Past Generations of Christians Knew Christ was the Image of God

The Christ-centered model for early Genesis takes Adam from his non-biblical role as father of the whole human race and instead regulates him to his scriptural role as a figure of Christ, and thus federal head of our kind. I have been privy to several online dialogues of late where this principle is accepted, but they get tripped up over the "image of God" language in Genesis 1:26-27. "When did men outside the garden get the image of God?" they ask. "What is meant by the Image of God?" they inquire of one another.

In the Christ-centered model the answer to the question is simple. Christ is the image of God. And God has no other image accessible to man. Therefore to be "in the image" is to be in relationship with Him, just as Adam was in the garden. When Adam lost the relationship, he lost the image. So the assumption that humans are presently all "in the image of God" is a flawed one based on a misunderstanding of Genesis chapter one and 9:6. Humans are not born in the image of God.

The church used to know this back when the leadership was actually trying to make disciples instead of reducing things to the lowest common denominator in order to "increase market share" in a business-oriented "church" model. Didn't the protestants get their start protesting the Catholic church running their outfit like a business? Now the evangelical churches are rushing to do it too. Making the "experience" of the "believer" the product can collect a lot of itching ears, but its not good at making disciples because that's not even what its trying to do. But I digress.

I did some research on the classic Christmas hymn "Hark, the Herald Angels". It turns out it was written back in 1739. And it had forth and fifth verses, since cast aside. The last verse was...

Adam's Likeness, LORD, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy Love.
Let us Thee, tho' lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Inner Man:
O! to All Thyself impart,
Form'd in each Believing Heart.

So here I am listening to a bunch of highly educated and extremely intelligent people, some of whom have been churched all their life, go on and on wondering about whether the humans outside the garden were "in the image of God like Adam was." Meanwhile the average believer 300 years ago understood that Adam was not in the image of God outside of a relationship with God. Humans are not in the image of God until God stamps us with the image of His Son and we are conformed to that Image more and more via sanctification.

In 1758 George Whitefield edited a more enduring version of the song. The last verse was shortened to say:

Adam's Likeness now efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place;
Second Adam from above,
Work it in us by thy Love.

Again they understood what scripture said about our being born in the image of Adam, our federal head in the natural, and that upon salvation and re-birth we received a new image from our new federal head. He is the One called Jesus Christ and the scripture refers to (1 Cor. 15) Him as the "second Adam".

The version of the song we most often sing today was not even composed until 1961. It was a greatly shortened version, with the last two verses removed. A lot of theology has been taken out of Christian hymns. In a very real sense "Early Genesis, the Revealed Cosmology" is not teaching a new theology. A lot of it is independently discovered old theology which has been massaged out of the church over the decades as part of an effort to remake the Church of God in Wall Street's image.

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