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tation I have given of man's divine imageship appeals to us from the Person of Jesus Christ.

If the teaching of Genesis were supported only by the actual career of the primeval man in Eden, or only by the complex phenomena seen in the history of our fallen race, we should scarcely be justified in putting human nature on so lofty a plane. But there is an interpretation of Genesis afforded by the personal history of the ideal Man which presents anthropology with an indisputable warrant to ascribe to man such an exalted rank. Jesus enthroned at God's right hand, Jesus living in the bosom of the uncreated glory, Jesus clothed with all authority in heaven. and on earth,-this Jesus is Man, the last Adam, who as to His human nature is identical with the nature of the first Adam. This man, the Son of Mary, who realizes the divine idea of manhood in His state of glorification, sheds light back upon the divine imageship of the first man before his apostasy. Irenæus says:

"In times long past it was said that man was created after the image of God, but it was not [actually] shown; for the Word was as yet invisible, after whose image man was created. Wherefore also he did easily lose the similitude. When, however, the Word of God became flesh, He confirmed both these: for He both showed forth the image truly, since He became Himself what was His image; and He re-established the similitude after a sure manner, by assimilating man to the invisible Father through means of the visible Word."

If we rightly estimate the exaltation of human nature in the Person of the Son of Man, and if from His enthronement we reason back to the intrinsic possibilities of human personality as originally constituted, we may see that the divine imageship of the primeval man is the necessary

'Against Heresies, XVI., 2.

presupposition. Logical thought might constrain us to assume that Adam was god-like even if the fact were not taught by the scriptural record.

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The idea of divine imageship involves a question respecting location. Anthropology has put the question: In what part of the human constitution is the image of God to be found? The best answer that can be given is that human personality is god-like; godlikeness bears the central relation of personality to all members and faculties of the human organism.

I. Is the divine image located in the soul or in the body? If in the soul, is its seat in the emotional or intellectual or moral nature? Answers have been various. Some have suggested a gross anthropomorphism, supposing that God bears a resemblance to the human body. Spirit, as Tertullian maintained, "has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form." Reacting to the opposite extreme, others have denied all resemblance between the being of man and the being of God, and concede only a likeness to God of the human spirit. Others go still one step further, and deny altogether the divine imageship of man's constitution, allowing only that man was god-like in respect of moral character. The righteousness of Adam was like the righteousness of God.

1

1 After quoting the words of Paul, Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, Tertullian passes on to say: "In what form of God? Of course he means in some form, not in none. For who will deny that God is a body, although 'God is a Spirit?' For spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form."-Against Praxeas, ch. VII. Cf. Tert. de Resurr. Carn, ch. XVII. "By Tertullian, spirit and soul were considered identical."

2. These opinions Christological anthropology has to pronounce defective. Defective they are, because they grow out of a fundamental misapprehension of human nature. They assume that the divine image is not a predicate of man as man, but that it may have its seat in one part of his constitution to the exclusion of another part. So one-sided a presupposition renders the question itself invalid. If man were an aggregation of things, there might be room for the question; but inasmuch as he is an organic unity, including the body no less really than the spirit, the question respecting the seat of the divine image is excluded.

3. Scripture predicates the divine image of man, not of any one part of his constitution in contra-distinction from another part. It is predicated neither of the body nor of the soul; neither of the reason nor of the will; it is predicated of Adam. Divine imageship is commensurate with the divine idea. It is the idea as partially realized by the primeval man that is god-like. As he is an organic unity, so is also the divine image; and the central point of the unity is personality, which is related to and embraces spirit, soul and body. Here we must find the centre of divine imageship. As all parts and faculties of his constitution are immediately connected with the ego, from which every faculty receives direction, and every form of activity receives character, so divine imageship also is related. It centers and reveals itself in personality, in that life-point in which body and soul are one, in which feeling, reason and will are one; but, like personality, divine imageship comprehends every constituent and every capacity of man's being, his corporeal no less than his spiritual endowments, each in a form answerable to its

place and function.

The doctrine respecting Adam cannot be valid if we exclude any essential part of his constitution; so neither can the doctrine respecting the divine image be valid if it be narrower than the idea respecting himself. Being an organic whole, it may be said that Adam could not have been created in the image of God at all, if this image had not been commensurate with the divine idea of man.

It is consequently to be regarded as an error to seek for the seat of the divine image. The endeavor involves a fallacy; for if man be an organism, centering in personality, then of personality the divine image is to be predicated. And as we cannot speak of the location of personality, so we cannot speak of the location of the divine image. Since the whole man is personal, the body no less than the soul, the former the necessary physical basis and organ of the latter, man in his totality exists in the divine image; but imageship has its centre in personality, in the ego, just as the human constitution is human by its normal relationship to personality. Whenever in thought we divorce the body from its normal vital connection with the ego, we cannot consistently speak of the body as the organ of personality; and if we could not speak of the body as in this sense personal, neither could we speak of the body as participating conformably to its function in the divine image. But then also we lose the imageship of the soul; for the human soul presupposes the human body, and the soul is personal only as being the constituent of humanity in its integrity.

4. Like personal human life, the divine image in which God formed Adam existed only in germ and anticipated a history of normal growth. In reality divine imageship

began to exist only in the degree that the divine idea of human life was realized. The development of imageship to the point of perfection anticipates the ideal development and the ideal perfection of manhood. The highest approximate realization on earth of man's divine imageship was seen in the personal history of Jesus of Nazareth.

CHAPTER III.

THE PROBATION.

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Though the being of the primeval man in Eden was godlike, though the spontaneous motions of his personal life were normal and the action of his will righteous, yet he was not by creation at the goal of existence for which he was predestinated, nor had his ethico-spiritual character become in the final sense perfect. Whether he would attain to the goal of his creation, whether his noble constitution would become a perfectly righteous character, depended on uninterrupted obedience to the law of God; and until by his free activity this problem was solved, he was in the state of probation.

1. As God formed man's constitution he was whole and so far forth perfect. He was qualified to fulfil his exalted mission. Moreover, the incipient spontaneous action of his personal life was right and good.

But as constituted and spontaneously active according to God's law man has only set his foot on the threshold of genuine humanity. The ultimate end of his exist

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