Humanity is created in the image of God and called toward His likeness.

Restoration begins before the fall. Genesis 1:26–27 gives humanity an identity and vocation prior to any account of sin: humanity is created in the image of God. The Priesthood therefore refuses to define the human person first by failure. Sin is catastrophic, but it is a distortion of a prior gift.

Image is gift; likeness is vocation

The image grounds dignity, relationality, moral agency and vocation. The language of likeness gives Restoration Theology a developmental horizon: human life is not merely rescued from condemnation but formed toward mature resemblance to divine character - love, truth, holiness, mercy, justice and faithful creativity.

Romans 8:29 speaks of conformity to the image of the Son. Second Corinthians 3:18 describes transformation into the same image from glory to glory. Colossians 3:10 speaks of the renewed self being renewed according to the image of its Creator. These texts allow restoration to be understood as both recovery and fulfilment.

Dignity cannot be ranked by condition

Because the image of God precedes nationality, class, occupation, religious status and social achievement, none of those conditions can become a measure of human worth. Spiritual formation may deepen holiness, but it must never become a hierarchy that makes some people more human than others.

Restoration is the healing of the image and the formation of a life increasingly conformed to divine likeness.

This is why the Priesthood speaks of becoming without claiming that human beings become God by essence. Creature and Creator remain distinct. Participation is by grace: humanity receives, reflects and embodies divine life without ceasing to be human.