Thursday, January 06, 2005

HUH?!? Made In God's Image?!?!

The Bible says that we're created in the image of God, but I struggle with this concept. How are we made in God's image. There are many different ways that I have thought about that we could be made in His Image.

God is all powerful, all knowing, all good; and we as humans have none of these traits. Here is God infinate, and we as humans are on the other side of the spectrum. We cannot even begin to understand God's characteristics because we cannot view the world outside of our limits. I've tried it, I cannot imagine a line that never ends, I can theorize it but I cannot visualize it. I always in my head make an end to the line. It's because in my finiteness, everything that I know and understand has boundries.

Maybe it is in the way that God rules over the world. No, because God has absolute control. His will, will be done. There is no and if's or buts about it. God is soveriegn. Man does not control everything. Man tries to control what he can, but that power has limits, and it really isn't real control. Nature cares little about man, it moves how it wants to move, and nothing can stop it. Man cannot even control his fellow man completely. Only through cooersion and manipluation does man's power stand among other men. So man has some power, but just a concept compared to God's power.

God is emotional. Maybe this is going somewhere. But wait, God is never offbalance in his emotions. The root of all his emotions is Love. His love for man is the reason that he hates sin, because sin destroys man. But his emotions never get the best of God. God never has mood swings; he keeps an even keel. Man on the other hand has emotions, but nobody keeps them under control. So while God is emotional, man's emotions are raging out of control.

God knows everything, so this can't be the way that we're like God. But man does have the ability to comprehend somethings. But not near like God does, there is nothing that God does no know, man with man on the other hand, there are things that he does not know. Ok there are many things man does no know.

In all three of these ways that I have described I have begun to notice a pattern. While we are like God, in part, we are not completely like him, almost like he is the model, and we're minature pieces. But is there another way we're made like God? Is there a way that we humans are like God?

I think it's that we want relationships in which we can pour out our love and affection in. I believe that God created man to love and have a relationship with. Not to rule over like a dictator, but to be in communion with and share our lives with His life. I think that this is the reason that we as humans are always trying to find the perfect relationship to be in. We long to share our experiences with somebody else, and its as if when we find that intimacy, something clicks, it's almost like we feel complete.

God created the world, as a perfect paradise for Adam to live in, and I believe that He created Adam to commune with and to love. This to me helps me understand why the punishment for sin had to be death. Because if the relationship between Adam and God was the reason for creation, then sin destroys that relationship, SIN would be the ultimate act of adultry between man and God. Not only would it be the ultimate act of adultry, but sin would destroy the purpose for God's creation. Thus God took the sin problem seriously, and did everything that he had to do to solve it; even come to earth as a human and die the worst possible death.

So we were created in God's image. That makes me smile.

1 comment:

conibell said...

Really good thinking. Perhaps that is one more way we are like God - the ability to reason and choose our path. Unlike animals, we do not need to live at a base level, but are able to choose a higher path. Like Neo explains when he draws a line - the problem and answer is somewhere on a higher plane.