I Will Be Like The Most High

Photo by Gavin Bell
How often we Christians aspire to be like Jesus. We want to become exactly like Him, to be holy and merciful and just and righteous and loving. What a wonderful aspiration! Or is it?

There was another who also had this desire. He was simply the most beautiful and powerful creature that God had made. He was called "Day Star" and "Son of Dawn". That is, until unrighteousness was found in him. And what was that unrighteousness? Why, it was nothing more, nor was it anything less, than this – that he aspired to make himself "like the Most High."

Herein is contained the whole of our own fall, and the terrible condition of mankind. For, just as Lucifer fell because he desired to make himself like the Most High, so in human thought and deed, whether in religion, science, sociology or philosophy – whether in philanthropy, charity, or building a global community – men are trying to be like The Most High God. It was sin in Satan and it is sin in us. And the result is the same. We cannot make ourselves "like" the Most High. We cannot make anything!

But it is not just the pagan unbeliever who misses the mark with this error. There are millions who count themselves as believers who are likewise deceived. In such "believers" it is sometimes called "walking according to the flesh". In some it is a sin unto death while in others it is removed by the grace of God. Those who were both called and chosen endure, and are brought to completion through the obedience of faith. Those who are only called, of which there are many, will ultimately perish because of their unbelief.

But Christians may wonder how we may be like Him, if we may not aspire to that end. What is our hope and our goal if it is not to be like Christ? Doesn’t the Bible itself tell us that "one day we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is"? Indeed it does.

So how may a person hope to be like Christ without striving to be like Him? There is no real contradiction. The solution lies in the attitude of the heart. Lucifer said to himself, "I will be like the Most High", when none can be like Him, for He is eternal, infinite and utterly unique. There is none like Him and, since He changes not – there will never be any like Him. He is the Uncreated One.

We are not to grasp at being like Him. Jesus did not. He was the One "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." This is the same mind that we are to take on. A mind we are not to emulate, but to receive.

It bears repeating that the mind of Christ is not something we decide to copy, but something we are given freely. We receive it – we do not bring ourselves "up" to the level of it. The sheer enormity of this gift is what stops many from being able to see it. If we grasp at the mind and character of God we cannot receive it. If we work for it, we cannot receive it. If we strive to be "like" God, we cannot attain it.

Lucifer’s act was an act of his grasping will. "I will be like the Most High…" But ours is to be entirely the opposite. It is to be a submitted will, which receives everything from God alone. And when God produces in us this attitude it is then that we discover that we are like Him, because He gives Himself to us – He clothes Himself in our personhood and shines His nature, power and glory through us.

Like Christ, we do not grasp these characteristics of the Living God in order to own or possess them. Christ Himself was invisible in the sense that He sought only the Father’s will and glory. To see Christ is to see the Father. That was Their common desire - that the Other be seen. Likewise, we become vehicles and vessels of the very God whose character we could never have received if, like Lucifer, we coveted it with any part of our own being. Our desire is not to be seen as like Him, but that He be seen in our place .

Let us not say that we will be like the Most High, but that we shall be made like Him, and that only because we shall see Him as He is. It is a matter of "reflection". He polishes our inner being to a perfect mirror so that His reflection shines in us so brightly that it seems to be we who shine. But we know Who it really is, and we shall spend eternity praising Him for it.