Human beings had thus become irrational, while demonic deception overshadowed everything everywhere and hid the knowledge of the true God. What, then, was God to do? Was He to remain silent before so great an evil and allow human beings to be deceived by demons and kept from knowing God?
And what purpose would there have been in the human being’s having been made according to God’s image from the beginning? It would have been better for him simply to have been made irrational than, after being made rational, to live the life of irrational creatures.
And what purpose was there in his receiving a conception of God at the beginning? If he is not worthy to receive it even now, it should not have been given to him at the beginning.
Similarly, what possible profit could it be to God Himself, Who made men, if when made they did not worship Him, but regarded others as their makers? This would be tantamount to His having made them for others and not for Himself.
Even a human king does not allow the lands he has established to be abandoned to the service of others or to go over to other rulers. He reminds their inhabitants by letters, often sends messages through friends, and, if necessary, comes in person and puts them to shame by his presence, so that they will not serve others and his work will not become useless.
How much more, then, will God spare His own creatures, so that they are not led astray from Him and made to serve things that do not exist? This is especially so because such error becomes the cause of their destruction and disappearance, and it was not fitting for those who had once shared in the Image of God to perish.
What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in humanity, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Savior Jesus Christ? Men could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father Who could recreate man made after the Image.
In order to effect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption.
Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need. Here is an illustration to prove it.