One of my theology teacher's favorite things to say is "the glory of God is man fully alive". This is a question that he loves to ask us. It really makes us think. He asks all of us what we think it means and we all have different answers. We sometimes spend entire classes answering questions that my teacher, Mr. Cole, asks us that relate to the ultimate question: "What does it mean to say that 'the glory of God is man fully alive'?" He has now asked us to put our opinion on the answer to the question down on paper for our final blog post. So, What DOES it mean to say that the glory of God is man fully alive? I am about to tell you what it means to me.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."
"Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."
I used these two quotes because I wanted to express how, even from the beginning, humans were special to God. He created us and gave us dominion over the other plants and animals of the earth. He told us "be fruitful and multiply," because he wanted Adam and Eve to fill the earth with his greatest creation. He even said that humans were "very good", not just "good" like the rest of his creations had been. God wants us to give glory to him by living a Christ-like life and being good stewards of the earth. We have to live the way that God intended for us in order to give him glory and praise.
God created man in the image and likeness of Him which means that we have free will, capacity to love, and intellect. Because we have these things, each person makes his/her own decisions with what they do in life and they want to live their life. One of the consequences of this free will is that sometimes we make the wrong decision and make mistakes. With this being said, we all have something in common. We have to find our vocation or calling. Everyone's vocation is different but we are all called to give glory to God through whatever our vocation is. So, in a sense, we all have the same vocation, there are just different paths that we take to satisfy the ultimate calling - to give glory to God. Through this intellect, free will, and capacity to love, we are able to live to our full potential and be fully alive in God if we choose. We learn new things everyday about our calling, but we must remember the ultimate calling is to be with God in heaven, so we must live our lives fully alive in Christ, trying to give him praise with everything that we do. For me, this is what it means to say "the glory of God is man fully alive."
