Image Bearers of the Glory

What if God's image is His holy glory?  How would the Bible read if that were the case?  Would it change the meaning drastically or does it agree with the text as we know it?

Genesis 1:26-27 - "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our [holy glory], after our likeness. ...

So God created man in his own [glory]
in the [holiness] of God he created him;
male and female he created them."

Exodus 20:4 - "You shall not make for yourself a carved [holy glory]." How can you carve glory?

Or how about the reverse:

Exodus 40:34-35 - "Then the cloud covered the ten of meeting, and the [image] of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the [image] of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

What if we were created to reflect the holy glory of God into his creation as his image bearers?  Psalm 19 says the heavens declare his glory, why shouldn't the very creatures who are in his likeness?

If "God be true and every man a liar" might we be lying about the true glory?  We seek our own glory and put that on display, and so Paul is right that we have "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for [the glory of] mortal man."

Is salvation then about rescuing us from this world of suffering torture? (And who, may I point out, is responsible for that suffering torture?)  Or is salvation more about changing us from "one degree of glory to another," about rescuing us from worshiping an imperfect and unholy glory and setting us to the right glory that we are to reflect into creation?

If God's purposes from Ezekiel 36 are to give his people a new heart and a new spirit, to place his Spirit within them so that they walk in his statutes and obey his rules, how does that connect to escaping the created order?

Salvation, then, is getting back on track, getting back to the way that brings life and not death.  The Spirit is placed within the believer so that they can reflect the holy glory of God into the created order, not so they can escape out of it.  We are saved to be the full image bearers of God that he wanted us to be all along.