Somehow in making us as dirty human reflections of Himself. God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit can reveal Himself to us from the whole of His being to our whole being. We are soul, spirit and body. We need the revelation of God to our whole being, we echolocate by looking to Him. So, God made images of Himself in human form, many of them, to reveal Who He is to us, and through us to the world. This Trinitarian God is limitless, all knowing and all powerful. How is He going to go about making Himself known to frail, dusty, limited creatures? Image and Imagebearer. We cannot be more unlike one another, yet built into our humanity is a mirroring, responsive, reflective ability to know God as we are known. As spiritual embodied beings we mirror who God is, we are made in His image and in the likeness of the Word of God. God in His wisdom made us not just spiritual like He is. We are not even like the angels; He gave us a whole new physical dimension too. We think that to really pursue God is to cease to be physical. Instead Biblical Christianity actually proposes the opposite of all other world religions. Every religion is trying to rid ourselves of something. God says our humanity from the start is not just good, but “very good”! Why do we believe otherwise?

The Trinity is One God, but rather than being static, God is expressed in three persons. They are in relationship with one another. There is no beginning and no end to that relating. It’s a movement, there is a Godly tension between each person of the trinity. Father, Spirit of Christ (Son) and Holy Spirit co-exist eternally. If we see God as simply one, then He is static, unchanging, a big ego sitting alone and untouched, wholly uninterested in making space for the “other”. Yet, if we see God as always One in purpose and yet three persons working in full harmony as one God, yet with distinct roles for each person of the Trinity right from the very start. We get to see very quickly, that God is communal, preferring and deferring to each member of the Trinity in turn. They have distinct roles, and move toward one another. Preferring one another, deferring to one another, loving one another and respecting one another. God does not come with a mask pretending to be the Father. Then in Jesus, puts a mask of the Son and finally in Holy Spirit wears another mask. Instead, the bible clearly shows that everything that they do together is in unity. One purpose, but with distinct roles. So, God is the same yesterday, today and forever and yet is also new every morning! Unity and diversity. All the gifts of the spirit are shown in their relating. Even before they created anything else they shared the gifts of the Spirit to one another.

There are a few things that occur in the mind of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit from before anything comes into existence in creation – God is envisioning all that He will do. This is how creativity works, we pre-visualise our plan of design. We imagine and pre-determine what we will do. This creativity is uniquely ours as image bearers. Even before we existed, the Image – God Himself, was thinking of us. Thinking of His plan. Working over His thoughts and purposes for everything that He will soon spring forth. God is active and purposeful in all that He does. Time and matter and space do not yet exist. Yet God is active and engaged. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are already envisioning the project and what they hope to achieve. Their plan is not in isolation, it will soon be a stage for all things to come and play a part. God is make everything from a word. At first, creation will be formless and void and then He will start to add order, and beauty and abundance (Skye Jethani). God will make everything that is not God – Physical and Spiritual, what we see and what we don’t see – and call all of it “good”. It will come from God but will not be a part of Him. From the start, it will be wonderful and fearfully made. God will also plan for contingencies as He is going to give all creatures purpose and will and autonomy. While having each aspect of His creation imbued with his attributes, This world did not come from turmoil or violence but from peace and order from the very start. 

God is limitless, He governs all living things, He is the beginning and the end of the story. He is untouchable and yet chooses vulnerability. While being extremely powerful, He embraces humility. He is transcendent and yet He wants to be intimately involved. We have this tension at work in every part of God. He wants us to mirror Him in the same way, to be responsible, as He is. To take ownership as He does, to create as He does… While God does all of this without limitation, He simply asks us to do it alongside Him with limitation. We are designed to work exactly as he does, but while He does it over the whole earth, planets, stars, galaxies and universe. We get to do it within our own small area of responsibility. Each imagebearer must be aware of His own sphere of influence and learn to rule and reign with God over all aspects within this small area. To work with his hands and glorify God through his labour, enjoying it, delighting in it. Knowing all the while that beyond his small area, God is sovereign of the whole. We know in part, but God knows in totality. This is hugely liberating. We get to work and make a difference within the little God has given us and as we are faithful with little, God will entrust us with more. Just as God works in Trinity, we are meant to work within team too. These groups will take the shape of our own family, town, community, business and nation. The first work was done as embodied imagebearers in gardening. In our work, we can simply ask, “What is my obedience today?” within my human responsibilities, while trusting God, with everything else beyond our limits.

Embracing our limitation within God’s great story is exactly what God envisions for us, to be like Him, but human. Like Him; spirit, but embodied. As Christians we can be working against God, not realising that He, in all of His wisdom, made us a certain way even before the fall. He wants to be the God of the Universe and He does not need our assistance in that. What He asks instead is that we would mirror Him with our lives. He made us creatures, He is uncreated. He made us creative, but within constraints, He is creative without constraint. As soon as we look at God, we think that our human life is holding us back. It seems God has made us this way to be a small mirror of what He already is. We are not to think that we need to be limitless, to rid ourselves of what makes us human and become divine. Essentially, He has said that how he made us is good… actually “very good”. Why do we go through life kicking against it and wishing we were other than human? Many of us long to get rid of this body, but actually, as we will see, we will always be human. We will not be anything other than human. New Creation is a new heaven and a new earth… We were created to be body, soul and spirit. We think for God to succeed, He would like to rid us of our humanity, as we do. Actually the opposite is true, He longs to be one of us. To join us in human life and all that it entails to show us, in Christ, a brand new way to be human!