According to the Image of Christ

Review

Week one’s class focused on what it means that God made people in His image. One of the points we attempted to make in that class that precision in the language we use to discuss and think through this massive yet fundamental truth is essential. We suggested that:

It is not correct to say, people are made as the image of God.

It is better to say, people are made in the image of God.

The image of God is distinct from man, but it pervades His existence.

We also considered the fact the New Testament identifies Christ as the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV

4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

If people are made in the image of God, and Christ is the image of God, then we must not miss the christological nature of our being. The truth is however, that people are created in the image of God is for many, if not the majority, not a christological consideration. In other words, for many, Christ is not relevant to what it means to be created in the image of God.

Here we need to remember a familiar verse:

Romans 8:29 ESV

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

The Apostle Paul’s words have profound implications for our understanding of what it means to be created in God’s image.

As we noted the first week, even before creation, God ordained than man should be conformed to the image of Christ.

To use Philip Hughes’ word, we might think of this as christformity.

What I want to do today is to drill down further on the implications that Christ is the image of God and that people are created in the image of God.

According to Christ’s Image

A History Lesson

2 Cor. 4:4 & Col. 1:15 makes clear that the image of God is Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV

4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Colossians 1:15 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

God made the first humans in His image (Gen. 1:27), and all people since have been created with the same constitution.

Since Christ is the image of God, it might be more clear and more helpful to think of our being created in the image of God as being created according to the image of Christ.

The bottom line is that the Bible teaches that people are created according to the image of God which is Christ.

Here’s where the history lesson comes in. If we accept this idea, then we are saying that

The resurrected, glorified Christ was the image according to which people are created. (see Rom. 8:29)

What helps us make sense of this is

Romans 8:29 ESV

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

This means the

Christ is the archetype (the original that has been copied). He is the blueprint.

If Christ is the image according to which we have been created, what evidences can be observed that we reflect Christ?

Who We Are & What We Are Able to Do

Who we are

Psalm 8

Psalm 8 ESV

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David. 1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 is asking us to consider ourselves in light of or in comparison to God Himself: what is man that you are mindful of Him…

But this consideration is not meant to diminish any sense of dignity that man may possess. The Psalmist’s call for us to consider ourselves in light of our Creator clarifies and highlights human dignity.

Our status is not rooted in our traits. We are creative because God is creative. We are relational because God is relational. But these traits are not what ultimately reflect God’s image. These things echo the status we have been given by our Creator.

Psalm 8:5–6 ESV

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,

crowned with glory and honor, possessing dominion over the works of God’s hands, all things under our feet. We are kings and queens on this earth! How is this possible? God gave us… assigned us to a royal status.

This dignity is afforded to everyone: to the born, the unborn, the able, the disabled, to the healthy and the sick.

So how is the image of Christ reflected from us. Living in our royal status. I suppose the more we embrace who Psalm 8 tells us we are, the stronger the reflection of the image of God will be from us.

To put it another way, the more we consider that God in all His majesty created created us and continues to be mindful of us and has given us our royal status as His vice regents (rulers on behalf of God), the clearer the image of Christ will be.

What we do

Luke 2:52

Luke 2:52 ESV

52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

Context: Jesus is twelve years old, and His family goes to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. The feast ended, the family left for home, but Jesus stayed behind, and His parents didn’t notice. After a day of traveling, His parents realized they Jesus was not with them, so they turned round and went back to Jerusalem to search for Him. They searched for Him three days, and found Him in the temple teaching. Luke ends his description of this event with verse 52.

What we know about Jesus as a twelve year old boy is what we know about Him throughout His earthly life and ministry and what we know about Him now: He was perfectly righteous and perfectly holy; He was sinless.

But we are told that He grew in wisdom and favor with God.

So, despite the fact that Jesus was perfectly holy and righteous, we are told that He was able to grow in righteousness and holiness.

As the New Testament progresses, we see that the tests of His holiness intensified. And even when it came to facing His own death, Jesus met that test with a perfectly holy and righteous response.

This is what we do that reflects the image of God. We increase in wisdom and favor with God and man. Jesus is the image of God, this is what Jesus did, as you and I do that, we reflect Christ’s image.

That we can relate to God reflects that we are made according to the image of God. And as we relate to God by growing closer to Him and obeying Him, we reflect the image of God.

This is where Adam and Eve failed. They did not grow in righteousness and holiness. They were created holy and righteous, but I suggest that God desired that they grow in those traits. The would do this by obeying Him. Not eating of the tree.

So, Christ’s image upon us can be observed in who we are: royalty, that is God’s vice-regents in this world and what we do, relate to God by growing in wisdom and favor with God through loving obedience.

But

This bestowal of royal dominion on us is one upon fallen people. The question we are seeking to answer is one that seeks to understand the current status of the image of God upon man. We are asking such a question because of the fact that we are sinners and we live in a fallen world. What is the status of the image of God amidst sin?

A Tragic Splendor

I cannot take credit for such an elegant phrase. This belongs to C.S. Lewis. It shows up in much of his writing to describe the beauty that can be found in loss. Lewis’ work, A Grief Observed, in which he grapples with his own grief after his wife’s death, deals with this idea. It’s reported though, that Lewis described the crowing of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. A huge crown, said Lewis, on such a young head is a certain tragic splendor.

And this is much like God’s bestowal of royal dominion upon us in our fallen condition.

The splendor of divine dignity does not match fallen and rebellious humanity.

The destiny of Adam and Eve

Keeping in mind that it was, from eternity, that people would be created according to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), Adam and Eve, even in their sinless state were destined to reflect their archetype, Jesus the glorified Christ.

And if this is true, even in their sinless state, they had a destiny not fully realized.

With this idea in our minds, let’s go to

1 Cor. 15:35-49

1 Corinthians 15:35–49 ESV

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

So, if Adam and Eve, in their sinless state, had a destiny to grow into Christ-likeness, how much more so is that true of us in our fallen state. Now, that Christ-likeness is the goal is nothing new to most of us, but what may be a slightly new consideration for some is the idea that Christ-likeness is fundamental to what it means for us to have been created according to the image of God.

What this passage in 1 Cor. 15 helps us to see is that the difference between people in their sinfulness and the standard of Christ is significant.

Sin traps us and inhibits us from becoming who God has created us to be. And we know that it is only through faith in the crucified and resurrected Christ that the power of sin can be broken.

Because we are created in God’s image, we possess immediate dignity. Because Christ is the ultimate target of all human flourishing, He is our ultimate destiny.

But, as we have suggested, the difference between people in their sinfulness and the standard of Christ is staggering. Christ is the target and man’s ultimate destiny, so how is this all possible?

The gospel of Jesus Christ

All mankind possesses dignity because we are all made according to God’s image, but this dignity does not replace the gospel.

Col. 3:9-10

Colossians 3:9–10 ESV

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

We are commanded not to sin against one another because we have been regenerated. The old is gone, the new has come (9)

And this transformation is described as being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. (10)

Notice the progressive language in verse 10: is being renewed. This makes clear that the new self that we put on in our salvation is not in its final state. It’s in a state of becoming.

This becoming is qualified by being described as taking place in knowledge and after or according to (this greek preposition can mean both) the image of its Creator. So what does this mean?

The more we are renewed, the more true knowledge of God and what He has accomplished in and through Christ we will possess.

This true knowledge of God is according to the image of God. We were created in the image of God, and the gospel is the pathway to that image.

The splendor under the tragedy

The image of Christ, which is the image according to which we have been created, has not been marred. It has not been twisted. Our relationship to it has been disconnected and we have been stripped of our ability to reflect it…. but the image is still there. The only way for us to move towards Christ’s image and reflect His image is salvation.

2 Cor. 3:18

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Human sin has dulled the brilliance of the image of Christ according to which every person has been made. God’s saving and sanctifying work progressively uncovers this brilliance as His people grow in wisdom and favor with Him by His grace.

But with all this said about the current sate of the image of God, that God is showing it forth in people as they are restored to fellowship with Him through Christ, the severity of the consequences of sin should not be underestimated.

Genesis 6:5 ESV

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

every intention of man’s heart is evil. Intentions are revealed by our choices. Next time, I want us to consider why we do what we do and why we want what we want. To have a clearer understanding of this is to understand ourselves and the rest of mankind better.