Genesis 1:26 NASB Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
2 Corinthians 4:4,6 NASB in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [6] For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Colossians 1:15 NASB He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
When Genesis says that we were created in God’s image, according to his likeness, I believe that he is saying that we were created to carry his presence and to manifest his likeness. I don’t believe that verse is telling us that we were created with the capacity to be like God if we sincerely try hard enough. That would be an external likeness based on determined imitation, but that is exactly what the temptation to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was all about because Satan told Eve that if she would eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she would be made wise and could be godlike. The original temptation is not the temptation to be rebellious; it is the temptation to try to be godly without being utterly dependent on God. I believe that Jesus was there in the Genesis story because Colossians 1 says that all things were created by Jesus and in Jesus. Mankind was created in Jesus, and I believe Jesus himself was the image of God in Adam and Eve, and by a life of utter dependence on The Life within, they would manifest his likeness.
The Lord told Adam and Eve that if they ate the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would die the very day they ate from it. Though they did not die yet physically, they did die that very day they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because the image of God was removed from within them, and left to their own resources, they tried to fulfill their destiny in the power of the flesh. This is the condition of every person born into this fallen world, and tragically, even though the image of God has been restored to believers, because Christ, who is the image of God, lives in them, Christians often still find themselves with un-renewed minds trying to be like Christ apart from utterly depending on Christ to be himself in, and through them. Verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 4 speaks of the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The gospel here is referred to as the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, shining like a light in our hearts according to verse 6. Colossians 1:27 says, “Christ in us is the hope of glory.” Christlikeness is a matter of manifestation, not imitation. Shining is a fact; not an act. Christianity is not running around trying to act like Jesus; instead, Christianity is simply manifesting the very life and likeness of Christ, who is now the image of God restored to our souls. Christlikeness comes from trusting Jesus to be himself through us and not trying to be like Jesus for him. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says that we have this treasure, the glory of the life of Christ, in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God, and not of ourselves.