At this juncture I would like to explain further what we mean by the highest standard of morality. In chapter one of Genesis we see that man was created in God’s image and according to God’s likeness. God is love and light. Love is the nature of God’s being, and light is the nature of God’s expression. Furthermore, God is holy and righteous. God is holy in His nature and righteous in His actions. These four attributes—love, light, holiness, and righteousness—are revealed in the law of God. In the law we have the basic principle of divine love, divine light, divine holiness, and divine righteousness.
To say that man was created in the image of God means that man was created according to what God is. Man was created according to the God who is love and light and who is also holy and righteous. However, at the time of his creation man did not have God within him. For this reason, God placed the man created by Him in front of the tree of life. This indicates that it was necessary for the God-created man to take God into him as his life. If man had taken God into him as life, then the divine attributes of love, light, holiness, and righteousness would also have come into man.
The man created by God had only the appearance of God’s love, light, righteousness, and holiness. Man cannot have the reality of these attributes unless he receives God into him as his life. We know that according to the book of Genesis man failed to take God into him as his life.
One day God Himself became a Man named Jesus. This Man was conceived of the divine essence and born of the human essence, the very essence God created in man. This means that the human essence of which the Lord Jesus partook was that created by God according to what He is—the human essence with the appearance of God’s love, light, holiness, and righteousness.
As we have seen, the Lord Jesus, the God-man, was a composition of the divine essence with all the divine attributes and the human essence with all the human virtues. When He was on earth, He lived a life that was a composition of the divine attributes and the human virtues. This is the highest standard of morality. The highest standard of morality is the living of the One whose life was a composition of God with the divine attributes and man with the human virtues.
When we speak of the highest standard of morality, we are not using the word “morality” in a traditional way. By morality we mean the standard of life God requires.
From the beginning, in the first two chapters of Genesis, we see that man with the human virtues was created by God according to what He is. In particular, since God is light and love and is holy and righteous, He created man according to these attributes. The creation of man in the image of God is described in Genesis 1.
We have pointed out that at the time of his creation man did not have the reality of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. The reality of these divine attributes is actually God Himself. This means that through creation man had the image of these attributes, but he did not have the reality of them. This was the reason God in Genesis 2 put man in front of Himself as signified by the tree of life, indicating that God wanted man to take Him as his life so that he might have the reality of the divine love, light, holiness, and righteousness. This would enable man to live a life in the highest standard of morality.
Although the man created by God failed to live such a life, the Lord Jesus, the Man-Savior, possessing the divine nature and the human nature, lived a life on earth with the attributes of God expressed in the virtues of man. This crucial matter is revealed in the Gospel of Luke.