation. In the Kingdom of God, all will fit into its framework as elohim of the God-kind, fully members of the God Family. Revelation 5:9-10 prophesies that God has made men to be kings and priests, reigning on the earth. Jesus Christ, as the firstborn among many brethren in Romans 8:29, leads as King of kings and Lord of lords, with believers as His sisters and brothers, embodying the ultimate expression of like Father, like son.

God states His goal to make man in His own image. By using both image and likeness, God explained that He would create man to be just like Him. Man would not only look like God, but humanity would also have a spiritual ability to understand His nature and learn to conform to it. Through the experiences of life and the process of building godly character, humankind can put on the image of God and be resurrected into His Family.

God is spiritual, yet He is not a vaporlike, indescribable entity. Spiritual substance exists much like natural matter, only as a higher form governed by higher laws. Scripture describes God with the same body parts humans have, which confirms that He has shape and form, manifested in a specific location (Genesis 1:26-27; Daniel 7:9-10; Isaiah 66:1; Revelation 4). Humans are made in His image and likeness, so the human form reflects the form of God. Neither God nor His angels float around the universe without bodies. Both the Father and the Son, though united in mind and purpose, have autonomous bodies (Revelation 5). Even so, humans can never possess God's non-transmittable attributes, such as omnipresence, which He exercises everywhere through His Holy Spirit, while His bodily form is located at His throne.

God created humanity in His image and according to His likeness, granting man the same form, shape, and appearance as the divine Being. This resemblance includes a face, eyes, ears, mouth, arms, legs, hands, fingers, feet, toes, and hair, so that knowledge of human appearance directly conveys the visible form of God. Jesus Christ, as the only begotten Son, embodied this exact likeness during His earthly life and thereby displayed the Father to those granted revelation. The same image and likeness already mark the saints, who are children of God through the Spirit, even as they await fuller conformity at the revelation of Christ. This foundational truth underscores the dynamic nature of the God family, which expands beyond two original Spirit Beings to include glorified sons and daughters who share the divine form and character. Because God fashioned man after Himself, the physical creation testifies to the personal, relational essence of the Father and the Son rather than an abstract or impersonal deity.

In Genesis 1:26 Moses records that man is created in the image and likeness of God. These terms reinforce each other to indicate that humans resemble God in form and possess a spiritual capacity and potential absent in animals. This creation establishes the foundation for family parallels that run throughout Scripture. Jesus consistently speaks of God as Father and of Himself as Son, while describing those who do the will of God as brother, sister, or mother. Paul states that those led by the Spirit of God are sons of God and children of God, and John adds that believers are already children of God yet will one day be more fully like Him. Ephesians 3:14-15 summarizes the pattern by identifying the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ as the source from whom the whole family in heaven and earth derives its name. The material therefore presents the image and likeness of God as the basis for an existing heavenly Family into which converted humans enter as sons and daughters while still on earth. This family relationship mirrors the unity already shared by two distinct divine Personalities who work in complete harmony. Jesus prays that His followers may be one with the Father and with Him in the same manner that the Father and the Son are one, sharing one nature, one mind, and one purpose. The image and likeness thus point forward to the believer's inheritance in the Kingdom, where personal identity is retained within the expanded divine Family rather than absorbed or lost.

The material presents the image and likeness of God as the state of possessing an undivided, whole, and unchanging mind that remains constantly aligned with His purpose. God Himself is described as one, complete, and unchanging, with all His attributes inseparably joined so that sovereignty cannot be separated from love, judgment from mercy, or grace from omniscience. This unity enables Him to act always with perfect wisdom and love, never confused or uncertain. Humanity, by contrast, begins with a divided mind marked by fickleness, curiosity, and unbelief that produces wavering, confusion, and self-opposition. The process of becoming like God therefore requires deliberate cooperation to develop singleness of purpose, focus, and constancy. This occurs through seeking Him by prayer, study, meditation, and obedience, all driven by thankfulness for His gifts and passionate desire to live as He lives. Such seeking produces oneness with the Father and Son, allowing believers to imitate their way of life and receive the same undivided character. The material connects this directly to the call to reject division, avoid the confusion of Babylon, and prepare for the return of Christ by becoming one with Him now rather than remaining conformed to the world.

God is patiently working with every person to create men in His image according to His likeness (Genesis 1:26). The two words differ. Image (tselem) means a shadow, outline, or representation of an original. Even after the fall humans remain in God's image, though it is marred, and those who live driven by the senses and by this life alone are only walking shadows and vapors that God finds worthless (Psalms 39 and 73). Likeness (demooth) goes beyond the outline to something concrete. Its ancient pictographs, the door and water, mean the flowing of blood, so that a son from his father's blood resembles his father. God breathed the breath of His life into Adam, and the spirit of man gave him the ability to reason, to think as God thinks in a limited way, and to consider eternity. By making choices, man fills out the image with substance. Israel shows the difference. God gave them order, His laws, His presence, and work to do, shaping them outwardly into His image. Without a new heart, however, they craved Egypt and despised the manna, so God despised the image they presented. Those now called are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29), truly born into God's image according to His likeness, with Christ dwelling in them.