Icon: A religious painting or object, sometimes venerated, worshipped or prayed to within Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Idol [idolatry]: An object, or concept, set up and worshipped as a ‘god’ or as ‘God’. Forbidden throughout the Scripture. The worship of such objects.
Image of God [1]: the identity and description of man in the original creation [Genesis 1:26,27]. It is this exalted identity that outlaws mistreatment of humans [Genesis 9:6].
Image of God [2]: a description or title of Christ [Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3]. In seeing Christ, we see God, in knowing Christ, we know God [John 12:45; 14:7-9].
Image of God [3]: the goal of the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God within the believer [2 Corinthians 3:18].
Imparted righteousness: Error alert: The concept that the righteousness of Christ is given, imparted, to the believer in such a way that the believer actually becomes righteous, ceasing to be a sinner who sins.
Imputed righteousness: The concept that the righteousness of Christ is legally credited to the believer, in such a way that the believer’s legal guilt before God is removed, but the believer, in him/herself, still remains a sinner who sins. A biblical concept rediscovered at the Reformation.
Incarnation [incarnate]: The action of God the Son, in which he, while still remaining fully God, was conceived and born as a real human being and lived a real human life. [Latin: carnis – flesh].
Infallibility: A word used to describe the accuracy and trustworthiness of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments.
Infant baptism: Some who baptize infants teach baptismal regeneration [see above]. Others teach ‘covenant theology’ which includes the baptised infant in the covenant along with the believing parents until the child is old enough to believe for him/herself. A point of controversy among Christians.
Infidel: Literally, person without faith. Commonly used by persons of a particular religious faith to refer to those who do not embrace that particular faith.
Infinite: without limits of any kind. Thus God is ‘infinite’.
Inspiration: God’s action by which he inspired the various biblical writers to make an authoritative, infallible written record of the truth he desired to make known to man. Literally: expired, that is, the written scripture is breathed out by God. [2 Timothy 3:16]
Israel: The nation God chose to be the vehicle of his self-revelation and the human race into which the promised Saviour would be born. [Between 930 and 722BC the term ‘Israel’ referred to the northern kingdom comprising the 10 of tribes of Israel which rejected the Davidic line of kings.]