We often think of the Christian life as becoming progressively more like God – in character, if not in substance. Though this is true in some respects, it is not an appropriate description of the whole of sanctification. Indeed, through the process we are to become less like God in certain respects, for naturally we are afflicted with a multitude of inappropriately Godlike dispositions.

The crux of the problem is that we relativize our references when they should be absolute. Take the following examples:

-God values Himself as the highest good.
-We value ourselves as the highest good, as if we were gods ourselves. Our reference to Good must be absolutely like God’s, and not relatively so: we must value God as God values Himself, not value ourselves as God values Himself.

-God’s love desires for its object that which comes from Himself, which is their highest Good.
-Our love naturally desires for its object that which comes from ourselves, as if we had their highest good. C.S. Lewis wrote much about love corrupted in this way – explicitly in The Four Loves, and implicitly in The Great Divorce and Till We Have Faces. Our reference must point our objects absolutely to their highest good, not relatively to ourselves.

-God’s wrath is incited by a slight to His own glory.
-Our wrath is incited by a slight to our own dignity. Instead, proper anger on our part is to be directed at sin – intended slights to the glory of God – our own dignity being counted as nothing (c.f. John Piper’s post on anger without sin).

This is the difference between the intended Godliness of the saint and the intended Godlikeness of Lucifer. Where Lucifer desired, as our flesh often does, to lay claim to the object of these references, we must know that they can only be absolute and immutably pointed at God. Without that absolute reference, our values are idolatrous, our love is corrupt, our anger is unjust, and who knows what other categories I’ve neglected to include. I suspect there are many more. It is ultimately the difference between pride and humility, and the root of all sin.