Genesis 3:5 Bible Difficulty Clarified: Are Humans Made in God's Image or Do They Become Like God?

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I. Introduction: The Apparent Tension Between Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 3:5, 22

One of the more subtle yet significant Bible difficulties occurs when comparing Genesis 1:27 with Genesis 3:5 and 3:22. Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created man in His own image. Later, however, in Genesis 3:5, the serpent tempts Eve by asserting, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Then in Genesis 3:22, after the fall, Jehovah God says, “the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.”

This raises the interpretive question: If man was already made in the image of God, how is it that he only later “became like God” after eating the forbidden fruit? Is there a contradiction or shift in theological anthropology in these early chapters of Genesis? Or does this represent two distinct senses of “being like God”?

This article will analyze the linguistic, theological, and contextual data, holding firmly to the Historical-Grammatical method and the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The answer lies in understanding the distinction between being made in the image of God and attempting to become like God through moral autonomy and rebellion.

II. Genesis 1:26–27 — The Imago Dei: Humanity Made in God’s Image

Genesis 1:26–27 (UASV):

26 And God went on to say, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

These verses describe the creation of mankind—male and female—as bearing the “image” (צֶלֶם, tselem) and “likeness” (דְּמוּת, demuth) of God. While Scripture does not explicitly define these terms in exhaustive detail, their combined usage suggests that mankind uniquely reflects certain divine attributes not shared by other creatures.

This includes:

Rationality and moral capacity
Relational and communicative ability
Dominion over the earth as delegated sovereignty
Spiritual awareness and accountability
Creativity and volition

Importantly, this image-bearing is not equivalent to divinity, nor does it mean man possesses God’s attributes in full measure. Rather, man was created to reflect God in a limited, derivative, and dependent sense.

Genesis 1:27 describes an ontological reality—something God imparted at creation. It was a given status, not something acquired through experience or disobedience. The image of God defined man’s original identity and purpose.

III. Genesis 3:5 — Satan’s Temptation: “You Will Be Like God”

Genesis 3:5 (UASV):

“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This statement is part of the serpent’s deception. It is important to observe that Satan acknowledges a limitation or restriction on man’s current condition—that is, mankind does not yet know good and evil experientially or in the same sense that God does. Satan presents this limitation not as protection, but as oppression. He implies that God is withholding something from man that would elevate him further, to become “like God.”

But in context, Satan was redefining the nature of being “like God” in a way not consistent with the truth of Genesis 1:27. The lie of the serpent was that through disobedience and moral autonomy—deciding for themselves what is good and evil—humans could elevate themselves beyond their God-given design.

It is not that man lacked God-likeness entirely; rather, Satan tempted them to grasp for God’s role as moral authority and sovereign.

Thus, Genesis 3:5 is not a contradiction of Genesis 1:27 but a distortion—a redefinition of divine likeness through rebellion, not relationship.

IV. Genesis 3:22 — God’s Statement: “Man Has Become Like One of Us”

Genesis 3:22 (UASV):

“Then Jehovah God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil; and in order that he may not put his hand out and take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live forever—’”

This divine declaration must be carefully understood. The phrase “has become like one of us in knowing good and evil” is not an affirmation of successful human self-deification. Nor is it an endorsement of Satan’s claim in verse 5. Rather, it is a judicial recognition of what has occurred: man has crossed a moral boundary that God had warned about. He has presumed to determine morality independently of divine command.

The phrase “knowing good and evil” does not merely imply moral knowledge, which Adam and Eve already possessed in principle, as moral beings made in God’s image. Instead, this “knowing” (Hebrew: יֹדֵעַ, yodea‘) implies experiential, self-referential moral judgment—that is, man had now tasted rebellion and grasped for moral autonomy, which only God possesses by right.

This is made clear by God’s immediate response: banishment from the garden and prevention of access to the tree of life. If Adam and Eve’s action had truly made them divine or godlike in the fullest sense, God’s response would not involve judgment, separation, and eventual death.

Therefore, the statement “has become like one of us” is an ironic concession, acknowledging that man has entered into an experience reserved for God alone—but in a perverted and illegitimate way, through disobedience.

V. Contextual and Theological Clarity: Two Different Realities Described

The tension dissolves when we recognize that Genesis 1 and Genesis 3 are addressing two entirely different subject matters:

Genesis 1:27 describes man’s created nature, reflecting God’s image as His representative on earth. This was an act of divine grace and intention.
Genesis 3:5, 22 describe man’s corrupted state, grasping for divinity through self-will, ending in spiritual ruin.

Being made in the image of God is about design and function. It is God-given and includes moral responsibility, relational capacity, and authority under God. Becoming “like God” in Genesis 3 refers to illicit independence and the usurpation of divine prerogatives.

The act of eating from the tree was not just informational—it was rebellion. The serpent’s lie was that man could become more than he already was, by bypassing God. But in doing so, Adam and Eve lost the harmony, innocence, and dominion that characterized their image-bearing function.

VI. Broader Canonical Support: The Unchanging Image and the Fallen Condition

Later biblical revelation reinforces these categories. For example:

James 3:9 (UASV):

“With it we bless Jehovah and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.”

Despite the fall, the image of God in man remains. It is marred, not erased. Human dignity, accountability, and moral capacity persist. Yet Scripture also repeatedly declares that the human heart is now fallen (Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10–18).

Thus, post-fall man is both made in God’s image and corrupted in sin. The redemptive work of Christ aims to restore and renew this image (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24), not to bestow divinity, but to restore godliness.

VII. Conclusion: No Contradiction, But Theological Precision

There is no contradiction between Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 3:5, 22. Rather, they are complementary when rightly understood:

Genesis 1 describes man’s design: created in God’s image, under His authority.
Genesis 3 describes man’s defiance: seeking to define morality apart from God.

The “likeness” gained in Genesis 3 was not a step forward but a fall downward—an illegitimate likeness that brought judgment, not blessing.

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About the Author

EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).