Bavinck and Man as the Image of God

In the first volume of Ecclesia Reformanda, Matthew Roberts discusses Herman Bavinck’s Prolegomena. For Bavinck, the center of God’s creation is man as image of God. The original intent in the garden remains God’s “purpose and… goal in creation (82).” Hence, creation’s telos is man’s eschatological destiny, which is fulfilled in the consummation when man “will come to bear the image of God in the full sense (83).” As Bavinck writes:

As the gospel is about God bringing his creation by grace to the completion of its original aim, so the centrepiece and linchpin of that gospel is the bringing of man, created to be God’s viceregent, to fulfill his original aim (84).”