Bulletin
The Likeness of God
The Likeness of God
“Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.” (Genesis 1:11). Apple trees created with apple seeds “in them”. Animals, birds and creeping things in the same way can reproduce after it’s “kind”. (The Hebrew word for “kind” is a much broader word than species.) Ten times in chapter one, the word “kind” is used until we come to the creation of man. We might expect that the next thing said would be something like, “let us now create man after our kind”. But that is not what is said. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” (Gen. 1:26).
We are to made in God’s likeness, and it is man’s purpose to stay in God’s likeness. Each child that is born is born with the image and likeness of God. “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” (Gen. 5:3). So after the fall of man in Genesis chapter three, children were born sinless and pure.. Jesus said one time, “You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?” (Luke 11:40). It is hard to wrap our minds around the idea that God made my inside, my spirit, as well as my human body.
The Pharisees, like all of us, sinned on the inside too, thus falling short of God’s likeness. “The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.” (Luke 11:38-41). On the inside, they no longer were like God. God is the ideal goodness of love and light, not greed and wickedness. When Jesus came, he came with the Father’s full approval as the one who kept that likeness of God. Jesus calls upon us to be what God created us to be in the first place. Being born again of the water and the “spirit” (John 3:1-5). “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John” (Luke 7:30). What are you waiting for? Let us follow him whom God was well pleased. Dan Peters
- likeness_of_God.docx (9.28 kB)
