Next to the fact that Genesis 1:26 declares that God created man in His image and likeness, these words from John10:34 in the Bible rank amongst the most startling statements on record in all of scripture.

What makes it even more startling is the audience Jesus addresses: The religious leaders of His day are so offended by Him that they are about to stone Him for blasphemy. How dare He, a mere son of man make Himself equal to God? Statements such as ‘I and the Father are one’ just did not go down well with the Pharisees! John 10:30-39. They would rather have Him classified mad and demon possessed, or better still, destroy and silence Him for ever. To these unenlightened religious fanatics Jesus quotes the prophet Asaph’s words: ‘I say you are gods; you are all sons of the Most High, but you know nothing and understand nothing, therefore you will die like mere men.’ (Psalm 82:5-7).

In spite of man’s darkened understanding, there must be something inherent in man that makes man the God-kind. Man is not a separate creation detached from God; he is the very image bearer of God, equal in likeness and spirit capacity. He is in fact a part of God Himself.

The scripture in Hebrews 2:6-12 is equally dynamic in content. Here even the translators of the text seem to be reluctant to identify man with God, they feel more comfortable with the word ‘angels.’

The eighth Psalm of David is quoted: ‘what is man, that You are mindful of him? What would attract You to the son of man that You would visit him? You made him a little lower than God’ says the original text, ‘Elohim’, (the translators prefer, ‘a little less than angels.’) ‘You crowned him with glory and honour. All things are placed under his control.’

We share in the substance and being of God; we are only limited in our understanding and perception. Yet the fall into sin plunged humanity into a place where instead of man ruling over the animal world, the animal nature rules in man.

Only when redemption-realities dawn in our understanding, the dominance of the inferior nature is broken.

In his Book, THE GOD-MEN, Dr John G Lake writes the following:

We have our physical body with its five sensory organs, and through these we are brought into contact with a certain range of activity that is purely physical. But that is not all there is to man. God desires an awakening of our understanding to realise that the man within is the real man. The spirit-man is the eternal undying man. It is the man whom God Himself cannot destroy, because God cannot destroy Himself. Man is of the very substance of God.

When man subjects that great God-man of the heart to the degradations of the desires of the outer fleshly man, how that inner man must groan. God never intended that the outer man of the flesh should be the governor of the great man of the spirit. Just as the outer man receives by impression, through contact, the things that occur about him, and as these are recorded in the soul, so the greater range of action of the spirit, through the spiritual senses, permits man to touch God Himself. He is able to touch the best things in the universe and bring them back in consciousness to the soul. The spirit man has a larger range of action than the physical man. Both the physical and the spiritual man record their facts in the soul consciousness.

The development of the inner man into the likeness and stature of Christ is the greatest element and purpose that can occupy our lives. The new force that takes hold of our heart is the consciousness that God has an eternal purpose in our life. A divine mission and purpose that will continue to unfold even beyond our life in the flesh.

I am a believer in the partnership of man and God. There is a fusing, a symphonising of God and man; the two become one. Not a saved man and a glorious God. But man fused into God and God fused into man, one divine creation. When Moses stood at the Red Sea, it was not Moses and God; it was just God. We say: ‘Lord make me a channel’ leaving ourselves separated from God in our thought and expecting God to pour His spiritual power and blessing through us. That is not the highest thing. There is a greater experience than that in God’s word: It is where you and God are one. Your whole body, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole heart, your whole spirit begins to move in the rhythm and fusion and symphony of the eternal God; one in heart, one in mind, you and God as one. Moses tried to back out of this relationship. God told him to shut up and stop praying and to get on with the job! ‘…You stretch out your hand over the sea and you divide it!’

God is not merely looking for a place of residence; he is looking for a right of action in the body and spirit of man. God expects that same love union that is brought to pass between your soul and His own to be extended so that you embrace in that union every other soul around you. In your home, in your office, wherever you are, you leave the impress of your thoughts there. Wherever you are you manifest His sweetness and evidence His power.

The ultimate note of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to reproduce and make every man, bound by sin and held by sensuousness and enslaved by the flesh, like Himself in deed and in truth, sons of God. Not sons of God in a lower order, but sons of God as Jesus was. The human being is the most marvellous and wonderful instrument in all of creation in its capacity to reveal God.

People have so been in the habit of putting Jesus in a class by Himself that they have failed to recognise that He has made provision for the same living Spirit of God that dwelt in His own life, and of which He Himself was a living manifestation, to inhabit your being and mind. You are just as necessary to God in His plan for the salvation of mankind as God is necessary to you. Without man God would have no medium through which He could express Himself to the world.

We have treated the precious Spirit of God as though He is a method of providing a means of spiritual entertainment. God’s purpose is far mightier than that. When Jesus was about to depart, He said, ‘the glory that the Father gave me I give unto you. The works that I have done, you will do also and greater works.’ Unless Jesus was the possessor of a divine secret, a secret that others did not understand, such words as these would be words of madness. But because Jesus understood the secret of the Father’s promise and purpose, He was able to make these marvellous statements.

John G. Lake was an American preacher, greatly used of God in South Africa and also in the United States in the early 1900′s.

What men of his generation had to say about John Graham Lake:
‘Dr Lake’s teaching will eventually be accepted by the entire world.’
Mahatma Ghandi, Hindu Nationalist leader.

‘His message has swept Africa. He has done more toward South Africa’s future peace than any man.’ Cecil John Rhodes the Empire Builder.

‘Dr John Lake’s healing ministry is one of the most remarkable the world has ever seen.’ Dr William T Gentry, author of Materia Medica, a work of 27 volumes found in almost every medical library.

‘The man reveals more of God than any other man in Africa’
Rev. Andrew Murray.

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This article is an extract from the book, God Believes in You, by Francois du Toit.