Troublesome TopicARE WE BORN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD OR THE IMAGE OF ADAM?

Lesson 5 of 15

Are human babies born under the curse of sin, or are they born with the tendency toward sin and only acquire the curse once they have sinned?

It is the latter.

Adam was made in God’s image. But when he and Eve sinned, the image of God in them was marred and they received the curse as well as a tendency toward sinning.

In Genesis 5:3 we are told about the birth of Seth, whose name means “substitute” or substituted” because he took the place of their son who was killed, Abel, and their son who was sent away, Cain. In that verse we read that “Adam lived thirty and a hundred years and brought forth a son in his own likeness and after his image, and he called him Seth.”

Go to footnote number 1

These are the same words used of God’s image given to Adam at creation (Gen 1:26). Notice that a change has occurred. Adam was made in the image of God, but Seth was not born in the image of God; he was born in the image and according to the likeness, or resemblance, of Adam. The purpose of this verse is to indicate this change; none of us after Adam was born bearing the image of God; we were all born bearing the image and resemblance of Adam, which was a marred and twisted form of the image of God.

But we were not born with the curse on us yet, that came as we started to live according to the sinful tendency we inherited from Adam. As soon as we started doing any of the things a child does knowing it is wrong, such as lying to a parent to avoid punishment, we brought the curse of sin on ourselves.

Therefore, it is wrong to say that we are born under a curse, and it is wrong to say that we are born in the image of God. The truth is close to the middle with us feeling pulled both directions. What we did inherit from Adam was a tendency toward sinning and a marred form of the image of God. But we did not inherit the curse from Adam; that comes to us due to our own sins.

AN EXAMPLE

Consider child dedication. Ever since Bible times we have been dedicating babies. It was, and is, a dedication of the parents, not the child. If the dedication is done when the child is still an infant, the child is innocent, but in this act the parents are recognizing that the child will not remain innocent. He will assuredly follow the sinful tendency he has inherited from his parents and all his ancestors before him, and he will sin, which makes him unclean and separates him from God. So the parents are committing themselves to do everything they can to guide their child back to God, from a condition of unclean and common to a condition of common and clean and then clean and holy.

A HAPPY EXCEPTION

Take note of the very end of I Corinthians 7:14

1 Corinthians 7:14

Translation

For the unbelieving husband is made holy by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy by the husband; otherwise your children are unclean; but now they are holy.

Paraphrase

For a home made up of a believing wife and an unbelieving husband is made holy by the believing wife, and a home made up of a believing husband and an unbelieving wife is made holy by the believing husband. If this were not the case, the children produced by this union would be unclean from the start, but instead they are considered clean and holy from the start.

Paul knew that there would be cases in which a married person would become a believer after getting married, and the unbelieving spouse would not leave, and he wondered what that meant for the children. Would they start life with a disadvantage spiritually (common and unclean)?

God must have given Paul an answer to this question in some direct way, an answer which Paul shared at this point with the Corinthians. The answer was that these children are not disadvantaged, in fact God grants them a special status. Instead of starting out as common and clean, they will start out as clean and holy. The things a spouse goes through when not married to another believer will be noticed by the children and will be a powerful witness to the work of God in a human life. God chooses to look at the fact that one spouse is going above and beyond what is normal in order to live for Him; He does not focus on the fact that the other spouse does not follow Him at all. In this way, the home and the resulting children are not disadvantaged by a situation out of their control.

Footnotes

1

This is not said earlier when Cain or Abel were born because the line of Adam was to flow through Seth.