5. Direct consequences of the divine image in man.
1. Immortality, because according to the doctrine of the Scriptures death and its harbingers (sickness, weakness) only came into man through sin, Gen. 2:17: "Whichever day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die of death"; Rom. 5:12: "death through sin"; Rom. 6:23: "death is the wages of sin". It is a pagan opinion that the death of man has its reason in the matter of the body. Likewise, of course, also more recent theologians.1549) — 2. The dominion over the creatures. This is presented in Gen. 1:26-28 as a consequence directly connected with the divine image. With respect to the nature of the dominion before the fall, it is to be said that it was a real dominion, according to which the animals put themselves at the service of man without constraint. After the Fall, man has only a caricature of the original dominion, because he has to use taming, cunning and power if he wants to remain to some extent master of the animals. With the sinlessness of man, the dominion over the creatures described in Genesis 1:28 was lost. Luther calls what is left of man's dominion a "pseudo dominion" (speciem dominii unb nudum titulum dominii). Man still succeeds in a partial subordination of the creature through cunning and coercion. But thereby the creature remains in rebellion against the sinful man. The
1549) Further details in Vol. III, p. 569 ff.
625 ><w:t xml:space="preserve">The doctrines of man. [English ed. 522-523]
animals torture, harm, kill and eat their original lord, in the air he breaks his neck, the water drowns him, the earth buries him, etc. Luther considers this contemplation useful. We realize what an abomination before God sin must be, because it has so thoroughly broken the relationship between man and the rest of the creature.1550)