> Iss "[Looks in mirror] Hmm...evidently God has a bad cowlick atop his head..." achar

I understand "made in God's image" to be in the spiritual, not physical sense. I don't necessarily believe that God has "arms," "hands," or "legs" in the same sense that we do. When the Bible refers to "the hand of God" or "the long arm of the LORD," it is an anthropormorphism--assigning human attributes to Someone or something that is not human to enable us to understand it better.

I've heard some scholars say that we were made in God's image in that man is a "trichotomous" being: he has three distinct parts. As God exists as a Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; so man exists as a trichotomoy--physical body, soul, and spirit. I've also heard others argue that man is only dichotomous, and that the soul and spirit are actually the same thing.

I don't know which argument is correct. Maybe neither one is. But it is my spirit that can communicate with God. I can't communicate physically with God, because God doesn't exist as a physical being. ("God is a Spirit and they who would worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth") You can't fly into outer space and find heaven, no matter how far you travel. As Issachar said, God is "above" this physical, temporal plane.

But I just thought of something else. The fact of the Incarnation (the Son of God coming to earth as a human being). At least one part of the Trinity, God the Son, has a physical body. Not the same as the physical bodies we have here on earth, though. He has a resurrected body, which has abilites and characteristics far beyond what any mortal man or woman can do! (like passing through walls!) But it is a *physical* body: after the Resurrection, Christ walked on the earth; he could be touched; he could eat food.

But, the resurrection body didn't exist yet when God created mankind. So I still think that we have been made in the *spiritual* image, not the physical image, of our Creator.

Gri"even orcs have a soul :)"shny