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There I was, in the pastor’s living room. With me was a group of college students, the pastor’s wife, and, via videotape, Dr. R.C. Sproul. I was teaching the college Sunday school class, and we had just watched my father masterfully explain a difficult theological concept. I turned off the VCR and opened the floor for discussion. I have no recollection of the first question or of what I had to say in reply. What I do remember is the pastor’s wife. She suddenly looked ashen. Worried for her, I quickly drew the class to a close. As the students filed out, I asked: “What’s the matter, Miss Anne? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “I’m fine,” she told me, “but I think I did just see a ghost. Watching you teach, your mannerisms, you looked just like your father.”
Truth be told, I cherished that observation. But it would have been better still had she noted a connection between my father’s erudition and mine. I wish the connection between how we use our minds was more obvious than the way we use our hands. But Miss Anne was, and is, far too wise to mistake my father’s wisdom for mine.
I love and revere my father, and in many ways aspire to be like him. But I’m sure his goal for me would be instead that I would reflect the glory of my Father in heaven.
Would that the watching world would see something of Him when they see us. There is, after all, a connection. While God alone is God, while He is the Creator and we are the creatures, He has made us in His image, and so we share in some of His attributes.
Of course, all that He is, He is to an infinite degree. All that He has He has in perfection. We can never attain to deity. Dust we are, and dust we shall always be. But as we grow in sanctification, we grow closer to glorification. And while glorification is a far cry from deification, we not only will no longer see through a glass darkly, we will no longer reflect His glory darkly.
We live before His face, coram Deo, beneath His gaze. But a day is coming when we will return that gaze, when we will see Him as He is. And then glory will redound all the more to glory, for then, He has promised, we will be like Him. May we hasten that great day as we grow in His grace. As we know Him more, may we show Him more.