If your toddler started spouting theories of cosmogony (the origin of the universe), abiogenesis (the natural process of life arising from non-living matter), and quantum mechanics (Greek to anyone without a PhD in physics), then he looked at you and–in a collegiate vocabulary–boldly stated that he wasn’t really your offspring, that he was actually hatched from an egg whose shell he could readily produce, how do you think you might respond?
If he further stated that the house your family lived in wasn’t actually yours despite what you said, that all the food that appeared in your frig and the cupboards appeared there via leprechauns who stole into the house when he slept, and that the clothing on his back was actually spun and weaved by an elf in the attic where he heard its creaking each night, how do you think you might react?
As a parent, you would listen, nod your head in indulgent, if stupefied, amazement, then you’d try to explain the truth to him.
Well, you’d probably first rush him to either the nearest church to have an exorcism performed or to the nearest hospital to get his head examined, then you’d explain the truth to him.
But what if refused to listen to you? What if it didn’t matter if you showed him his paternity test? What if he didn’t care if you showed him a photo of him resting on his mother’s breast straight from the womb or if the deed, title, and mortgage statements for the house you produced didn’t matter one iota? What if he scoffed at the last two years’ worth of grocery and clothing receipts from Target as pure fiction?
What would you do with a stubborn child that refused to believe the evidence all around him?
The absurdity of this example is not lost on us. But is the analogy?
Even at two-years-old, humans show evidence of a desire to be like God. We don’t do it with words like cosmogony or abiogenesis. We do it with words like “no” and “I want”. We try to tell our parents (the temporary gods of our limited universe) who is boss. Unfortunately, many of us never outgrow this phase. Sure, we grow up into wearing big-boy underwear and driving big-boy cars, but we never outgrow trying to tell our heavenly Father who’s in control.
Only we weren’t there when God created the universe.
We weren’t there when He fashioned the delicate intricacies of our planet.
We weren’t there when He weaved together the first human body and then breathed life into it.
On the other hand, Jesus was.
And Jesus was just the opposite of us. He wanted to be a man. He was God—part of that mysterious trinity that we won’t completely understand until we can ask him about it face to face—but he humbled himself and became a man. Even though he had the ability to use his omniscience and omnipotence while he was on this earth, he purposefully limited himself.
Why in the universe would God the Son want to become a man?
So He could show us how to faithfully submit to a loving Father. Jesus who could have grasped equality with God, chose not to.*
Too many of us are still two-year-olds with degrees, self-importantly spouting $10 words and telling God we know better than Him.
How quaint. How sad. How absurd.
*Philippians 2:6-7