Page:The Parable of Creation.djvu/141

Rh on earth of the human race. It has reference to the rebirth of man into the image and likeness of God. It is not said, simply, "Let us make man," but it is said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Nor, repeating the phrase, does it simply say, "So God created man," but it says, "So God created man in his own image." The entire reference is, in its parable meaning, not to God's creating a physical man, but to his forming him into a likeness of Himself.

We have seen that, strictly speaking, God is the only man. We become men, not by rising to his level—we cannot do that but by receiving his light and love so perfectly and fully, that the self-life is removed from our consciousness and its activities. By the self-life, however, as a term thus used, is to be understood, not our individuality, nor the distinctive recognition of our free agency as rational beings, nor the necessity of self protection, support and effort, but life for the sake of self.

Before we are regenerated, we are not men; we are only in the semblance and shape of men. We are not in the human form, but full of animal propensities, which, if extraneous pressure were removed, would level us to an equality with the brutes. We become men only as we advance into the likeness of God; in other words, only as we become inwardly like Him. So long as we are still only working up