The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its source.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
~ Genesis 1:26-27
We are like Him. We think and breath and feel and hurt and rejoice. Surely, it is but a shadow. But just like a child looks like his dad… the dad looks like his kid.
The implications are profound.
They give us insight into why G_d Himself became a man, through the Person of Jesus Christ. Something in us tells us we belong to Him; and in just the same way, we belong with Him. And Something else assures us that He belongs to us – and belongs with us.
Along with all of this is an even more profound freedom. We can, somehow, actually choose our eternal destiny. We can reject oneness with the One who started all of this, or we can kiss the Son in spite of our fallen desire to never do it.
We can choose to live alone. We can choose to hurt alone. We can choose to keep ourselves at the center of our own universe – and believe whatever we want to believe. This is indeed part of our G_d-likeness. To be fully human is to be like G_d, and to be like G_d is to be free to choose.
There is an aspect we miss, though, when we try to make our own selves out to be our own god. We were made in His image. And His image is saturated in relationship and communion. To be like G_d is to love and desire communion with G_d. This relationship is wrapped up in the mystery of the Trinity. He, Him, Them, They, One, Three have ever been in eternal communion with each other. It is a place and space of infinitely full Joy and Strength. It is a closeness that defies the description of language.
So, yeah, we can try to be our own god. But, we will be all by ourselves in the trying. And in attempting this, we will fail. For, operating alone, is simply un-G_d-like. To be our own god, is by definition, to fall short of who G_d really is.
And we will simply end up alone forever.
Can we see it? This is exceedingly simple. To be like G_d is to desire fellowship with Him along the lines of how He already does fellowship: in intimate relationship and unity. There is no other way to be truly like Him. There is no other way to adequately bear His image.
