God Did Not Make Me This Way

In this post, I must pick up the thread from the previous. 

• There I learned that I am inclined by nature to hate God (cf. Romans 8:7) and my neighbor (cf. Titus 3:3). 
• This hatred of God means that I am not able to fulfill God’s law. 
• God will not accept a loveless obedience. 
• God wants service from the heart. 
• Thus love lies at the root of every commandment, and love is also the fulfillment of the law (cf. Romans 13:10). 
• Christ said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). 
• However, I have an overpowering tendency to hate God and to disobey Him.

Did God create me so willfully disobedient and stubborn? 

• I ask this because I try to escape the guilt that this evil nature brings upon me. 
• If I answer “Yes, God made me this way!” then the guilt is not ours, but God’s. 
• Yet the Bible immediately upholds God’s innocence and holiness. 
• It is not God’s fault. 
• He created me good, in righteousness and holiness. 

When God created man, man enjoyed a right relationship with God. 

• Man was innocent, without any spot or blemish due to sin. 
• Man was created good. 
• Man could conform his will to God’s will. 
• Man could do what God demanded.

Scripture says that God created me in His own image. 

• An image is a likeness or a reflection of something or someone. 
• I reflect the likeness of God. 
• That I bear God’s image does not mean that I look like God as far as appearance is concerned.
• Rather, it means that I resemble God insofar as I reflect qualities that God possesses in perfection.

I have been given a mind that enables me to reason. 

• I have been given a heart by which I am able to love. 
• I have been created with a sense of justice, of knowing what is good and right. 
• These are qualities that are found in God. 
• In this sense, I resemble God. 

There is a second element to me as the image-bearer of God, and that is the element of office. 

• Just as a man might receive an office as elder, deacon or minister in the church, 
• so I received from God the office of being God’s image bearer. 
• In this office I am called to reflect God’s image on earth. 
• I am given the exalted position of ruling this creation on God’s behalf. 
• I am to represent God by using his God-like qualities.

Adapted Excerpt From Only By True Faith by A. Van Delden