There's a Difference Between the Image of God and the Likeness of God

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying Increase and multiply and fill the earth. (Genesis 1:26-28)

Recently President Biden said that transgender people are made in the image of God. While in transgender people the image of God is vastly distorted, that image of God still exists, therefore President Biden's statement is correct, but only partially. The second part of "being made in the image of God", that is, also "being made in the likeness of God", is missing from the White House's statement, and therein lies the not so complicated comprehension of whether a person, made in God's image, represents being made in the likeness of God as well when they're in a state of mortal sin. 

What is the "likeness of God"? I'll get to that shortly, but first let's look at what the "image of God" means. After God creates light, stars, day and night, oceans, fish, plants and animals, He creates man. Yet, He didn't create man the same way He created everything else. He created man in His own image. Into His own holy image. He created man after the Holy Trinity.

"It is said that each human person has been made in the image of God, and as such each human bears similarities to our Trinitarian Lord and God: (1) Man's nous...soul...(i.e. complete mind and heart; including intellect, creativity, feelings, morality, intuition, etc.) is like the Father. (2) Man's flesh (both tangible and a temple of the Holy Spirit), is akin to the Son who became incarnate and was filled with the Holy Spirit. (3) Man's life (or breath) is akin the Holy Spirit.

"Man (any individual human including a transgender person) is all three. There is never a time that man has existed (or could exist) without all three. For a human nous (soul) cannot exist without a body and life, a human body does not exist without a soul and life, and a human life cannot exist without a soul and body." 

In addition, the reflection of the the Holy Trinity in man's image of God goes beyond each individual human person. The family - man/woman/child - is likewise the image of God in man's body which therefore deletes homosexual and lesbian "marriage" (man/man or woman/woman) as being part of God's plan for man.

Now we arrive at "being made in God's likeness" for image and likeness are to be distinguished one from the other. 

After each of the five days that God made creation and all in it, before creating man on the sixth day, the book of Genesis says, "And God saw that it was good." He deemed as "good" all things that He created each day. On the sixth day He created man in His own holy image and likeness. He says, Let us make man in our image and likeness. 

He then looks at His creation and says that it is very good, that is, only after creating man and woman did God use the superlative "very"...very good. Nothing else - no plants or stars or fish or animals were made in God's image and likeness. Only man.

God said we were also created to be in His "likeness". What is God's likeness? It's goodness. What is God like? He is good. Being made in God's likeness means reflecting His goodness and here we come to the crux of the matter which is the Fall of Man.

To be like God, each individual person needs to be good as well. We are to be morally good. Follow the Commandments of God. Not kill. Not covet, cheat, lie or steal. Obviously all have sinned... 

...but to covet being a gender and sex that God did not make us, to cut off our breasts or surgically remake male genitals into female, to declare that men can have babies or that men menstruate, to steal our identity, to lie and say that we're what we are not, to cheat by saying God made people in the wrong body - all of that is not a reflection of goodness. It isn't a reflection of the likeness of God.

Therefore, while we can reflect God's image by being what we were made to be - a human person - we cannot at the same time override God's action of creating us in His likeness when we fail in our moral duty to reflect His goodness. 

Because immorality and goodness are opposites, we cannot declare that we're living representatives of God's image and likeness when in the state of mortal sin.

We were made to be in the likeness of God, not evil and into the likeness of Lucifer.