“And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.”―Gen. 1:26, 27
APART from revelation, God must ever remain the Unknowable. It is true that in nature we see marvelous evidences of His power and wisdom, but it is only in the Son that He is told out in all His fullness (John 1:18). Jesus came to reveal the Father, for He alone knew Him in the reality of His Being (Matt. 11:27; Luke 10:22), He and the Father are one in nature though distinct in person (John 14:9). In the Old Testament God is revealed as Creator. As such He is the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9) because He is the God of the spirits of all flesh (Num. 16:22). So man, as created originally in the image and likeness of God, was a son of God (Luke 3:38). But that image was marred and the likeness lost through sin, so that now it is by regeneration, a new creation, or new birth, that man becomes a member of the family of God and can look up into His face and call Him Father (Gal. 3:26; 4:6).
“Rivers to the ocean run,
Nor stop in all their course;
Fire ascending seeks the sun,
Both speed them to their source;
So my soul, derived from God,
Pants to view His glorious face;
Forward tends to His abode,
To rest in His embrace.”