To eat from this tree was not to eat with God but to have communion with death. The fruit of that one tree . . . was not offered as a gift to man . The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with death. So they had sinned and the image was lost, though not in the sense of their obligation to be like God.
Nothing can destroy that.
It was lost in the sense of their freedom to fulfill their calling to bear the image. Mark Fakkema, an early 20th century Christian educator, had a helpful way of explaining this. He said that all of creation reveals or reflects God, who is the creator, the great Original. But, within creation, only humans reveal God in the special way of having His image or likeness imprinted on them. They are not only involuntary reflections of God as all creation is.