God and man

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What Sets us Apart

When the first chapters of the Bible tell us the creation story, God creates the light, the earth and sky and water. Then He makes life, plant life, sea life, birds, and land-creatures.

Then God does something new and He introduces it with a little speech. He says, “Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness.”

This is how we start out. This is our début on the stage of existence. 

Now every artist puts something of himself into His artwork. Every piece of art tells you something about the artist. And when God created the world he left traces, imprints of Himself, in everything He makes. But only the human person is made in the “image and likeness of God.”

So what does that image and likeness mean?

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What does the Bible mean by Image and Likeness?

The easiest way to understand what it means to be in God’s image and likeness is just to look at how that phrase is used in a different part of Genesis.

Genesis chapter 5 tells us that “Adam became the father of a son, in his own image and in his own likeness, and he named him Seth”

There it is again, the phrase “image and likeness”. And what relationship does it refer to? It refers to the relationship between Adam and Seth, namely, the relationship of parent and child. Seth is in Adam’s image and likeness, because Seth is Adam’s child.

But that means, if God made us to be in His image and likeness, that we must be made to be His children.

That’s what makes us different from all the other material things God made. We are to be God’s children.

But really, how can we be God’s children? Seth can be Adam’s son because they have the same nature. But God and humans have a different nature. So how can we really be His children?

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How do you have adoption across different natures?

We use the word “adoption” way too loosely. We talk about children, and then we go on to talk about adopting dogs or adopting a different point of view. Or even “adopting a highway.” But the truth is, you can’t adopt a highway.

You can’t introduce a highway as one of your kids. You can’t say, “We have four kids: two girls, a boy, and a highway.” That would obviously be a joke

Why? Because to have a real adoption the adoptive parents and child must share a common nature, human nature.

To really have a cat or a highway be one of your children, you’d have to give it human nature. You’d have to magically give it intelligence and freedom and the capacity to appreciate beauty and experience love. We can’t do that with pets or interstates.

We can’t make something beneath us participate in our nature. But God can do so with us.

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Genesis 2

Genesis One tells us we were made in God’s image and likeness.

Genesis 2:7 says that God “formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

The Hebrew word for breath is “ruah” which means the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

At the very beginning God gave us two gifts: He gave us human life and then He gave us the gift of His own divine life by breathing into us His Holy Spirit. And there we have it. This is how God adopts us as His children, even though our very nature is infinitely inferior to His. He gives us a share in His divine life by giving us His Holy Spirit.

In Galatians 4:6 Paul tells us, “The proof that you are sons, is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, 'Abba, Father.”

What makes us sons and daughters of God is possessing the gift of the Holy Spirit.  This is what God gave us at the very beginning. This is what we lost by original sin. And this is what Jesus brings back to us.

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So what should our resolution be from this meditation?

The most important thing in life is to be totally filled, totally flooded by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus insisted on this. He said: “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened to him…If you then, who are evil, know how to give your children what is good, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

We are tempted to want so many things more than God or instead of God.

Let’s make this our resolution: Ask the Father for an increase of the Holy Spirit. And when you find yourself being overwhelmed by some temptation or in the process of committing to sin, stop and start begging the Father for the Holy Spirit. Because our Good Father in Heaven will give to those who ask!