The creation account of Adam’s spirit was very much a physical matter; that is, the manner in which his spirit was imparted to him. The Genesis 2 text says that “God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.” He was already a body because God had made him one out of the dust of the ground, but he was an inanimate body until God animated him with the breath of life. It appeared that Adam was all put together, however God did that, and was all ready to go to begin life. One thing he lacked was life itself. The body without the spirit is dead. It wouldn’t appear correct to call Adam’s body dead at this point, but we would at least have to say he was not yet alive, not until God Himself breathed that very breath of life into his body and animated him.
Was Adam all ready to go…to walk and talk and relate to his Creator, lacking only this one critical thing? Life, the breath of life itself? Can you visualize the drama of oxygen coursing throughout this inert body, filling his lungs, flowing in the vessels and organs, thus activating them all? Believing God to be Spirit does not mean He is not very seriously committed to the physical because He demonstrates throughout His Word that He is. Could God be making and creating Adam both physically and spiritually and doing it as the christophany, one of several pre-incarnate appearances of Christ prior to Bethlehem?
Most scholars regard Adam’s being created in the image and likeness of God as a “tautology”, that is a literary redundancy that needlessly uses a second word that means the same as the first, equating image and likeness as identical in meaning. But, if Adam was both made and created without those meaning the same thing, because “made” refers to his physical being and “created” refers to his spirit being, might not image also refer to Adam’s body, its shape and appearance while likeness refers to Adam’s spirit, which, while being non-physical connects with the Spirit of His Creator that is also spirit? If Adam’s physical image was in appearance as God’s, doesn’t that mean Adam had a body that looked similar to God’s? But God doesn’t have a body. He is Spirit, remember? Yes, but there is the christophany, the pre-incarnate manifestation of deity before Bethlehem. Are we saying that the pre-incarnate christophany of Jesus physically made, fashion, shaped Adam’s body to appear as His own? Perhaps. Did God, as a christophany, use His own body as a pattern for Adam’s body? And, this is how Adam was made in God’s image and spiritually he was also made in God’s likeness…that is, in his other dimension?
Adam was also non-physical as God was in His Spirit; thus, Adam was physically made in God’s image and spiritually he was made in God’s likeness. While we cannot be dogmatic about all this, it is food for thought, is it not? Made and created, image and likeness.
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