What do you think it means to be tru­ly human and tru­ly divine ?

One of the old­est and most pro­found con­cerns ever posed to the human soul is the bal­ance between the human and the divine. It is a ques­tion of spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing rather than just a log­i­cal one. It pos­es the ques­tion of why human­i­ty pos­sess­es both bril­liance and weak­ness, death and the desire for tran­scen­dence, dust and eter­ni­ty. It pos­es the ques­tion of how some­one might feel shat­tered while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly per­ceiv­ing an inner source that tran­scends the mate­r­i­al world. The Bible makes it clear time and time again that humans are more than just bio­log­i­cal beings. There is a secret depth to human exis­tence, a mys­tery ingrained in con­scious­ness itself. The bib­li­cal wit­ness claims that although humans were cre­at­ed from earth, they were giv­en life by breath from above : “And the Lord God cre­at­ed man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into his nos­trils, trans­form­ing him into a liv­ing soul.” Gen­e­sis 2:7 Two aspects of human iden­ti­ty — earth and breath, form and essence, vis­i­ble body and invis­i­ble life — are pre­sent­ed in this one verse. There­fore, being gen­uine­ly human is awak­en­ing to the divine breath that gives life pur­pose rather than just being phys­i­cal­ly.

The Human Being as Liv­ing Mys­tery

Human­i­ty is fre­quent­ly defined by intel­lect, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, social iden­ti­ty, or sur­vival in mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion. How­ev­er, Scrip­ture teach­es that human beings can­not be com­pre­hend­ed in iso­la­tion from their inner source. The spir­it bears rem­nants of eter­ni­ty, where­as the body is a part of time. This explains why a lot of peo­ple expe­ri­ence inside rest­less­ness even when their exter­nal require­ments are sat­is­fied. There is still a silent yearn­ing that can­not be sati­at­ed by mate­r­i­al suc­cess. This hunger sug­gests a source that goes beyond mat­ter. Accord­ing to Eccle­si­astes : “He has brought beau­ty to every­thing in its own time. He has also placed eter­ni­ty in the human heart. Eccle­si­astes 3:11 Under­stand­ing that the heart holds a mem­o­ry of some­thing beyond every­day life is essen­tial to being ful­ly human. When human­i­ty mere­ly exists on the out­side, it is incom­plete. When the inner self awak­ens, human life becomes gen­uine. Because of this, achieve­ment on the out­side with­out a knowl­edge on the inside fre­quent­ly results in empti­ness. Even if some­one is knowl­edge­able, they may still be asleep on the inside.

Human­i­ty’s Hid­den Image

One impor­tant state­ment serves as the start­ing point for the bib­li­cal foun­da­tion of human dig­ni­ty : “There­fore, God made man in his like­ness.” Gen­e­sis 1:27 The term “image of God” refers to more than only moral con­duct or con­trol over the nat­ur­al world. It sug­gests a secret sim­i­lar­i­ty between divine real­i­ty and human cog­ni­tion. In fall­en con­scious­ness, the image is not quite appar­ent, yet it is still there, like light obscured by shad­ow. Recov­er­ing con­scious­ness of that con­cealed image is what it is to be ful­ly human, not just act­ing well. This explains why spir­i­tu­al reform is fre­quent­ly referred to in Scrip­ture as awak­en­ing, regen­er­a­tion, or rec­ol­lec­tion rather than just exter­nal cor­rec­tion. Romans teach­es : “Let the renew­al of your thoughts trans­form you.” Romans 12:2 Here, “mind” refers to inte­ri­or per­cep­tion rather than just thought. Dis­tort­ed vision, rather than just mis­be­hav­ior, is the human dilem­ma. Life is trans­formed when per­cep­tion is restored.

The Rea­sons Human­i­ty is Divid­ed

Every­body has inter­nal con­tra­dic­tions, such as a yearn­ing for puri­ty but a lure to cor­rup­tion, a desire for peace but inter­nal strife, and a capac­i­ty for com­pas­sion but a propen­si­ty for fear. Paul the Apos­tle pro­vides a detailed descrip­tion of this divid­ed con­di­tion : “I do not do what I want to do, but I do what I detest.” Romans 7:15 This indi­cates that inter­nal con­flict is the most pro­found. Because the inner and exte­ri­or selves are not entire­ly in sync, a per­son may be aware of the truth but fail to live it. It takes inner rec­on­cil­i­a­tion to be ful­ly human. For this rea­son, spir­i­tu­al instruc­tion usu­al­ly focus­es on the trans­for­ma­tion of being rather than just fol­low­ing reg­u­la­tions.

The Sig­nif­i­cance of the Divine in Human­i­ty

Being gen­uine­ly divine does not imply that peo­ple become the Source in its purest form. Instead, it indi­cates that awak­ened human­i­ty is capa­ble of reflect­ing, receiv­ing, and man­i­fest­ing divine vital­i­ty. This enig­ma was artic­u­lat­ed by Jesus Christ when He said : “You pos­sess the king­dom of God.” Luke 17:21 Spir­i­tu­al per­cep­tion is shift­ed inward by this phrase. The first way to reach the holy is by wak­ing rather than dis­tance.

The king­dom is a con­cealed real­i­ty in the present, not just a place in the future. Allow­ing the inner life to become trans­par­ent to divine pres­ence is a pre­req­ui­site for becom­ing real­ly divine. It indi­cates that the human ves­sel starts to exhib­it truth, com­pas­sion, wis­dom, puri­ty, and love.

Jesus Christ as the Mod­el for Com­plete Human­i­ty

Because Jesus shows what human­i­ty looks like when it is com­plete­ly joined with divine will, He pro­vides the clear­est scrip­tur­al image of authen­tic human­i­ty. He was an exam­ple of align­ment, not just a teacher of truth. For this rea­son, Colos­sians says : “Christ in you, the glo­ry of hope.” Colos­sians 1:27 This implies that spir­i­tu­al life involves involve­ment rather than just imi­ta­tion. The objec­tive is inter­nal devel­op­ment rather than out­ward ado­ra­tion of Jesus. Allow­ing the pat­tern of Christ-con­scious­ness — humil­i­ty, truth, for­give­ness, clar­i­ty, and love — to devel­op inter­nal­ly is what it means to become ful­ly human.

The Sig­nif­i­cance of Inner Puri­ty

A divid­ed inner life pre­vents the full man­i­fes­ta­tion of divine aware­ness. For this rea­son, the word “purifi­ca­tion” appears fre­quent­ly through­out the Bible. Matthew doc­u­ments : “Those with pure hearts are blessed because they will see God.” Matthew 5:8 In this con­text, puri­ty refers to inward sim­plic­i­ty and unadul­ter­at­ed aware­ness. A bro­ken heart is unable to see clear­ly. When fear, pride, resent­ment, and decep­tion over­whelm the heart, spir­i­tu­al vision is lost. Since only a clear inner mir­ror reflects high­er truth, purifi­ca­tion is nec­es­sary to be ful­ly human.

The New Per­son­’s Inner Birth

Birth is a com­mon metaphor for spir­i­tu­al trans­for­ma­tion. Nicode­mus was informed by Jesus Christ : “A man can­not see the king­dom of God until he is born again.” — John 3:3 This birth is inside rather than exter­nal. It is the emer­gence of a more pro­found sense of self. Fear, alien­ation, and exter­nal iden­ti­ty are the sources of the old self­’s exis­tence. Truth, inner light, and con­nec­tion to the divine source are the foun­da­tions of the new self. This new birth has begun when one becomes gen­uine­ly heav­en­ly in expres­sion.

The Recov­ery of Dimin­ished Aware­ness

Because human­i­ty only iden­ti­fies with super­fi­cial exis­tence, it fre­quent­ly lives below its spir­i­tu­al poten­tial. How­ev­er, restora­tion is taught in Scrip­ture : “Put on the new man, which after God is cre­at­ed in right­eous­ness and true holi­ness.” Eph­esians 4:24 “Put on” implies delib­er­ate involve­ment. Coop­er­a­tion is nec­es­sary for trans­for­ma­tion. Until one’s inner life is sta­ble in the truth, one must con­sis­tent­ly choose it. For this rea­son, search­ing is a recur­ring theme in wis­dom lit­er­a­ture.

Knowl­edge’s Func­tion in Spir­i­tu­al Devel­op­ment

In Scrip­ture, true wis­dom is nev­er just infor­ma­tion. It is insight gained from expe­ri­ence. John states : “You will dis­cov­er the truth, and the truth will set you free.” — John 8:32. Inward real­iza­tion of truth leads to free­dom. Many peo­ple hear the truth from the out­side but stay trapped inside. Since real know­ing alters aware­ness itself, it is lib­er­at­ing. Tran­si­tion­ing from bor­rowed belief to lived insight is what it is to be ful­ly human.

Love as the Ulti­mate Expres­sion of God

With­out love, no spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing is com­plete. Why ? Because the most obvi­ous heav­en­ly attribute that humans can com­mu­ni­cate is love. Accord­ing to 1 John : “Love is God.” 1 John 4:8 This implies that where love becomes real, heav­en­ly life becomes appar­ent. Spir­i­tu­al dis­course is mean­ing­less with­out love. Being gen­uine­ly divine is becom­ing incred­i­bly lov­ing with­out sac­ri­fic­ing real­i­ty, not look­ing mys­ti­cal. Truth and love must stay togeth­er.

The Cross as Self-Sur­ren­der

The cross has inter­nal sig­nif­i­cance as well. It stands for the demise of a fake iden­ti­ty. For a deep­er exis­tence to arise, pride, illu­sion, fear, and ego-cen­tered liv­ing must give way. Accord­ing to Jesus Christ : “Let any guy who pur­sues me deny him­self.” Matthew 16:24 This denial is not an act of self-loathing. In order for the deep­er self to exist, the false self must be sur­ren­dered.

Inte­grat­ed liv­ing is what it means to be tru­ly human.

A per­son who is ful­ly human is not split between their inner truth and their out­ward appear­ance. A per­son like that becomes whole : Truth and thought are in har­mo­ny Speech is con­sis­tent with wis­dom. Com­pas­sion and action are com­pat­i­ble. Spir­it and heav­en­ly pres­ence are in har­mo­ny. Matu­ri­ty is this full­ness.

Being tru­ly divine entails hav­ing a trans­par­ent pres­ence.

A life that is tru­ly divine does not aim for supe­ri­or­i­ty. It turns trans­par­ent. The indi­vid­ual becomes open to the truth and no longer bases their exis­tence on their per­cep­tion of them­selves. A life like that gen­tly exudes tran­quil­i­ty. This is the rea­son why some peo­ple have an unusu­al­ly deep inte­ri­or and do not say much. Recov­er­ing the orig­i­nal uni­ty intend­ed with­in cre­ation — earth full of breath, form full of light, mind regen­er­at­ed by truth, and heart pure by love — is what it means to be ful­ly human and gen­uine­ly divine. Instead of flee­ing the earth, human­i­ty awak­ens inside it to reach whole­ness. The path is trans­form­ing, upward, and inward. On the out­side, a per­son ages, yet on the inside, a deep­er life might con­tin­ue to devel­op. Accord­ing to 2 Corinthi­ans : “The inside man is restored dai­ly, even though our out­ward man per­ish­es.” 2 Corinthi­ans 4:16 True human­i­ty and heav­en­ly resem­blance unite at that regen­er­a­tion.