NT Text: James 3:9
OT Source(s):
Source: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Analogy
Significance: James grounds his warning about the tongue's destructive potential in the creation doctrine: "With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made in the likeness of God" (kath' homoiōsin theou gegonotas). The phrase "likeness of God" directly echoes Genesis 1:27 (kat' eikona theou in the LXX), with James using homoiōsis (which corresponds to demuth in Gen 1:26). James's argument is that cursing a fellow human being is fundamentally a violation of the creation order — because every person bears the divine image, verbal abuse of a person is implicitly an affront to the Creator whose image they bear. This analogical application of the imago Dei doctrine to speech ethics demonstrates the ongoing theological force of the creation narrative for Christian ethics.