Imago Dei and Imputed Righteousness

I have come to believe that many of the doctrines that later theology tried to explain—especially concepts like imputed righteousness—were never meant to be abstract legal mechanisms. They arose, I suspect, from an early intuition embedded in the creation story itself. Genesis opens not with deficiency, but with blessing. Humanity is spoken into being, commissioned, and entrusted before doing anything at all. There is no probationary period, no moral test to pass before approval is granted. Humanity is blessed, given purpose, and then declared “very good.” That declaration matters. It tells us something fundamental about the nature of being human.

Creation does not begin with lack. It begins with goodness.

When God declares creation “very good,” this is not mere poetic flourish. It is an ontological statement. Humanity is not introduced as morally broken, spiritually empty, or existentially flawed. We are introduced as complete, capable, and already participating in divine intention. From this vantage point, righteousness does not need to be added later as though something essential were missing. What later theology calls “imputed righteousness” may be better understood as a way of trying to recover what was already true but had been forgotten.

This becomes clearer when we consider what it means to be created in the image of God. I no longer see this image as a superficial resemblance or a functional role alone. To be created in the image of God is to be imbued with divine consciousness. In the ancient world, an image was not a likeness in the modern sense; it was a manifestation of presence. An image carried the essence and authority of what it represented. Humanity, as the image of God, is the locus where divine awareness becomes localized within creation.

Consciousness, then, is not incidental. It is central. Our capacity to know, to imagine, to create, to reflect, and to love is not accidental biology—it is participatory divinity. The Logos is not merely a theological concept or an external savior who appears later to correct a failure. The Logos is the animating intelligence already present within creation and within humanity itself. Divine consciousness is not imposed upon us from without; it is the depth of who we are.

Seen this way, the so-called fall is not a collapse of being but a narrowing of awareness. Humanity does not lose the image of God; it forgets it. Consciousness contracts into fear, separation, and survival. The divine presence does not depart, but it becomes obscured beneath misidentification. We begin to see ourselves as isolated selves rather than participants in a larger divine life. The problem is not corruption of essence but distortion of perception.

This reframes repentance entirely. When Paul writes that it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance, he is not describing moral pressure or divine threat. He is describing awakening. The Greek word metanoia does not mean remorse or self-condemnation. It means a change of mind—a shift in how reality is perceived. Repentance is not about convincing God to forgive us; it is about allowing our perception to realign with what has always been true.

Kindness leads to repentance because kindness disarms fear. When fear loosens its grip, the mind becomes capable of seeing clearly again. And when we see clearly, we recognize ourselves not as abandoned creatures scrambling for approval, but as indwelt beings already participating in divine life. Repentance is the return to a wider field of awareness, a remembering of identity rather than a rejection of humanity.

From this perspective, righteousness is not something transferred to us because we are lacking. It is something that emerges when belief aligns with reality. When we believe that we are indwelt by the Logos—when we truly trust that divine consciousness animates our being—our actions begin to reflect that belief. This is not moral striving; it is congruence. We act according to what we understand ourselves to be.

Ethics, then, are not enforced from the outside. They arise naturally from awareness. Love does not need to be commanded when one knows oneself as participating in Love. Compassion does not require threat when one recognizes shared being. Transformation does not come from discipline imposed by fear, but from insight born of grace.

This is why grace is so often misunderstood. Grace is not God overlooking our humanity; it is God affirming it. Grace is not a legal exception; it is a revelation. It tells us that we are not starting from zero, that we are not spiritual failures in need of divine tolerance. Grace reminds us of our original goodness and invites us to live from it.

In this light, salvation is not rescue from worthlessness. It is awakening from forgetfulness. Sin is not the presence of evil substance within us, but the misidentification of who we are. Salvation is not escape from being human; it is the fulfillment of humanity. It is the re-integration of awareness—the remembering that divine life has always been closer than breath.

What later theology often framed as moral repair, I now see as ontological remembrance. What was treated as legal standing, I see as relational and conscious alignment. The gospel, at its deepest level, is not about appeasing a distant God but about unveiling the indwelling presence that has always been there.

When this understanding takes root, life begins to change—not because it must, but because it cannot help but do so. The mind shifts, the heart opens, and behavior follows. Not out of obligation, but out of recognition. What was true in the beginning begins to express itself again, and the declaration “very good” is no longer something we read—it becomes something we live.