51. As regards what the image is, an image is not a likeness but is 'according to a likeness'. Therefore it is said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness'. A spiritual man is an image, whereas a celestial man is a likeness or exact replica. The spiritual man is the subject in this present chapter, the celestial man in the next. The spiritual man, who is an image, is called by the Lord 'a son of light', as in John,

He who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be sons of light. John 12:35-36.

He is also called 'a friend',

You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. John 15:14-15

The celestial man however, who is a likeness, is called 'a son of God', in John,

As many as received Him, to them He gave power to be sons of God, to those believing in His Name, who were born, not of blood, ¹ nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13.

Footnotes:

2011. 'For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations' means here, as previously, that from Him comes all truth and resulting good. This is clear from the meaning of 'father' as that which comes from Him, from the meaning of 'multitude' as truth, and also from the meaning of 'nations' as resulting good, all dealt with above in 2005-2007. The fact that these same words mean in the more universal or more remote sense the union of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, see above, in 2004. For the union of the Lord's Human Essence with the Divine Essence is as the union of truth with good, and the union of His Divine Essence with the Human Essence that of good with truth - which is reciprocal union. Indeed within the Lord it was truth itself that united itself to good, and good that united itself to truth, for the Infinite Divine cannot be called anything else than Good and Truth themselves. Consequently the human mind is not at all mistaken when it thinks of the Lord as Good itself and Truth itself.