Before we talk about what went wrong, we need to hear what was right. You and I were made in the image of God. Not to resemble Him physically, but to reflect His likeness and carry His authority into the world He made. Like royal images set across a realm, humanity was meant to announce the King’s reign. In the ancient world, kings placed images of themselves throughout their territories to signal their rule. And many believe that Scripture’s authors have that picture in view when it calls us God’s image bearers.
But something tragic happened. The fall into sin distorted what God had made good. The image was not destroyed, but it was marred. Just as a coin, though still valuable, can be scratched and battered until the face is hardly recognisable, so every son of Adam and daughter of Eve still bears the image of God, but in a broken way. Genesis 9 reminds us that even after the fall, humanity remains God’s image bearers, and James 3 says that every single person is made in God’s likeness. Yet the resemblance is blurred. Our capacity for holiness and love has been damaged. Our ability to represent God faithfully has been compromised.
This is why the cross stands at the centre of God’s plan of redemption. Isaiah prophesied that the Servant of the Lord would be “marred, beyond human semblance” (Isaiah 52:14). In His suffering, Christ was disfigured and defaced. The One who perfectly reflected the glory of God, the true image of the invisible God, was subjected to the subhuman torture of the Roman cross. His body was broken, His face spat upon, His appearance destroyed. And yet this was the place where the restoration began. The image of God that was defaced in Christ at Calvary was for our sake — so that we could be renewed into His likeness.
Paul says in Colossians 3 that in Christ we are being renewed “in knowledge after the image of our Creator.” In 2 Corinthians 3, he says we are being transformed “into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” What sin has marred, Christ is remaking. What Adam damaged, Jesus restores. Slowly, steadily, by the Spirit, the defaced image is being renewed as we behold His glory and learn His truth.
And the promise goes even further. One day, the work will be complete. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the Man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49). “When He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). That hope does not erase present pain, but it locates it within God’s larger purpose.
So begin where Scripture begins: you were made in the image of God. Look where Scripture leads: at the cross where Christ was defaced so that you could be remade. And live where Scripture points: in the steady renewal of His likeness, with your eyes fixed on the day when His image in you will be fully and finally restored.
