Wednesday | 01 October 2025
The adoption refers to the redemption of our body, soul and spirit as those who have been made in the image and likeness of God. This motive for our creation was declared before the creation of the heavens and the earth when the Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreed together, saying, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’. Gen 1:26.
Adam and Eve, and all the children brought forth from them through procreation, are not the full manifestation of men in the image and likeness of God. We know this because the apostle Paul identified Adam as ‘a type of Him [the Man] who was to come’. Rom 5:14. In other words, the ‘first Adam’ was not the substance of God’s Eternal Covenant initiative. The Man who was to come, of whom Adam was a type, is Jesus Christ, the ‘last Adam’. 1Co 15:45.
Having come in the flesh, and been made mortal like us in Gethsemane, Jesus Christ was manifest on the day of His resurrection as the first Man who had been made in the image and likeness of God. A person is progressively made like the glorified Son of Man as they journey each day with Christ, by the Spirit, on the pathway of salvation that He pioneered for them. Heb 5:9. 2Co 3:18. That said, the creation of natural man was a key step in the unfolding purpose of God.
The Father is the source of the whole of creation. He is the great Architect! The Son reveals the Father as the substance and expression of the creation, by the Spirit. For this reason, the apostle John said of the Son, ‘All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.’ Joh 1:3-5.
Further Study:
2 Corinthians 3
References:
Gen 1:26
Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
Rom 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
1Co 15:45
And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
Heb 5:9
And having been perfected, He became the Author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.
2Co 3:18
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Joh 1:3-5
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.