Theomorphic

How man has opportunities to be like God.

I wrote about the subject of ‘Anthropomorphic’ last June, addressing how we have a tendency to think God looks like man, and how that actually downgrades God into something less than He fully is.

Actually though, God calls himself “Father” which is an anthropomorphism. It helps us understand Him and know him when we can reflect on that image if we have a healthy idea of what a father is. Similarly, He is presented in the Bible as a King, but again, this is only helpful if we have experienced or at least read about a good king.

Lets look at a few things that are our ‘theomorphisms,’ or the ways we are a little like God, just to turn the mirror around. There are fathers on earth; that phenomenon of fatherhood exists here, because there is a Father in heaven. This is a further example of how we are created in the image of God. I believe we would not have the family structure of fathers and children and a marriage if there were not a Father, a Son, and a marriage in heaven, in the eternal place where God lives. What marriage among humans represents, in the ideal, is unbroken love forever, oneness, purity, fulfillment of a dream, and the realization of something hoped for. Heaven.

We have kings on earth because there is a King in heaven. We have color on earth because there are colors in heaven. We have flowers, butterflies, and music on earth only because they exist in heaven, and those who have visited heaven and come back to report, tell us that the colors, music and beauty of heaven is incomparably more stunning in the place where God dwells eternally.

There is creativity on earth because God is creative. There is the concept of order, and it is desirable to us on earth because there is order in heaven. There is love on earth because there is love in heaven, and again, it is incomparably greater and sweeter in heaven.

There is also the concept of ‘God’ on earth. It exists, but it often turns out to be portrayed as an idol or a tree or a river as fallen man gropes for the reality of God. Every society has a religion that revolves around their concept of God. There are no atheistic nations. A few individuals adopt this stance when they have never encountered the One about whom they are so frustrated, but no matter how frustrated people may be with the discrepancies of their religion, most will stick with it on some level just in the religious hope that there really is such a One, a loving father and king who can make all things right again.