Today, we’re bombarded by questions like “What is a woman?” “Can biological men play women’s sports?” “Is it possible for a girl to transition to a boy, or for a man to become a trans woman?” and “Just how many genders are there—58, according to Facebook, or 72, according to MedicineNet?”
At the core of Christian answers to these contemporary questions is a theological assertion: Human identity is grounded in the truth that God has created us in his image. But that biblical fact raises another key question: What does it mean for a human being to be created in God’s image?
One of the most influential and long-lasting books that seeks to answer that question celebrates its 40th anniversary this year: Created in God’s Image by Anthony Hoekema. The church should be thankful for Hoekema’s contribution to theological anthropology and for how it equips us for today’s complexities.
Groundbreaking Contribution
Anthony Andrew Hoekema (pronounced HOO-ku-mu) was born in the Netherlands in 1913, immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1923, and received his education at Calvin College, the University of Michigan, Calvin Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary.
Hoekema was a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, serving in three churches, then taught for two years as professor of Bible at Calvin College before becoming professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in 1958. He stayed in that position until 1979, then died in 1988.
The church should be thankful for Hoekema’s contribution to theological anthropology and for how it equips us for today’s complexities.
Created in God’s Image is a well-developed, groundbreaking contribution to theological anthropology from a Reformed perspective. Though a third of the book treats the doctrine of sin, it’s Hoekema’s contributions to our doctrine of humanity that stand out today.
His analysis begins in the book’s first chapter. As one might expect, Hoekema rejects both materialism (an anthropology that insists a human person is only physical in nature) and idealism (an anthropology that declares human nature is immaterial only). Instead, he advocates for a version of holistic dualism or psychosomatic (body and soul) unity.
Hoekema covers humanity’s position in the cosmos as created beings (chap. 2) before launching into a sustained discussion of the image of God (chap. 3). He then gives a historical sketch of the development of this doctrine through church history (chap. 4). Next, his “theological summary” (chap. 5) has several key highlights.
Holistic Vision of the Imago Dei
Hoekema notes that because human beings are created in God’s image and likeness, we are to mirror and represent him. “When one looks at a human being, one ought to see in him or her a certain reflection of God,” and “like an ambassador from a foreign country . . . so man (both male and female) must represent the authority of God . . . and must seek to advance God’s program for this world” (67–68).
He also argues that the whole person—both one’s immaterial aspect (or soul) and one’s material aspect (or body)—is the image of God. Here, Hoekema agrees with Herman Bavinck, that the image extends to humans in their entirety.
Nothing in man is excluded from the image. . . . And he is that image totally, in soul and body, in all faculties and powers, in all conditions and relationships. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is true man, and he is man, true and real man, because and insofar as he is the image of God (Hoekema’s translation).
Interacting with two common understandings of the divine image—the structural view (what kind of being a person is, especially in terms of rationality and morality) and the functional view (what a person does, especially in terms of worshiping and ruling)—Hoekema weds the two and transposes a traditional Reformed discussion onto them.
From a structural perspective, God’s image has a formal, or broader, aspect; humanity has been endowed with the gifts and capacities necessary to function as it should in its relationships and its exercise of dominion. From a functional perspective, God’s image has a material, or narrower, aspect; at creation, humanity possessed knowledge of God, righteousness, and holiness (Hoekema references Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24).
Distorted and Restored
Hoekema rightly sees that God’s image wasn’t totally lost in the fall but rather significantly distorted (Hoekema appeals to Gen. 9:6 and James 3:9, where fallen human beings are addressed as image-bearers).
In perfect relationship with God at creation, human beings possessed the divine image in both the structural/broader and material/narrower sense. But after their fall into sin, and because of their rebellion against God, human beings only retain the divine image in the structural/broader sense (though it’s marred) while we’ve lost the image in the functional/narrower sense.
Redemption includes the renewal of the divine image. Specifically, in its structural aspect, Christians experience restoration of our reasoning, morality, and volitional capacities as we learn to worship God and to respond in faithful obedience to him. In its functional aspect, Christians regain true knowledge of God, grow in righteousness, and progress in holiness.
In this renewal process, believers are more and more conformed to Jesus Christ. He is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; see 2 Cor. 4:4) into whose image we’re being transformed through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18) and the Word (1 Pet. 2:2).
Specifically, Hoekema argues that Christ functioned in a threefold relationship:
1. He was “wholly directed toward God”; he didn’t come to accomplish his own will but that of the Father.
2. Christ was “wholly directed toward the neighbor,” ready to meet human needs for healing, food, and forgiveness. As he himself affirmed, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10, NIV 1984).
3. He “rules over nature” as he stilled the storm that threatened to destroy his disciples; walked on water; directed a miraculous catch of fish; multiplied loaves and fish; changed water into wine; freed demonized people from oppression; healed the sick, lame, blind, deaf, and leprous; and raised people from the dead.
Building on this threefold relationship that was true of Christ, the perfect image-bearer, Hoekema proposes that human beings, created and being renewed in God’s image, must function in these areas as well.
1. In terms of being directed toward God, human image-bearers must acknowledge we owe our existence to him, live dependently on him, and are primarily responsible to him.
2. As directed toward our neighbor, human image-bearers are characterized by sociality rather than isolation. Hoekema recognizes that this has particular and distinct applications for male and female image-bearers: “Not only is man incomplete without woman and woman incomplete without man; man is also incomplete without other men and woman is also incomplete without other women. . . . Man cannot be truly human apart from others” (77).
3. In terms of ruling over nature, God has given all human image-bearers the cultural mandate to “subdue [the earth] and exercise dominion” over the rest of the created order. Image-bearers are God’s vice-regents, ruling over nature as his representatives through using the earth’s resources, cultivating land, and developing agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, science, technology, and art.
Advancing Theological Anthropology
From this overview, we can see that Hoekema curated numerous ideas from the theological anthropologies that preceded him, and he advanced them to a greater or lesser degree, even anticipating trends that persist today.
First, while Hoekema started with a discussion of God’s image according to biblical teaching (chap. 3), he didn’t begin with a traditional study of key terms (e.g., body, soul, spirit, heart). Rather, he delayed his word study for his penultimate chapter (chap. 11), even then (untraditionally) concluding that these terms (1) are often used interchangeably in Scripture and (2) underscore human beings’ body-soul unity rather than naming the disconnected parts of human nature.
This approach helped him—and thus helps us—cut through the classic and unsatisfying debate over dichotomy and trichotomy, and pioneered the contemporary embrace of human personhood as a psychosomatic unity.
Second, following Bavinck, Hoekema’s insistence that the divine image is holistic—especially his inclusion of the material aspect, or body, in the image—broke from theological anthropology’s traditional elevation of the immaterial soul over the body. With its emphasis on embodiment, Created in God’s Image paved the way for the evangelical resources like Matthew A. Lapine’s The Logic of the Body and my Embodied that both confront transgender ideology and equip the church to provide care for people wrestling with gender dysphoria or who have undergone gender-transition surgeries.
Hoekema’s insistence on universal human dignity is essential for evangelical ethics in a world of assisted suicide and genetically engineered children.
Third, Hoekema’s emphasis that a human being “does not simply bear or have the image of God; he is the image of God” informs contemporary discussions of sex/gender, disability, illness, burnout, transhumanism, and aging.
His insistence on universal human dignity—a divinely conferred dignity that’s true even when people’s sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic or educational statuses differ, or when their physical abilities and mental acuity fade—is essential for evangelical ethics in a world of assisted suicide and genetically engineered children.
Hoekema may not have anticipated such a complex, puzzling world, but his theological anthropology has helped to prepare us for it. He’s equipped us with the faithful theological roots we need to stand on biblical truth and provide holistic care.
The Gospel Coalition