Besides the possession of natural powers, the image of God involves the possession of right moral tendencies. It is not enough to say that man was created in a state of innocence. The Scripture asserts that man had a righteousness like God’s: _Eccl. 7:29_—“_God made man upright_”; _Eph. 4:24_—“_the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth_”—here Meyer says: “κατὰ Θεόν, ‘_after God_,’ _i. e._, _ad exemplum Dei_, after the pattern of God (_Gal. 4:28_—κατὰ Ἰσαάκ, ‘after Isaac’ = as Isaac was). This phrase makes the creation of the new man a parallel to that of our first parents, who were created after God’s image; they too, before sin came into existence through Adam, were sinless—‘_in righteousness and holiness of truth_.’ ” On N. T. “truth” = rectitude, see Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 1:257-260. Meyer refers also, as a parallel passage, to _Col. 3:10_—“_the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him._” Here the “_knowledge_” referred to is that knowledge of God which is the source of all virtue, and which is inseparable from holiness of heart. “Holiness has two sides or phases: (1) it is perception and knowledge; (2) it is inclination and feeling” (Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:97). On _Eph. 4:24_ and _Col. 3:10_, the classical passages with regard to man’s original state, see also the Commentaries of DeWette, Rückert, Ellicott, and compare _Gen. 5:3_—“_And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image,_” _i. e._, in his own sinful likeness, which is evidently contrasted with the “_likeness of God_” (_verse 1_) in which he himself had been created (An. Par. Bible). _2 Cor. 4:4_—“_Christ, who is the image of God_”—where the phrase “_image of God_” is not simply the _natural_, but also the _moral_, image. Since Christ is the image of God primarily in his holiness, man’s creation in the image of God must have involved a holiness like Christ’s, so far as such holiness could belong to a being yet untried, that is, so far as respects man’s tastes and dispositions prior to moral action.