Why the Imago Dei Is Not a Characteristic of the Unbeliever

There are those who believe in the functional/relational view of the image (in fact, I would say most of modern OT scholars who have studied the issue), but think that it merely has to do with having children, covenant or otherwise. I want to lay out why this is not the case, and why I continually say that it is about filling up the earth with covenant children/human beings.

1. If one becomes the image merely by having children or being open to it, then that automatically means that homosexuals, women having abortions, and people using birth control are not the image of God. I would agree that they are not, but this destroys the attempt at making the term inclusive of all mankind.

2. It is important to note that the role of the image is to be fruitful and multiply and fill up the earth, ending in the rule of the earth and over chaos. The problem is that not only is anyone who works against this not the image of God (e.g., murderers, homosexuals, people who use abortion and birth control, etc.), but anyone who teaches their children a false religion or worldview (i.e., all unbelievers).

The reason why this is the case is that everyone outside of Christ, all who follow false religions and worldviews, which is every unbeliever, will eventually be removed from the earth. This means that the teaching of false religion and worldviews, and the following thereof, is an anticreational act of murdering any children one has, and many other people as well. In other words, it does not fill up the earth with humans. It removes them from the earth.

The unbeliever cannot fulfill the role of the image because only one in covenant with God can raise up covenant children who will fill up the earth for all eternity. What the unbeliever does is place more chaotic agents in the world who one day must be removed.

Of course, this is every man outside of Christ. Once Christ places these chaotic agents/unbelievers in Him, He redeems them to true humanity and the image, both via imputation of His righteous image in justification and via infusion as they are conformed to His image through sanctification.

This is largely why marrying an unbeliever was considered such an act of apostasy, since, as Ezra-Nehemiah and Malachi both argue, God's purpose of making the two become one flesh was to acquire "holy/godly offspring" (Ezra 9:1-2; Mal 2:15), not just offspring.

Hence, as the second Adam, He accomplishes the work of the image by forever filling up the earth with covenant human beings, and all who are in Him are the means through which He does it. Everyone else works against God's creational work, and therefore, empty the world rather than filling it in the end.

One is the work of God tasked to His image who reflect Him in their work, and the other the work of Satan tasked to unbelievers by their god who they reflect in their work.

So the work of the image is in the creation and preservation of covenant children/human beings, which explains why the Bible is exclusive in terms of God's covenant people, privileges them over unbelievers, and makes all of creation about them. In that regard, although the believer can be an image of either due to his two natures, the unbeliever cannot be anything but the image of the devil, working toward the emptying of the world of covenant children/human beings who would dwell in it forever. For the unbeliever it is non posse non peccare, and this is due to his status as a murderer via the falsehood he preaches with his words and his life.