A Lot Like God

You are a lot like God.

I say this indiscriminately, regardless of who you are, or how you stumbled onto my little website. 

You could be a thief, a liar, a pervert, a glutton, a murderer. But above all those you are godlike. Don't just take my word for it. Check out what the Bible has to say.

God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female. (Gen 1:27, The Message)

God made people to be like him. To be his co-rulers over the rest of the creation. He made them godlike. He made you godlike.

In fact, this concept, imago Dei is repeated throughout Scripture. Although people sinned and fell short of God's glory, there is still a lot of glory in people. The Psalmist expresses how man is "a little lower than the angels" and "crowned... with glory and honor." (Psalm 8:5) James reminds us of the worth of our fellow man made "in God's likeness" (3:9). Jesus even called all people gods, quoting Psalm 82.

The Bible tells me that every human is glorious. Every human being is valuable for their own sake. Every life is precious, even yours.

Stated another way. You are not an animal. You have more in common with the Sovereign of the universe than you do with a gorilla. Our own language acknowledges this. The opposite of natural is man-made. No one calls a beaver's dam unnatural. But the Hoover Dam is not natural, it is man-made. People are more than just natural beings.

Our godlikeness is evident in our many ways. You don't even have to acknowledge God to be godlike. You are godlike when you create things, because you were created in the image of a Creator. You are godlike when you love. Animals are incapable of love, but you and I were made in the image of God who is love. It is also evident in restraint. When you forsake your fleshly desire to sex, food, or comfort, you prove your godlikeness. Like the One who has absolute control over nature, you control the nature within. 

But, the doctrine of imago Dei is incomplete without the doctrine of the fall. If we are made like God, then why are we so screwed up?  Did God do a bad job making us like him, or is He just not so good to begin with? The fall gives us a third option. The fall explains how in spite of our perfect origin, we choose to fall short of this divine mandate. We sin and give up our glory. We screw ourselves up.

But if you follow Jesus, like me, you get something more. You get recreated. You "have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." (Col 3:10 NIV). In following Jesus we realize the full potential of our God image, our godlikeness. We get renewed so we can better bear that image.

The fall is real. Evil, sin, death, all real. But we as image bearers can reverse the tide. We have a commission of the One in whose image we were created in to restore good to the world. We get to join Him in the work of restoration. When we do, we get to show that we are indeed a lot like God.