the face of all the earth

I haven't gone into specific detail about the falseness contained in the evil read I mentioned in yesterday's post. A simple google search for the book, or a read-through of the 1-star reviews on Amazon will give you a thorough listing of errors. But one of the issues is the incarnation of God the Father as a woman.

Now later in the book, this false incarnation claims that "For me to appear to you as a woman and suggest that you call me Papa is simply to mix metaphors, to help you keep from falling so easily back into your religious conditioning." (pg 93) Oh, I see. Apparently this false teaching is under the guise of challenging you to think outside of the box in regards to your faith. All for that, but you can do that in other ways than a false portrayal of the Father. It's bad enough there are denominations who replace "Father" with "Creator" in their liturgy and translations (going so far as to revise the Doxology, for crying out loud, which in my mind should be a capital offense). I'll devote a future posting to the importance of the Fatherhood to the faith.

What I want to respond to today is a conversation I had with the wondrous one. In Gen1:27, the Word says that man and woman were created in the image of God. If God is the Father, how is woman made in His image?

* The image we're made in is not the physical likeness of God. God can appear however He chooses. He appears as a burning bush. He appears as a column of flame. He appears as various angelic beings throughout the OT. One of the wonderful things we have to look forward to in eternity is seeing the true image of God.
* We're made in his holy likeness. In Col3:10 and Eph4:24, Paul talks about our renewed likeness and image in Christ. In both of those instances, he's talking about our sanctification and growth in personal holiness.

We may want to picture God with friendly eyes and a beaming smile, like Santa. We may want to picture him as blue-eyed and handsome, the picture of Aryan perfection. We may want to picture Him as muscled and buff, the ideal of strength. All of these imaginations border on idolatry -- which is making God into the likenesses of our choosing. The focus on what we see in God is not His form, but His nature. Trying to read too much beyond that will lead us nowhere.