_6_The Purpose of the Divine Image

Here, too, we do not have to resort to guessing. The nature of the divine image clearly shows its purpose. God created man in His own, in the divine image, in order that one of His creatures 1) would know Him, live in conformity with His will, and in communion with Him enjoy bliss, and 2) would rule over the other creatures as His representative. After this original purpose has been frustrated by the sin of man, God revives it again in Christ. For the sake of Christ’s substitutionary satisfaction He cancels the guilt of man and restores in believers in Christ the knowledge of God and the holiness of will (Col. 3:10; Eph.4:24).

The knowledge of God which the saved sinner has after the Fall is thus changed as to its object, since now the object of his knowledge of God is primo loco the God who for Christ’s sake and through faith in Him, without the deeds of the Law, forgives sins. Luke 1:77: “To give knowledge of salvation … by the remission of their sins.” Whether, when, and how God would have effected a change in man’s status (his “paradisiacal state”) if he had not fallen, is altogether conjecture. But we know that the concept of salvation by redemption, , salus, does not apply to man in his original state, since the gained by Christ presupposes the Fall. Luke 19:10: “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”