[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by coalsoffire

Is it heresy to term something "divine and heavenly" other than from the Bible? Yes, it elevates the thing described. Have you not ever wondered at some moments, "Where did that come from?! I surely have not the capacity to write or speak such a thing. God must have been involved." The term elevates God, not the medium through which he is expressed. It is nothing less than his mercy that we may experience divine and heavenly expressions of the Creator through his creatures. He is there, in us!

Just because man fell, and sin and death entered the world, it does not negate the fact that man is the crowning glory of his creation. We are the only creature made “in his image, according to his likeness”. We are now damaged goods as it were, but goods made directly by the hand of God nonetheless. Due to man’s disobedience, the world was damaged as well. We are broken creatures living in a broken world. In a sense, all of world history is a record of mankind, along with creation, suffering from and dealing with this brokenness. Intertwined, though, throughout the whole process God reveals and expresses himself though his creation. There is a “divine spark” within man – we are all “hardwired” with the image and likeness of God. As his creation, yes, God is involved with everything – the good, the bad and the ugly. Your statement “He is there, in us!” reminded me of a passage in Acts 17, where the Apostle Paul was conversing with the religionists and philosophers of his day:

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" …So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious…The God who made the world and everything in it, he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring.'"

The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1)

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves (Romans 2:14)

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:22)