Visible Man Expressing the Invisible God

The Bible tells us that man was made in the image of God to contain and express God. God is invisible but He made a visible man with the purpose that man might contain Him and express all that He is in His divine attributes such as love and righteousness, which are two of the many attributes of the invisible God. Even though man was made in the image of God, he still needs God as his life in order to express God. Man to God is like a glove to a hand. Man, the glove, is made in the image of God, the hand. Yet man the glove does not have God the hand inside him. A glove has a thumb and four fingers; it is shaped like a hand, yet it is not a hand. The hand needs to be inserted into the glove to make the glove full and meaningful. Without the hand, the glove is a meaningless waste. One "finger" of God is love. Another "finger" of God is righteousness. Man was created with the shape of those "fingers" yet without the reality of the "fingers"--God Himself.

Man's Love Compared to God's Love

The situation of man today is absolutely different from the original intention of God for man. Man may love, but man's love is selfish and short-lived. Man's love is neither all-inclusive nor eternally lasting. Man only loves the ones whom he prefers, the ones dear to him. Even his love to these ones fluctuates. A man may love a woman and marry her, yet dislike or hate her after they are married because of something that she does.

God's love is not like that. God's love is impartial and eternal. God's love is eternal because God is love and God is eternal. He cannot stop loving man. God loved man even after man had sinned against Him and had become His enemy. Although man was destined to die eternally, God still loved man to the uttermost. In order to rescue man from death back to Himself so that man may express Him, He even became a man--Jesus--to die for man. His love for man caused Him to enter into man to live in man so that He could be one with man eternally. His love is ultimate and perfect. His love is all-inclusive and eternal.

Man's Righteousness Compared to God's Righteousness

Man also has a problem with righteousness. Without God, it is impossible for man to be righteous. Firstly, man is not right with God. Man does not know his Creator and does not care for Him. Man even became His enemy. Secondly, man is not right with others. Some rob, some steal, some lie, and some kill. Even some congressmen, judges and policemen break the law that they legislate or are supposed to uphold. Where is righteousness? Some employees use company property such as the telephone, office supplies, copy machines, and computers for personal use. Some evade taxes. Some borrow things and never return them. Man without God is full of unrighteousness.

God is righteous to the uttermost. He is righteousness. He cannot be unrighteous with Himself or with others. His kingdom is established on righteousness. He does not practice nepotism. Even though He loved man, He still had to condemn man for man's unrighteousness, based on His righteousness. But He Himself paid the price for man--the death penalty--so that He could forgive man. He came and died for man to satisfy His righteousness so that man would not have to die but could take Him in as life and live in Him. He is truly the loving and righteous One.

Man Trying to Be Like God

Because man was created in the image of God, man has the desire to be like God. But when man tries to love and be righteous, he cannot do it. Man is weak in loving and acting righteously but strong in hating and acting unrighteously because man has a sinful nature in him and lacks the life of God. It is not possible for man to love and be righteous unless he receives God into him. When God lives inside of man, man can love and be as righteous as God.

The Mosaic Law was a Picture of God

God decreed the law through Moses 3,500 years ago. When the people of God heard the law, they told Moses that they would do whatever God said. Soon after that, they completely failed with respect to the requirement of the law. The reason that they all failed is that the law is a picture of God and a description of God's nature and actions. Fallen man could never fulfill the law. Only God can fulfill the law. When God lives, the law is fulfilled.

Man continued to fail until Jesus Christ came. Jesus, as a man, was the embodiment of God. He was more than able to fulfill the law. He was the only man that ever lived who could do that. He even uplifted the law from merely restricting outward acts to regulating inward feelings. For example, the law forbade adultery. But Jesus said that even to lust after a woman in one's heart is to commit adultery. As another example, the law commanded people not to murder. But Jesus said that even to hate another person in one's heart is to commit murder. No man of flesh can fulfill this law, no matter how much he determines and tries. What everyone needs is the life of God. Jesus not only taught the higher law, but He was also able to fulfill the law with ease. He is ready to do it again within everyone who believes into Him, receives Him as life, and lives according to the Spirit of God who dwells in all believers. What is impossible for fallen man is possible with God.

How to Fulfill the Meaning of Our Human Existence

What you and I need is to receive this God into us. When we contain and express Him, we are fulfilling the meaning of our existence. Without receiving Him into us, we cannot express God in His love and righteousness; we are meaningless and are a senseless contradiction on this earth. Our existence becomes a waste. Today, God's name is Jesus, because God became a man named Jesus two thousand years ago. He died and rose for us. He is now the Spirit. When we call on His name, God comes into us as the Spirit. He will fill our being with Himself so that we may express all that He is. We will fulfill the purpose of our existence.

Pray, "Lord Jesus, come into me to be my life. I need You to live inside of me so that I may fulfill Your purpose in creating me. I want to express You. I do not want to be a senseless contradiction any longer. Thank You, Lord, for dying for me and coming into me."

Bible Verses for Your Reading:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over all the earth.

2 Timothy 3:2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.

Matthew 5:46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Jeremiah 31:3 Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 But God commends His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:10 For if we, being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more we will be saved in His life.

John 14:23 If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

Romans 1:21 Because though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or thank Him, but rather became vain in their reasonings, and their heart, lacking understanding, was darkened.

Romans 6:13 Neither present your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as weapons of righteousness to God.

1 John 2:29 He is righteous.

Revelation 5:9 You were slain and have purchased for God by Your blood men out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Ephesians 1:7 In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses.

Hebrews 9:22 Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life.

Romans 8:3 For that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.

Romans 7:17 Now then it is no longer I that work it out, but sin that dwells in me.

Romans 7:19 For I do not do the good which I will; but the evil which I do not will, this I practice.

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.

Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Matthew 5:28 Every one who looks at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:22 Every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment.

Matthew 5:17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

Romans 8:4 That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

Luke 18:27 The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.

2 Corinthians 3:17 And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

John 20:22 And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Romans 10:12-13 For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him; Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.