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:

2213. 'About this time next year, and Sarah will have a son' means that the Lord would at that point cast off the human rational and put on the Divine Rational. This is clear from the meaning of 'returning at this time of life', or 'at this time next year', as the joining together of the Divine with the Lord's Human, dealt with above in 2193, and from the meaning of 'Sarah's having a son' as the Rational that was to be Divine, also dealt with above, in 2194. 'This time of life', or 'this time next year', denotes the time when Abraham would be entering his hundredth year, which year means when the Lord's Human had become united to the Divine, and the Divine to the Human, as shown above in 1988. There was an interval of a year because 'a year' in the Word does not mean a year but an entire length of time, thus a whole period, whether of a thousand years, or of a hundred, or of ten, or of hours, as also shown already, in 482, 487, 488, 493, 893; and the same applies to a week, dealt with in 2044.