On the Sprititual Man...

THE IMAGE OF GOD

Perhaps this question is addressed to every person: Who are you? What is man? Some would answer: Man is a body, soul and spirit. Another would answer : Man is a living, sensible, talking, free, wishful creature. Others say - with a sense of humility - that Man is dust and ashes, as our father Abraham said about himself (Gen 18:27). All this is said about any man, then what is the accurate answer? We say it is the definition of the Spiritual Man according to the Holy Bible: HE IS THE IMAGE OF GOD

This is what God said in the History of Creation: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him.” (Gen 1:26,27).

Perhaps man in his divine image was what philosopher Diogenes was searching for, or what the intellectuals mean by the word “Superman”. Of course, by the divine image, it is not meant that man resembles God in His Divine qualities, such as eternity, infinity and the power to create! Not to be thought of! But it means the relative qualities such as:

THE CREATION OF MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD IN PURITY AND RIGHTEOUSNESS

The spiritual man - before the fall - was innocent and simple. He did not know sin at all. I mean our parents Adam and Eve before the fall, when they were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen 2:25). They have not yet eaten from the tree of life and therefore they did not know evil. They were like the innocent children, whom Jesus loved and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mt 18:3). The serpent deceived and lied to our mother Eve who did not doubt the
serpent’s words because she did not know lying, deceit or suspicion. Such words were not in her intellectual dictionary at that time.

MAN WAS CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD IN HOLINESS:

Indeed how beautiful were the times when Adam and Eve were holy before the fall. But, what happened was that by sin man lost his holiness and accordingly he lost his divine image. Man became captive to a strange duality which still accompanies him: good and evil, lawful and unlawful and what follows that of life and death.
Thus, God said to him: “I have set before you today life and good, death and evil... blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that you may live” (Deut 30:15-19). And as man lost his divine image by the loss of holiness, he lost purity and simplicity and also lost the knowledge of his divine image...
Then came The Lord Jesus Christ “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15) and returned to us, by His incarnation, the image of God to try and be similar to it...

How can the spiritual man reach such image? The beloved St John said: “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked ” (1 Jn 2:6). By this, God selected His saints... to be conformed to the image of “His Son” (Rom 8:29). If man acted up accordingly on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ - in the general resurrection - “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body” (Phil 3:21).

For more information on the Spiritual Man, follow this link:
http://www.copticchurch.org/Texts/Spirituals/The%20spiritual%20%20man.pdf