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During His public ministry, the Lord Himself used many similitudes--for example:
"The kingdom of heaven is like (homoios) unto treasure" (Matt. 13: 44).
"Unto what is the kingdom of God like?" (Luke 13: 18).
"Whereunto shall I liken this generation?" (Matt. 11: 16).
Man is to God what a figure of speech is to thought, a symbol, an analogy, a type.
When Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream the successive kingdoms of Gentile rule in the
form of an image, neither he nor Daniel ever imagined that such kingdoms were actually
like the image itself, but simply that this image and its peculiar construction "shadowed
forth" in symbol the moral characteristics of the kingdoms concerned. So, in Gen. 1: 26,
there is no question of external resemblance. Whether seen in the frail type Adam, or in
the glorious person of the Son of God, the "image and likeness" are never to be
understood as physical. The Saviour Himself taught that God is spirit, that no man has
ever seen His shape. It is true that He declared that "He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father", but no one with any understanding of the Word would think that He intended
physical likeness here. The Father was set forth in the life and character of the "Word
made flesh", but the Father was not "like" the physical form which the Lord took when
He was "found in fashion as a man". So, in connection with Adam, the "image" and
"likeness" have reference to what is moral and mental. However, we have already come
to the end of our space, and will therefore defer any further remarks upon this important
theme until our next article.