I believe the classic biblical understanding is that God the Creator became incarnate at a particular point in our history, and that when He did so, it was in human form. Not the form of angels or plants or animals. WRT time and space, and in view of the fact that Genesis denotes God as saying "Let us make man in our image" as the final act of creation prior to the seventh day, it is fairly certain that human attributes attend the Creator. "I AM THAT I AM" at least denotes person-hood, which in turn is largely what constitutes the human estate.
To iterate things a bit differently, it is awkward to suggest that God was entirely nonhuman at one point in time, and then changed in essence at the time He became incarnate. It is part of His essence as expressed from the beginning to become flesh and redeem His creation. Obviously it would be preposterous to understand from the biblical texts that a created human is responsible for designing and building the universe. But an uncreated being with human attributes? Not so far fetched.
Human attibutes?.. maybe those attibutes are spiritual.. and humans that are identified with that BODY, merely ape them.. Since humans are spirits in an earthly shell.. and Jesus assumed earthly form so as to NOT freak out the villagers.. and provide an object lesson for them to pattern/model by..
It seems to have worked in many cases but not all.. Some think that DNA'osaurs(the human body) with its bones and qualia, is NOT just a shell..
My two cents: the "image" does not refer to anything corporeal, in space/time, flesh or blood - nor does it refer to a simple soul (nephesh) as in animal life.
Rather it refers to the "neshama" - the breath of God - which made Adam a living soul. The English word for it is "spirit". Man is unlike all other living creations in that respect, and he is an image of God in that same respect because God is Spirit (John 4).