To Be Like God

Do you know what a merism is? Merism is a rhetorical device in which a combination of two contrasting parts of the whole refer to the whole. For example, if we search high and low for something, it means we searched everywhere. Merisms are common in the Bible. For instance, when Isaiah 57:19 says, “Peace to those far and near,” it means peace to everybody. When Jesus declares he is the Alpha and the Omega (Rev. 22:13), the “A” and the “Z” in the Greek alphabet, he is saying he is not just the beginning and the end but everything in between as well.

Bible scholars say the phrase “knowing good and evil” in Genesis 3 is a Jewish merism. It is an idiomatic Hebrew way of saying, “the potential to unlimited knowledge.” Hence, the temptation offered by the serpent to Adam and Eve was for them to be like God in God’s all-knowing ability.

I preached on Genesis 3 once and spoke about the temptation to be like God. After the service, a churchgoer asked me, “But aren’t we encouraged to be like God—at least, to be Christ-like? How is it then a temptation?” This question helped me arrive at the following insight.

Created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), Adam and Eve were already to some degree like God. Being like God was not the sin, but trying to be like God in the wrong way is. I believe God created us to be like God in his character—to be loving, gracious, just, righteous, and caring for creation and for each other. But we are constantly tempted by our sinful desire to be like God in his power instead, especially through the power that knowledge bestows.

As Francis Bacon famously claimed, knowledge is power. At the very least, it gives us some level of intellectual control, which in turn gives us some emotional comfort and control. Through knowledge, we can “play God” in all areas of life. Ultimately, therefore, Adam and Eve’s turning to the tree of knowledge is a turning away from trusting God to trusting themselves.

Are we also not guilty of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? How often have we placed our ultimate trust on our knowhow rather than on God?

Here’s a sobering question: Can even God’s good truths be abused by us to be like God in his power, rather than in his character? Did the Pharisees, for example, with their vast amount of religious and ethical knowledge, still ultimately, even unintentionally, use it to elevate themselves, to seek eternal life on their own power?

I believe God calls us to be like him, to be Christ-like, in our character by way of the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). If our theological knowledge does not lead us into such fruit, then we must humbly examine ourselves to see if we have misused theology to be like God in the wrong way.

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