Lexicon

G3667 - homoioma

Strong's: G3667 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: hom-oy'-o-mah Part of speech: neuter noun NT occurrences: 6 in the NT (Rom 1:23; 5:14; 6:5; 8:3; Phil 2:7; Rev 9:7) Hebrew equivalent (LXX): H1823 - demuth (דְּמוּת, "likeness"), the dominant rendering; the LXX consistency on demuth → homoiōma makes homoiōma the Pauline Christological-Hebraic-Imago-Dei lexeme par excellence Cognate Greek terms:

G3666, homoioō (verb: "to make like"; cf. parable-language "to what shall I liken...?")
G3664, homoios (adjective: "like / resembling")
G3669, homoiōsis (action-noun: "the act of making like / assimilation"; the LXX rendering of demuth at Gen 1:26)
G3668, homoiōs (adverb: "likewise")
G3665, homoiotēs (abstract noun: "likeness" / "similarity"; used at Heb 4:15 of Christ's likeness-to-us)

Semantic range

The Greek noun homoiōma (ὁμοίωμα) names a likeness, a resembling-form, that is neither identity nor mere appearance. The lexeme's force is controlled-resemblance: it preserves real-correspondence on the dimensions in view while withholding identification on dimensions not in view.

Likeness as resemblance-form, the image / figure / shape a thing presents (Rom 1:23 homoiōmati eikonos, the likeness of the image; Rev 9:7 ta homoiōmata tōn akridōn, the likenesses of locusts in John's apocalyptic vision)
Likeness as participation-in-pattern, the form-of-action one shares (Rom 5:14 homoiōmati tēs parabaseōs Adam, the likeness of Adam's transgression; Rom 6:5 homoiōmati tou thanatou autou, the likeness of His death in baptism)
Likeness as Incarnational-form, the resemblance-mode of Christ's becoming-human (Rom 8:3 en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias, in the likeness of sinful flesh; Phil 2:7 en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos, being made in the likeness of men)

Sense 3 is the theologically loaded usage, treated at length below. Senses 1-2 supply the operational-vocabulary background.

Theological force, Christological homoiōma

Homoiōma is the central Pauline lexeme for the Incarnational reality of Christ's humanity, and the lexeme is grammatically protective against two opposite errors:

Against Docetism (the heresy that Christ only appeared human without genuinely becoming human): homoiōma is not mere appearance (phantasia; dokēsis); it is real-resembling-form that preserves what it resembles. Phil 2:7's en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos means Christ became (genomenos) what humans are in their humanity, not merely appeared to do so.
Against Apollinarianism / monophysitism / theopaschism (errors that compromise the integrity of either the divine or human nature in Christ): homoiōma preserves distinction, Christ's humanity is like ours (genuine human nature) without being identical to ours on dimensions not in view (he assumes humanity without assuming sin; he assumes flesh without assuming the corruption that comes with our flesh).

The lexeme is therefore the grammatical-precision-tool that the NT (especially Paul) deploys to articulate the Chalcedonian-Christological middle position (two natures, one Person, without confusion, change, division, or separation), formalized at the Council of Chalcedon AD 451 but already operationally present in Pauline-NT lexical-grammatical precision.

Phil 2:7, en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos

The locus classicus of Christological homoiōma. Paul's kenosis-hymn (Phil 2:6-11; cf. Philippians 2.5-11 / Philippians 2.6-11) describes the Son's downward trajectory from en morphē theou (in the form of God) through kenosis (self-emptying; cf. G2758 - kenoo) to en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos (becoming in the likeness of men).

The lexical-grammatical structure is precise:

en (preposition: in / within), Christ assumes the condition of human-resemblance
homoiōmati (dative singular), the likeness-form He assumes
anthrōpōn (genitive plural: of men), what He becomes like
genomenos (aorist participle of ginomai: having become), the becoming-mode, signaling real-temporal-change in the assuming, not eternal-static-property

The en homoiōmati construction is the grammatical equivalent of the Chalcedonian en duo physesin (in two natures), both phrases signal real-assumption-of-the-second-nature-without-loss-of-the-first. See Hypostatic Union for the doctrinal-systematic treatment.

Rom 8:3, en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias

The Incarnation as the Son sent in the likeness of sinful flesh: "For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh."

The phrase is especially load-bearing for Christology: Christ assumed flesh that genuinely shared the human condition (the likeness is real-substantive) but did not share the corruption-of-sin (the likeness is of sinful flesh but Christ Himself is sinless; the lexeme homoiōmati allows Paul to affirm the genuine-Incarnation without affirming sin-identification). Karl Barth's reading of Rom 8:3 (Church Dogmatics I/2 §15) is the locus classicus of modern engagement.

The parallel construction with G4561 - sarx (sarx / flesh) makes Rom 8:3 + Phil 2:7 the two-text Pauline anchor for the Christological homoiōma doctrine.

Rom 5:14, homoiōmati tēs parabaseōs Adam

In the Adam-Christ typology of Rom 5:12-21: "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come." The construction homoiōmati tēs parabaseōs Adam, in the likeness of Adam's transgression, supplies the typological lexeme by which Paul develops the Adam-Christ correspondence. Likeness is the typological-resemblance category: Adam's transgression is a type (typos) of which other sins are likenesses; Christ as second-Adam is the anti-typological fulfillment that breaks the likeness-pattern of Adamic transgression.

Rom 6:5, homoiōmati tou thanatou autou

In the baptismal-union discussion: "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." The construction homoiōmati tou thanatou autou, in the likeness of His death, supplies the sacramental-participatory lexeme: baptism unites the believer with Christ in a likeness (real-correspondence) of His death-and-resurrection, not in identity (the believer doesn't physically die in baptism) but in real-participation (the believer dies-to-sin and rises-to-newness-of-life in genuine union with Christ's death-and-resurrection).

Rom 6:5's homoiōma is therefore the sacramental-theological precision-tool for articulating baptismal union without collapsing into either (a) a merely-symbolic baptism (mere appearance of likeness; Zwinglian-low-sacramentology drift) or (b) a literal-identical baptism (the believer literally crucified; doctrinally-incoherent over-identification).

Rom 1:23, homoiōmati eikonos

In the idolatry-judgment of Rom 1:18-32: "and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image (homoiōmati eikonos) in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." The construction homoiōmati eikonos, the likeness of an image, supplies the idolatry-judgment lexeme: idolatry is the fashioning-of-likeness-where-no-likeness-can-be; Paul echoes the OT idol-polemic (Isa 40:18-20; 44:9-20; Deut 4:15-18) using the same Greek homoiōma the LXX uses for the demuth of the idol-prohibition (Deut 4:16).

The use is dialectical: Rom 1:23 condemns false likeness-fashioning; Rom 8:3 + Phil 2:7 affirm true likeness-assuming (by God Himself in the Incarnation). The lexeme is morally neutral in itself; the direction of the likeness-relation determines its theological-status (humans falsely fashioning likenesses of the divine = idolatry; God truly assuming likeness of humanity = Incarnation).

Rev 9:7, ta homoiōmata tōn akridōn

The apocalyptic-visionary use: in John's vision of the fifth trumpet, the locust-creatures from the bottomless pit are described as ta homoiōmata tōn akridōn, the likenesses of locusts. The lexeme supplies the apocalyptic-symbolic register: visionary creatures presented as resembling-without-being their natural counterparts. The use is parallel to Ezekiel's demuth-vocabulary in Ezek 1 + 10 (the throne-vision creatures' likenesses), confirming the LXX-Pauline-Apocalyptic continuity of the demuth-homoiōma lexical pair.

Connection to the wider Christological + imago-Dei vocabulary

Homoiōma sits within a tight cluster of NT Christological + imago-Dei lexemes:

Greek lexeme	Strong's	Function	Hebrew equivalent (LXX)
homoiōma	G3667	*The Pauline Christological + imago-Dei likeness* noun**	H1823 - demuth
G1504 - eikon	G1504	"Image", image-of-God + Christ-as-image lexeme	H6754 - tselem
G3444 - morphe	G3444	"Form", en morphē theou ([[Philippians 2.6	Phil 2:6]]) + morphē doulou ([[Philippians 2.7
G3439 - monogenes	G3439	"Only-begotten / unique", Father-Son uniqueness lexeme	H3173 - yachid
G2758 - kenoo	G2758	"To empty", the kenotic verb	(no direct OT equivalent)
homoiōsis (G3669)	G3669	"The act of making like / assimilation", LXX rendering of demuth at [[Genesis 1.26	Gen 1:26]]
homoioō (G3666)	G3666	"To make like", verbal cognate	(cognate Hebrew verbs)
homoiotēs (G3665)	G3665	"Likeness / similarity", [[Hebrews 4.15	Heb 4:15]] Christ-tempted-in-our-likeness

The cluster supplies the lexical-Christological-grammar that the patristic-conciliar tradition (Chalcedon 451 onward) formalized into systematic Christology. Each lexeme captures a precise distinction; homoiōma specifically captures the controlled-resemblance-without-identity register that the Incarnation-without-sin + imago-Dei-not-identical-with-God doctrines both require.

Apologetic load

Christological precision-anchor (Chalcedonian middle position). Homoiōma is the Pauline-NT-lexical anchor of the Chalcedonian two natures, one Person doctrine. The lexeme grammatically protects against Docetism (Phil 2:7, genomenos signals real-becoming, not mere appearance) AND against monophysitism/Apollinarianism (Rom 8:3, en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias preserves the no-sin distinction within real-Incarnational-flesh-assumption). The lexeme is the Pauline operational-precursor to the Chalcedonian formula. See Hypostatic Union and Council of Chalcedon.
Imago-Dei lexical bridge. The LXX demuth → homoiōma / homoiōsis rendering bridges OT-imago-Dei lexicon (H1823 - demuth in Gen 1:26 + 5:1 + 5:3) into NT-Christological-imago lexicon (Paul + Hebrews). The bridge supports the codex's reading that the Imago Dei tradition runs continuously from Gen 1:26 through Christ-as-Image (Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4) into the believer's transformation-into-Christ's-image (2 Cor 3:18; Rom 8:29). See Imago Dei.
Anti-Docetic apologetic. Some early-Christian and contemporary readings (modern spiritualizing readings; some New-Age-adjacent Christian-revisionist movements) drift toward Docetism (Christ only appeared human). The Pauline homoiōma + genomenos construction is the strongest single-passage NT grammatical evidence against Docetism: Christ genuinely became what humans are. See Hypostatic Union and Christology.
Costly-Signal Convergence OT-side-via-Pauline-NT-lexicon. The recent Argument from the Costly-Signal Convergence rests on the Phil 2:6-11 kenosis-hymn as the NT-side Christological-cost-of-self-revelation framework. The en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos clause is the Incarnational-cost lexeme, Christ's real-assumption of human likeness is part of the cost the Costly-Signal argument runs on. The hub now supplies the formal lexical anchor for that Pauline phrase.
Sacramental-baptismal-theology anchor. Rom 6:5's homoiōmati tou thanatou autou supplies the Pauline lexicon for baptismal-union sacramentology. The lexeme protects against both Zwinglian-merely-symbolic and over-literalist baptismal readings, baptism is real-participation in likeness of Christ's death-and-resurrection. The framework engages contemporary baptismal-theology debates (paedobaptism vs. credobaptism; baptismal regeneration vs. covenant-sign) at the lexical-precision level.
Imago-Dei + idolatry inversion. Rom 1:23's homoiōmati eikonos in the idolatry-judgment supplies the negative pole of the imago-Dei discussion: humans bearing the imago Dei are God's authorized image-bearers (positive homoiōma); humans fashioning their own homoiōmata of the divine = idolatry (negative homoiōma). The lexical-symmetry illuminates the direction-of-resemblance as the moral-theological-determinant: God-to-humans-via-Incarnation (Phil 2:7) = salvific; humans-to-God-via-idol-making (Rom 1:23) = idolatrous.

Notable verses

NT (the full 6-occurrence corpus)

Romans 1:23, homoiōmati eikonos phthartou anthrōpou, "an image in the form of corruptible man" (idolatry-judgment context)
Romans 5:14, epi tō homoiōmati tēs parabaseōs Adam, "in the likeness of the offense of Adam" (Adam-Christ typology)
Romans 6:5, sumphytoi gegonamen tō homoiōmati tou thanatou autou, "united with Him in the likeness of His death" (baptismal union)
Romans 8:3, en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias, "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Incarnation; Christ-as-sin-offering)
Philippians 2:7, en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos, "being made in the likeness of men" (kenosis-hymn)
Revelation 9:7, ta homoiōmata tōn akridōn, "the likenesses of locusts" (fifth-trumpet apocalyptic vision)

OT (LXX usage of homoiōma for Hebrew demuth / tselem / temunah)

Genesis 1:26, LXX kat' eikona hēmeteran kai kath' homoiōsin (the active-noun form G3669, paralleled by Hebrew demuth); cf. Genesis 1.26
Deuteronomy 4:15-18, LXX uses homoiōma for the prohibited likeness-fashioning of idolatry
Ezekiel 1:5, 10, 13, 16, 22, 26, 28, LXX uses homoiōma extensively in Ezekiel's throne-vision (the demuth-saturated Ezek 1 chapter); cf. the Pauline-Apocalyptic visionary-register parallel
Psalm 17:15 (LXX 16:15), en tō ophthēnai tēn doxan sou, adjacent likeness-vision language
Isaiah 40:18-20, tini hōmoiōsate Kyrion ("to whom will you liken the Lord?"), the prophetic idolatry-polemic anchor; uses homoioō + eikōn

Patristic note

Irenaeus Adversus Haereses V.16.2 (c. 180), develops the imago / similitudo distinction (image given at creation; likeness lost at the Fall and restored in Christ); the Latin similitudo renders the Greek homoiōma/homoiōsis tradition. Irenaeus's framework remained influential in Eastern theology (Athanasius; the Cappadocians; the Eastern Orthodox tradition's theosis-doctrine).
Athanasius De Incarnatione 13-14 (c. 318), engages Phil 2:7's homoiōma in the context of the Word's assumption of human nature without loss of divinity; the homoiōma construction is the lexical-grammatical-precision-tool that allows Athanasius to articulate the two natures without using yet-developed Chalcedonian terminology.
Cyril of Alexandria On the Unity of Christ (c. 437), extensive engagement of Phil 2:7 + Rom 8:3 homoiōma against Nestorius's two-Persons reading. Cyril's defense of the one-hypostasis doctrine via Pauline-homoiōma lexicon is the proximate-patristic anchor of the Council of Ephesus 431 + Council of Chalcedon 451.
Augustine De Trinitate (c. 400-419), engages the imago / similitudo (Latin for eikōn / homoiōma) distinction in Trinitarian-anthropological context.
Aquinas ST I, q. 35 (image-and-likeness); ST III, qq. 2-15 (the Incarnation), systematic-medieval treatment.
Reformation, Luther + Calvin retain the imago / homoiōma distinction in modified form; the Reformed tradition tends to collapse image and likeness as functionally-equivalent terms (against the Irenaean image-given / likeness-lost-and-restored distinction).

Modern engagement

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 §15 (1938), the locus classicus of modern engagement with Rom 8:3's en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias; Barth's reading frames the Incarnation as the Yes-of-God-in-the-Son-assuming-flesh + No-of-God-against-sin-in-that-assumed-flesh; the homoiōma construction is the grammatical anchor of the yes-and-no simultaneity.
N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (Fortress 1991) ch. 4, engages Rom 5:14's homoiōma in Adam-Christ typology.
Markus Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians (BNTC 1997 / 2nd ed. 2006), engages Phil 2:7 homoiōma in kenosis-hymn context.
Douglas Moo, Romans (NICNT 2018, 2nd ed.), engages all four Pauline-Romans uses with comprehensive commentary.
Daniel Bell, Just War as Christian Discipleship (Brazos 2009), engages Rom 6:5 homoiōma baptismal-union in the ethics-of-discipleship context (cf. Just War Theory).