Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Allow me to expand upon the issue of the use of the word image here. God’s first use needs to be examined in finer detail in order to render a more complete understanding of how the word image plays out in history and in scriptures.

The words used and translated into image are not used alone in context of the image itself but rather in context to its environment. The image will always be seen in context to its environment. Here in first use the image is one of dominion. Man’s relationship to its environment, as seen by its surroundings is one of dominance.

Adam begat Seth in his own image, and the issue of image is one of begetting, a copy of which Adam could not add anything to Seth for it was not in him to give. Adam was not born in this way. Adam had the breath of God breathed into him, which became a dead spirit because sin entered in.

Every use of image is such that the external is all there is to the image, it is empty or hollow within. The end use was not the intended use. God did not create man to be an empty shell. God’s intention was for man to be filled with His spirit which was lost to original sin. We became an exercise in vanity, emptiness as to results.

Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

But Christ the only begotten Son of God was not empty, He was filled with the Spirit. In Him and in Him alone can we be restored to the image intended by God, to be born again in the Spirit, to be the begotten image of Christ, no longer empty.