Created to Bear His Image
Notes
Transcript
This morning we come to verses 29 and 30 of Romans chapter 8. After spending these past months considering the promise of verse 28, we now are ready to look more closely at the purpose of God which holds that promise together.
Our study of this fifth great argument of Paul’s has been staggering, as we have considered how fully it establishes his proclamation in verse one, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:28 assures true believers that the God they love is sovereignly working all things together for their true good, even when His providence is difficult to perceive. This promise belongs to those whom He has called according to His purpose, so their love for Him is the fruit of His saving work and their confidence rests finally in His eternal design, not in their own changing circumstances or ability to hold on to a feeling of love.
And along the way, we have realized that this good He is working toward reaches far deeper than we may have imagined – God is correcting how we see, reordering what we love, and teaching us to recognize that He Himself is our greatest good.
But throughout this entire Romans 8 series, I’ve also used a particular expression repeatedly as we have worked through each argument; namely that God is conforming us to the image of His Son.
That expression comes directly from the verses now before us,
Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified.
And it’s important that we catch that first word here, “Because.”
Paul isn’t turning away from that promise. Rather, he’s advancing the argument by supplying its grounding, explaining why we can have such confidence in the promise we have just considered. The good toward which God governs all things belongs to a purpose He has already established – that much we’ve already come to understand.
But in these verses, Paul traces that saving purpose from foreknowledge and predestination, through calling and justification, all the way to glorification.
And here in verse 29, we find what God has appointed His people to become, “conformed to the image of His Son.” And even that serves His purpose for the Son Himself “so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers”.
We have spoken about this often enough that the expression may sound familiar. But familiarity with an expression does not necessarily mean that we have appropriated its full meaning into how we actually think.
So this morning, we begin asking the question “What does it actually mean to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ?”
In truth, we have already begun answering that question even as far back as our study of verses 12 and 13 when we considered our affections. We have talked about learning to think as Christ Jesus thinks, to love what He loves, to hate what He hates. We have seen that God’s work reaches into our hearts, so that our obedience increasingly proceeds from affections inclined toward Him.
But Paul’s use of the word image should yet further pique our interest. After all, if you’ve spent much time reading Scripture, that word ought to call something to mind. Long before Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, long before Israel received the Law, even before there was any sin or suffering or death in this world, God said something remarkable about mankind.
He said that He would make man in His image, and then declared that He had indeed done so.
Now, hold those two things together for a moment – at the beginning of Scripture, mankind is created in the image of God. Here in Romans, so very much later, God has purposed that His people will be conformed to the image of His Son.
We need to consider carefully how these two statements relate to one another. If mankind was created in God’s image, why do those who belong to Christ need to be conformed to His Son’s image? Did we somehow lose that image along the way?
What happened to us?
In short…. What does it mean for a person to bear God’s image, and what has sin done to that likeness?
In this whole “Uncondemned in Christ” series, we have seen how profoundly sin corrupts our judgment, how readily we call something good because it pleases us, and how stubbornly our hearts cling to things that cannot sustain us.
We have seen that even after God brings us to Himself – even after He has changed us in the most profound and elemental manner – there remains much within us that still needs to change.
And to understand that change rightly, we need to understand what God created mankind to be in the first place.
So keep this purpose in Romans before you: “conformed to the image of His Son”, and turn with me to the first chapter of Genesis, where Scripture first tells us of the image we were created to bear.
As we turn to Genesis 1, let’s consider how God throughout the first days of the world has been speaking everything into existence, one command at a time. And then, we come to verse 26,
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Let’s be careful to notice here that man did not come into existence by happenstance or chance, nor did he evolve into or determine his own status. No, we reject such notions on account of the clarity here in Genesis 1: God Himself determined what man would be; male and female, He determined our nature and our place in this world.
God made us, and more to the point for our purposes today, He made us in His image.
That means that from the very beginning, understanding ourselves properly requires that we consider our relationship to God. We cannot adequately answer the question, “What am I?” while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the God who made us.
Notice also how deliberately verse 27 repeats this truth – God created man “in His own image,” and then again, “in the image of God He created him.” And lest we reserve that dignity for only part of mankind, we read explicitly “male and female He created them.”
Both bear His image; both receive their dignity from their Creator.
That dignity men and women are given is received from their Creator before anything has been accomplished at all. Man is made to bear His image; there is a dignity and purpose which does not depend upon what they can produce, what they possess, or how highly another creature values them, rather it rests upon what God has made man to be.
Certainly, being made in God’s image does not mean that mankind is inherently divine. No, the distinction is right there in the text: God is the Creator, man is the one He created; “in Him we live and move and exist”, Paul had told the crowd in the Areopagus.
Whatever likeness we bear to Him, we remain His creatures, entirely dependent upon Him, no matter how much He made us to reflect Him.
Genesis does not give us an exhaustive explanation here of everything it means to bear God’s image, but the responsibility that is immediately connected with that image helps us begin to understand the place God gave mankind within His creation.
Consider the precise wording here, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion …” and then He goes on to describe the extent of that dominion. Later in verse 28, He blesses the man and woman and charges them with the responsibility to fill the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion over its living creatures.
Notice, they are not being invited to become independent masters of a world that belongs to them, theirs is a delegated authority. They are being entrusted with responsibility within a world that belongs to God Himself, and are themselves to remain under His authority.
And here’s the point of all of this… Bearing God’s image involves both a dignity bestowed, alongside a responsibility entrusted. Man occupies a particular place not because he won the right to rule himself, but because this is what God appointed to be the case. He declared it, and caused it to be fact in that declaration.
For our part, we are accountable to Him for how we live as His image-bearers and how we exercise the responsibilities He has entrusted to us.
Our minds, our affections, our will, our abilities… none of these exist independently of the God who made us. How we use these faculties – how we think, what we love, what we choose, and how we use our abilities – all of these things are matters for which we are accountable to our Creator. Life was never intended to be understood or lived independently of God.
At the end of Genesis 1, God declares everything He has made ‘very good.’ We have frequently pointed out in recent years that this “very good” includes mankind – male and female, made in His image. There is no sinful corruption here yet, no rebellion against the One who made them.
So how did we get from there to the condition we have been considering throughout Romans?
To answer that, we need to see what happened when those made to bear God’s image refused to live under God’s word.
In the opening of Genesis 3, the serpent brings God’s word into question; God had given the man a clear command, and with it a clear warning concerning disobedience.
But now the serpent contradicts that warning and presents disobedience as the way to gain something desirable,
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
There is something deeply revealing here. The man and woman had already been made in God’s image, their likeness to Him was His intended design, but also a gift of His creative goodness. But now the serpent presents them with something to seize through disobedience to the very God who made them.
And in verse 6, the woman sees that the tree is good for food, a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise. She takes and eats, and gives to her husband with her, and he eats.
Notice what has happened: God had spoken concerning that tree in chapter 2 very clearly, saying “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it”.
But His word, which prohibited them from eating fruit from only one tree in the entire garden, is no longer the governor of their choices. Instead, what appears desirable becomes the basis upon which they act, even though God has forbidden it.
Those made to live under God’s authority have disobeyed Him; those entrusted with responsibility within His creation have treated something within that creation as more desirable than obedience to their Creator.
And the consequences are immediate! They recognize their nakedness and attempt to cover themselves. They hide from God; when He questions them, blame follows. The chapter unfolds into judgment and their expulsion from the garden.
The corruption they undergo is profound, and throws everything within the frame of their understanding of the world into disarray; no single part of life as they knew it is left the same!
Their relationship with God, their relationship with one another, and their life within His creation… all of these things are radically altered by their rebellious choice.
And here’s where we need to return and begin answering the question we raised earlier: Did mankind cease to bear God’s image?
Turn ahead to Genesis chapter 9. We are now generations beyond the fall, and the flood has now subsided, and we now have the commandments God gives to Noah, and we read this explanation regarding murder:
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
That statement, that man was made in the image of God, still governs how human life must be treated, even in a fallen world.
The fall has not made human life disposable, and God still identifies His own creative act as the reason that taking a human life carries such grave accountability.
This is no Old Testament, ancient history only thing… Over in the New Testament, James makes the point even more painfully personal while discussing the taming of the tongue, writing…
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God.
Think about that! The person against whom you turn your tongue bears the likeness of the God you claim to honor.
So we cannot say that the image of God has simply disappeared, as though fallen people no longer bear any relationship to what God made mankind to be at all, no! Scripture will not allow us to speak that way.
But neither can we conclude that because people still bear His image, their minds, affections, and wills remain upright before Him. Everything we have considered about sin throughout Romans forbids that conclusion – we bear the image, but that image is marred and twisted itself, both in whole and in part.
The mind remains, but its thinking is corrupted and its understanding darkened, as Paul describes in Ephesians 4:17–18. The affections remain, but their loves are disordered according to John 3:19, men loving the darkness rather than the Light. The will remains, but fallen people willingly choose in accordance with their sinful hearts, as Jesus exposes in John 5:40, speaking of “you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
Paul writes in Romans 3 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We remain accountable human creatures, we were made in God’s image, even as we fail to reflect His goodness in the way we think, love, and live.
That distinction matters. The continuing dignity of mankind is real and true, and does not diminish the depth of our corruption, nor does that corruption reduce or remove the dignity God has bestowed.
So there is no contradiction when Scripture speaks of fallen people still bearing God’s image on the one hand, while also speaking of their need to be conformed to the image of His Son. We remain the human creatures God made us to be, accountable to Him, but profoundly corrupted by sin.
But God’s purpose to conform us to the image of His Son carries us far beyond a simple restoration of people to Adam’s original condition.
To understand that, we first need to see what Scripture says about the renewal that is already taking place in those who belong to Christ. Turn with me to Colossians chapter 3.
Paul has been describing conduct that must be put away by believers, and in verses 9 and 10 he writes:
Do not lie to one another, since you put off the old man with its evil practices, and have put on the new man who is being renewed to a full knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
Notice, a decisive change has taken place – the old man has been put off, the new man has been put on. But the fact that this change is already accomplished, does not mean that the work of renewal is complete, “is being renewed” inherently means that this renewal is still underway. And once again, we see that the image theme is very much involved.
But this renewal includes knowledge. The understanding darkened by sin is being renewed to know God truly, and to judge according to His truth. And that knowledge bears directly upon conduct: Paul’s immediate command is, “Do not lie to one another.”
Now, let’s hold this in our minds alongside Ephesians 4, where after describing the futile thinking and darkened understanding of those who remain alienated from the life of God, Paul explains that we as believers didn’t learn Christ that way, instead
to lay aside, in reference to your former conduct, the old man, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Notice the prevailing theme in both of these passages, that there is an image and likeness that God is at work producing in His people.
There is a corruption that reaches throughout the whole of our being, and if we are to be renewed into the image and likeness of God, that too must reach throughout the whole of our being – what we know, what we think, what we love, how we live. Truth must replace deceit throughout our being, even when that deceit was within us. Where sinful desires had once directed us, righteousness and holiness must increasingly characterize us.
And Paul makes that wonderfully concrete in the verses that follow here in Ephesians; the liar must speak truth, the thief must work so that he has something to share with someone in need; speech that corrupts must give way to words that build others up; bitterness and malice must give way to kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness.
Do you see how deeply this goes? The conduct of a person changes because the purposes and desires expressed through that conduct are being changed. This renewing, this conforming, reaches into the person we actually are, and from there into the life we actually live.
But this renewal does not end in a return to Adam’s original condition.
Remember what we saw in Romans chapter 5: the gracious gift abounds beyond the ruin brought by Adam. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul carries the distinction between Adam and Christ directly into the language of the image:
And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
Paul is speaking here about resurrection. The first man, Adam, and the last Adam, Christ, are held before us, and the implication of that resurrection is that God’s purpose reaches all the way to our bearing the likeness of the risen Christ, even in our bodies.
Adam was created upright, yet able to rebel – and he did rebel. But when God’s work in His people is complete, our deliverance from sin and death will be likewise complete. He is not bringing us back to a position from which another fall will undo everything He has accomplished, no!
Though we remain creatures created by God, through our union with Christ, we are brought into a life and glory that far exceeds a mere return to where Adam began.
And that brings us back to Romans 8:29: “conformed to the image of His Son.”
Think what this means for the good God is working in our lives! When He exposes deceit, confronts bitterness, or teaches us to love what is holy, those changes belong to this great purpose of His.
We may rightly ask Him for relief from difficult circumstances. But, as He strips away rival loves in our hearts, we must not resist the holiness He is producing within us.
When we grieve over how much still needs to change, remember where His purpose is taking us. The corruption we see today doesn’t have the final word – God has appointed His people to bear the likeness of His Son!
Genesis helps us understand the image we were created to bear, the fall explains the corruption of that image, and the fullness of what God has appointed us to become is seen in His Son—and it is to Him that we will turn our attention next time.
Let’s pray.
