About Me

My photo
I am a born-again Christian, who is Reformed, but also charismatic, spiritually speaking. (I do not speak in tongues, but I believe glossalalia is a bona fide gift not given to all, and not as great as prophecy, for example.) I have several years of college education but only completed a two-year degree. I was raised Lutheran and confirmed, but I didn't "find Christ" until I was in the Army and responded to a Billy Graham crusade in 1973. I was mentored or discipled by the Navigators in the army and upon discharge joined several evangelical, Bible-teaching churches. I was baptized as an infant, but believe in believer baptism, of which I was a partaker after my conversion experience. I believe in the "5 Onlys" of the reformation: sola fide (faith alone); sola Scriptura (Scripture alone); soli Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), and soli Deo gloria (to God alone be the glory). I affirm TULIP as defended in the Reformation.. I affirm most of The Westminster Confession of Faith, especially pertaining to Providence.

Saturday, November 14, 2020

What Makes Us Different From Animals

 “There’s something about the way God is that man is.” Though we are in God’s image, we are limited and God is infinite and cannot be limited or described adequately. But man is a creature, God the Creator. Deity in the Bible refers to having divine nature and of being holy, which man isn’t. Man is not divine but can become godly. Man will be glorified in heaven, if save, but not deified. The Deity refers to the person of God in His attributes or essence: God is infinite and man is finite and cannot grasp Him.

Man has always sought to make a name for himself and to dethrone God and deify himself, but this is in vain. Humanists since Protagoras have said that man is the measure of all things (Homo mensura). Man has rights only because they are conferred by God. If one posits man as a mere animal, then when did hominids acquire rights?

There is but one God according to the Bible and one Mediator between God and man, the God-man Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God and equal to Him. Sometimes we refer to the Being of God as the Deity, meaning the whole Godhead or three in one—the Trinity. All the fullness of the Deity dwells in Christ, who is God with skin on.

Man is unique in being created in the image of God and able to fellowship and communicate with Him or to relate and connect with Him. remember, it is because of our image in God that we have human rights, meaning, purpose, and dignity. We are moral, conscientious, rational, intuitive, passionate, self-conscious or sentient beings, but not gods or Gods. We are mortal and God is immortal and eternal. There is much to contrast: We had a beginning at birth, God had no beginning, being eternal and uncaused, for He’s not the effect of anything or anyone. Being without beginning necessitates being without cause and not being the effect of something or someone.

We cannot or could not know God except by revelation; God chose to reveal Himself to us in the person of Christ, the Son of God, co-equal, co-eternal, and co-divine with the Father. The finite cannot contain the infinite, the adage says. We cannot know God exhaustively, but only truly. We cannot fully describe God to fit in our boxes, but we can know Him and have a relationship with Him


Soli Deo Gloria!

Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)