What are you reflecting today?
The body is the corporeal manifestation of the incorporeal reality, the earthly pattern of God’s image.
If we understand the “image” to mean that humans are representatives of God, a mirror image of God, instead of meaning that humans possess particular attributes like intellect, free will, etc, then an imager of God means you are an angled mirror reflecting God and God’s wise rule to the world, and also the praises of creation back to God.
When the Scriptures say believers are a ‘royal priesthood’ it means humans were destined by God to ‘rule’ over the Earth (the royal part) and then sum up the praises of creation as a gracious offering back to our Creator (the priesthood part).
See how that works?
But if for example you hold the view that being an imager of God has to do with attributes, then you might think that our ultimate destiny is to become a spirit, since God is a Spirit.
(What about the Incarnation?)
The scriptures say we humans, body and soul, were created in the image of God. This presents a problem to those who say the ‘image’ primarily refers to attributes instead of representation. So, I conclude…
Our ultimate destiny is to become God directed HUMAN’s, body and soul. Not spirits.
There is of course more to be said.
Please read the following post to get more details about the ultimate destiny of God’s human family, and why the ‘spirit of this age’ must be rejected by the Church.
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A deeper dive.
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Celebrate God’s Good Creation