So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” (Hebrews 05:05, NKJV).
What is it about humanity that is so important to God?
From Genesis, we know that man is His ultimate creation, made in His own image, modeled after God Himself in terms of moral agency and reason-informed will.
Even angels will one day be subordinate to redeemed mankind.
It even appears that from a spiritual perspective, Earth is the center of the universe. This may also be true physically, as well, given some very interesting hypotheses put forth by believing theoretical physicists, like Dr. Russell Humphrey's and his work on quantized red shifts.
Some have likewise concluded that all of Creation is oddly anthropocentric, finely-tuned in fascinating ways to ensure and sustain life, and especially human life.
Of course all of these ideas are roundly criticized and mocked in the world, despite objective evidence to the contrary, and much propaganda has been offered by the secular scientific community in order to combat them from taking hold - a tribute to their power and reasonableness. For by their own admission, naturalists and evolutionists cannot allow even a divine foot in the door lest their whole materialistic worldview crumble.
Yet the question remains. Why is God so very, very concerned about human beings? What is it about us, or at least His plans for us, that would cause Him to take the unexpected and extravagant measure of becoming a Man to save us?
As a species we are certainly not that lovable. Our history is rampant with far more evil than good, and even the ostensibly beneficial things we undertake are soon corrupted by impure motives.
In recent history, our race has ruthlessly murdered hundreds of millions of unborn babies through legalized abortion. We have enslaved, imprisoned, or committed genocide against others who are weaker and more vulnerable. In short, mankind on the whole has behaved diabolically throughout its tenure on this planet, and there are no realistic prospects of the our track record improving.
So why does He love us?
I believe part of the answer lies not in what we are, but what we shall become in Christ. He became a Man so that we could become like Him.
The Sonship of Christ is the ultimate expression of humanity being created in God's image. While in one sense, it is an existential "step down" for God, in another very real sense, it is the ultimate uplifting of what we were intended to be from the very beginning.
That we fell and rebelled was part of the risk in gifting us with free will. But without that very sharp two-edged sword, our fellowship with God would be meaningless. If we could not choose to be His, then we would be mere chattel, not sons and daughters; members of His family.
So Christ's humility in becoming Man, His voluntarily taking on that role as our great High Priest, was not to glorify Himself, but us.
This is important to understand because it makes even a single human life vastly more significant than we can imagine. And it makes the redemption of that life the most costly thing in existence.
In our fallenness, we have lost the glory that was ours at Creation, and we only retain far-off glimpses of what it means to walk in perfect fellowship with our Creator.
We are very defective merchandise in our current state.
We cannot conceive of what we will be like in that Day when our salvation is fulfilled, and we are fully redeemed and glorified.
But we know we will be like Him.
And it is our future, not our sin-riddled past, with which God is most concerned.
In our glorified state to come, even the least of us would be seen as someone heroic and worthy of awe-inspiring honor; someone in whose presence we mortals today would not hesitate to fall face down in trembling worship.
God sees us as we will be in Christ, not as we are now.
That is how He has always seen us.
