Bible rule, that man CAN be, and MUST be, like God? The Bible rule
is, that everything good in man must be exactly like something good
in God, because it is inspired into him by the Spirit of God
himself. Our Lord Jesus, who spoke, not to philosophers or Scribes
and Pharisees, but to plain human beings, weeping and sorrowing,
suffering and sinning, like us,--told them to be perfect, as our
Father in heaven is perfect, by being good to the unthankful and the
evil. And if man is to be perfect, as his Father in heaven is
perfect, then his Father in heaven is perfect as man ought to be
perfect. He told us to be merciful as our Father in heaven is
merciful. Then our Father in heaven is merciful with the same sort
of mercy as we ought to show. We are bidden to forgive others, even
as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us: then if our forgiveness
is to be like God's, God's forgiveness is like ours. We are to be
true, because God is true: just, because God is just. How can we
be that, if God's truth is not like what men call truth, God's
justice not like what men call justice?

'If I give up that rule of right and wrong, I give up all rules of
right and wrong whatsoever.'

No, my friends; if we will seek for God where he may be found, then
we shall know God, whom truly to know is everlasting life. But we
must not seek for him where he is not, in long words and notions of
philosophy spun out of men's brains, and set up as if they were real
things, when words and notions they are, and words and notions they
will remain. We must look for God where he is to be found, in the
character of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who alone has
revealed and unveiled God's character, because he is the brightness
of God's glory, and the express image of his person.