Created in his image

In Genesis we are told that God created mankind in his own image.

In the New Testament we told that Jesus is the image of of the invisible God.

I have never really put these two concepts together, except maybe in that Jesus is a particularly fine example of a man in the image of God.

What I have now started thinking, is that that if we are created in his image, and Jesus is that image, then there is some logic to say that we are created in Jesus .

The New Testament also says that 'If any man is in Christ he is a new creation'. So this again links the idea of creation with the idea of being in Jesus.

What implications does this thinking have? Does the Genesis story tell of the creation of a spiritual mankind, as distinct from unspiritual mankind created as an animal on the previous 'day' of creation? Are there two kinds of human, one spiritual and the other unspiritual? Did God take an unspiritual man and breath His Spirit into his nostrils to make him a spiritual man in the image of God? How then does he relate to Jesus the second Adam, take 2 in the project to make man in God's image? And are both races of men, spiritual and unspiritual, eligible to join the new creation? Or is it only spiritual (albeit marred) descendants of the spiritual man that can join while the descendants of the other race have no spirit and hence no ability to relate to God and no eternal soul to consider the destiny of? Were the races mixed in that weird verse from Genesis "The sons of God saw that the daughter's of men were fair and married them"? (or was that the mixing of the righteous sons of Seth and the unrighteous sons of Cain?)

Anyway, I like the idea that I was created 'In Christ', and so was 'In Christ' on the cross, not that I died for anyone but that I died to my sins in him on that day. And so I will also be 'In Christ' on the final day of his Glorification.