Genesis 1:26

Man was not made in the likeness of any creature that went before him, but in the likeness of his Creator; yet still between God and man there is an infinite distance.

Christ only is the express image of God’s person, as the Son of his Father, having the same nature. It is only some of God’s honor that is put upon man, who is God’s image only as the shadow in the glass, or the king’s impress upon the coin.

God’s image upon man consists in these three things:-

1. In his nature and constitution, not those of his body (for God has not a body), but those of his soul. This honor indeed God has put upon the body of man, that the Word was made flesh, the Son of God was clothed with a body like ours and will shortly clothe ours with a glory like that of his. And this we may safely say, That he by whom God made the worlds, not only the great world, but man the little world, formed the human body, at the first, according to the platform he designed for himself in the fulness of time.

But it is the soul, the great soul, of man, that does especially bear God’s image. The soul is a spirit, an intelligent immortal spirit, an influencing active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of Spirits, and the soul of the world.

The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. The soul of man, considered in its three noble faculties, understanding, will, and active power, is perhaps the brightest clearest looking-glass in nature, wherein to see God.

2. In his place and authority: Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion. As he has the government of the inferior creatures, he is, as it were, God’s representative, or viceroy, upon earth; they are not capable ‎of fearing and serving God, therefore God has appointed them to fear and serve man.

Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will has in it more of God’s image than his government of the creatures.

3. In his purity and rectitude. God’s image upon man consists in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Eph. 4:24 ; Col. 3:10

Matthew Henry