Who Is Like God?

Psalm 113:5-6, Who is like the LORD our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?

There is nothing above God, so He cannot look up. He only looks beneath Him to us miserable creatures and within Him to His perfect Holy Trinity. Neither does He look beside Him, for there are none like Him. Yet us human creatures, we try so arduously to exalt ourselves, even above God—the repetition of the Rebellion of Man. We become so haughty that we think we can question God. God is God; He does not answer to us and our whims of fanatical self-godhood. We dare not look down in ourselves, which the Word of God penetrates (Hebrews 4:12)—the underlying reality of our total depravity, our impoverished souls full of disgrace, misery, and anguish. We cannot stand the sight, and so we exalt ourselves to godhood—we make our bound will to sin the god of our lives. But those who through the Spirit accept the reality of our impoverished souls remain in the depths of our totally depraved condition, and God who looks down on us exalts us from our humbled estate (cf. Luke 1:52). His Law tears us down, and His Gospel raises us. He looks down on us knaves and gives us the gift of faith with the imputed righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:19; Philippians 3:9) and buries us with Christ in Baptism and raises us in the new life as new creatures in Christ (Romans 6).