Is Everyone Made in the Image of God and Loved by Him?
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Christ came to die for all sin, once and for all. His sacrifice was for everyone, but not all people will be saved because not all will have faith. Why, if we are all made in his image, do some of our neighbors fail to recognize our Creator? And does he even love those who do not know him?
John 3:16 says “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” but some theologians warn not to oversimplify our understanding of God’s love for the world.
All the World?
Jeff Robinson asserts that “in John 3:16, God’s sending love is to be admired not because it’s extended to so big a thing as the world, but to so bad a thing; not to so many people, but to such wicked people.” Christ dined with sinners, not with the righteous. He called each of His disciples, normal people who might have abused alcohol, or attended synagogue spottily, or used bad language and fought. They argued over who was the greatest (Luke 22); they were “perverse” (Matthew 17:17). He challenged the Pharisees, those “hypocrites” (Matthew 23:13) because self-righteous law-keepers cannot save themselves.
The “world” is synonymous with wickedness. The Greek word kosmikos refers to things “belonging to the present earthly world as opposed to the heavenly and future.” For example, Titus 2:11-12 teaches that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.” In one sense, then, the “world” Jesus loves is the worldly, sinners.
But Jesus does refer to the entire world, geographically, when he sends his disciples into the mission field: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
God does, in fact, love the whole world. As Robinson reminds us, God made the whole world, and it was “good” (Genesis 1). When Christ came to bring redemption, his gift was made available to the whole world. God knows each of us – he “knitted you in your mother’s womb” (Psalm 139).
Are All Loved and Saved?
As with any gift, however, it is the recipient’s purview to receive or reject it. The message is available to the whole world. Missionaries travel to the most remote places on earth where they are sometimes embraced, but are sometimes rejected or even killed. The people reject Christ and the workers who bring Christ to them.
Kristi Walker described how, in 1956, five men were “speared to death trying to reach a violent, indigenous tribe in Ecuador with the gospel.” This is just one of many stories of martyred missionaries. There are also successes, such as later missions to this same group known as the Huaorani Indians, among whom a number were saved.
God loves all people, so we are meant to try and reach them all with the good news, whether by visiting foreign countries or working within our own small communities to reach the lost. But there are also God’s “elect” upon whom God has lavished and continues to lavish a special kind of love. Subby Szterszky explains: “The elect may be the entire nation of Israel or the church as a body or individuals. In each case, God sets his affection on his chosen ones in a way he doesn’t set his affection on others.”
This has nothing to do with being morally better than other people – the elect are sinners the same as everyone else is a sinner. David was an adulterer, Moses a murderer. Yet they were favored by God, anointed for special roles – their distinguishing faith.
Jeff Robinson points out Ephesians 5:25, which tells husbands to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Robinson further explains that this particular love is for those who obey God in Christ. “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10). This is a special kind of love unavailable to people who reject him as King and Savior.
God’s Image and God’s Love
If you remain in God’s love, you declare his image to the world. Everyone is made in God’s image. “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Szterszky dissects this statement into several parts, indicating that God’s Image – the Imago Dei – is not what you see in the mirror. It takes shape in values, authority, morality, gender, personhood, love, and creativity.
Although our lust for material things betrays what we value, when we believe in Christ alone for salvation, his values become our own because we love him and try to be like him. We see that we deserve eternal death for our rebellion against God, and yet we received this good news, which changed us. We long for the lost to see it in themselves and to be saved also. His Holy Spirit scrapes away the layers of worldliness which obscure his image in us.
As this process of sanctification takes place, we love better because we love as Christ does. We recognize the lost, and we pity them, but this pity takes an active shape. Believers reflect and honor God’s love, evident in actions and words through which they share the gospel with others. When we love others from within that union with Christ, he equips. The process is messy, and believers still struggle with their worldly nature, but Christ is responsible for changing the Saints. Salvation is just the beginning of a process whereby our identity is continually revealing more of the identity of Christ in us.
Christ’s Followers Love Everyone
The missionaries in Ecuador sought to share the Gospel with the Huaorani Indians in spite of the fact they did not know the hearts of these people. But they knew the immeasurable value of loving Christ and being loved by him. They behaved as Christ did, laying their lives down for their neighbors. As Christ showed us in the parable of the Good Samaritan, our neighbor is the person in front of us who has a need we can meet, whether this person lives next door or in another country. Believers serve their neighbors, demonstrating how Christ came to serve also. They long to be less so that Christ can be more.
Szterszky asserts that “being made in God’s image means we were built for relationship. [...] Ultimately, God made us in His image so that we might glorify Him and enjoy eternal, intimate, loving relationship with Him.” His love for us is then reflected outwards in our relationships with others, but is only full and rich because of our relationship with him and the love which he has lavished on us. Because of that, as image bearers, we offer an outpouring of love likewise, to people who cannot perfectly return it any more than we can effectively return God’s love to him, even as believers.
Is All the World the Same?
Christ died to save all people, but not all people want to be saved or know they need salvation. Not all people abide in his love, and because of that they are unable to love fully or to be loved to the fullest extent of Christ’s love. His love for others is always realized when it is shared, overflowing into the lives of those who encounter true Christian believers. The Image of God is made visible by the power of the Holy Spirit in his children when they go out and spread the gospel wherever they are called. This is an inseparable part of living out the Imago Dei.
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