The image of God in humans is corrupted.

Image of God

All of humanity is created in he image of God.

The image is not something we possess but it is what we are.To be human is to be in the image of God.

All humans are addressable by God.- To be human is to have the capacity of being addressed by the living God.

All human beings are accountable to God. Ps 33.13-15 asserts that every human being on this planet is known by God, considered and evaluated by God and called into account.

All human beings have dignity and equality. All humans are created in the image of God, this forms the basis of the radical equality of all human beings. Vicki had a quote that i think affirms this. It is a quote that Northwestern

Because of the coming of Christ our mission is to invite people to become more fully human through the transforming power of the Gospel- it answers

of what it is to be truly human.

Jesus command us to love our neighbor as yourself it is no t just the second commandment  in the law, it is an essential

because of our common creativeness. Love does not mean accepting everything your neighbor believes or does. Our society, our culture believes that anything goes and to disagree is intolerance.

We are created for relationships. God saw man needed a companion. But not just a companion but a helper.

We are created in relationship, for relationship and to work

in relational cooperation.

Fall

Sin affected and still affects every dimension of the human person.

Four aspects of human life:

Spiritually. Meant to have a unique intimacy with God.

Physical. We are creatures in the create physical world.

Rational. We have unique powers of communication, language, address ability., consciousness, memory, and will.

Social. Our gender complementarity reflects the rational dimension of God and underlies all human relationships.

All four of these aspects of our humanity were corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve. All four aspects were involved in the entry of sin into human life.

Spiritually we are alienated from God, fearful of his presence, suspicious of his truth, hostile to his love.

Rationally we use our minds to rationalize sin, blame others and excuse our ourselves. Our thinking is darkened by sin.

Physically we are sentenced to death, suffer its invasion through sickness decay, our whole physical environment groans under God’s curse.

Socially human life is fractured at every level with anger, jealousy, violence and societal decay.

This is what Genesis 3 implies. The totality of our social and economics, our ecological relationships have all been perverted.

Romans 8.29

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

8:41 PM

CONFORMED [Gk. sýmmorphos (Rom. 8:29), syschēmatízō (12:2; 1 Pet. 1:14)]; AV also “fashioning yourselves according to” (1 Pet. 1:14); NEB SHAPED (Rom. 8:29), “adapt yourselves … to the pattern of” (12:2), “let your characters be shaped … by” (1 Pet. 1:14); see also Phil. 3:10, 21. These references illustrate the difference between Gk. morphḗ, form reflecting inner nature, and schḗma, the merely outward fashion. Note especially Rom. 12:2: “Be not conformed [mḗsyschēmatízesthe] to this age, but be transformed [metamorphoústhe] by the renewal of your mind.”

God determined beforehand the believers’ destiny, namely, conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. By all saints being made like Christ (ultimate and complete sanctification), Christ will be exalted as the Firstborn among many brothers. The resurrected and glorified Lord Jesus Christ will become the Head of a new race of humanity purified from all contact with sin and prepared to live eternally in His presence (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–49). As the “Firstborn” He is in the highest position among others (cf. Col. 1:18).

Between the start and finish of God’s plan are three steps: being called (cf. Rom. 1:6; 8:28), being justified (cf. 3:24, 28; 4:2; 5:1, 9), and being glorified (cf. 8:17; Col. 1:27; 3:4)

“Glorified” is in the past tense because this final step is so certain that in God’s eyes it is as good as done. To be glorified is another way of saying that God’s children will be “conformed” to His Son; and that is God’s ultimate “purpose.” No longer will they “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

This foreknowledge of God probably refers to his intimate knowledge of and relationship with believers whom he predestined to reach a particular goal: being conformed to the likeness of his Son. Paul uses the term ‘predestination’ when speaking of God’s plan because he wants to make it clear our salvation starts with God’s choice, not ours. God has planned for believers to pass through three stages: they are called, they are justified and they are glorified (8:30).

Think of the Christian experience. The more Christians think of their experience, the more they become convinced that they had nothing to do with it and everything comes from God. Jesus Christ came into this world; he lived; he went to the cross; he rose again. We did nothing to bring that about; that is God’s work. We heard the story of this wondrous love. We did not make the story; we only received the story. Love woke within our hearts; the conviction of sin came, and with it came the experience of forgiveness and of salvation. We did not achieve that; all is of God. That is what Paul is thinking of here.

It is the deep experience of Christians that all is of God; that they did nothing and that God did everything. That is what Paul means here. He means that from the beginning of time God marked us out for salvation; that in due time his call came to us; but the pride of human hearts can wreck God’s plan, and the disobedience of human will can refuse the call.

The “destination” toward which believers have been set in motion is that we might “be conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”

The foundational reason why all things work for believers’ good begins to emerge: God’s unstoppable purpose in calling believers to salvation cannot be frustrated, and thus he employs all things to bring about the plan he had from the beginning in the lives of believers.

The major objective of the text should be reiterated here. Believers are assured that everything works together for good because the God who set his covenantal love upon them, predestined them to be like his Son, called them effectually to himself, and justified them will certainly glorify them. All the sufferings and afflictions of the present era are not an obstacle to their ultimate salvation but the means by which salvation will be accomplished

God’s plan for the salvation of those who believe in Christ has three steps: called (see 1:6; 8:28), justified (3:24, 28; 4:2; 5:1, 9), and glorified..While being glorified is a future event, Paul writes it in the past tense to show that it is so certain to happen that it is as good as done. When we are finally conformed to the image of Christ, we will be glorified

ORIGEN: We know that Christ was in the form of God and took on himself the form of a servant also. Which of these two is it that the believer is to be conformed to?… In my opinion, new converts are conformed to the image of the servant, and as they progress in the faith, they become conformed to that image which is the image of God

CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON. THEODORET OF CYR: God did not simply predestine; he predestined those whom he foreknew. Paul says everything precisely and writes “conformed to the image of his Son” and not just “conformed to his Son.” … For our body is not conformed to Christ’s divinity but to his glorified body. It is as a man that Christ is the firstborn; as God he is the only begotten. Nor does Christ as God have brothers. It is as a man that he calls all men his brothers. INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.39

Committed Christian living will always rub the world the wrong way at some point, and friction is inevitable.

What Paul is saying, then, is that God’s plan for us began in a decision to enter into relationship with us. This led, in turn, to his decision to “predestine” us. As the English verb suggests, this word (proorizo) simply means to direct a person to a particular goal (the verb also occurs in v. 30; cf. Acts 4:28; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:5, 11). Paul spells out the goal: “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” The last stage of Christian existence is to be “conformed” to Christ’s own glorious body (see Phil. 3:21). God enters into relationship with us so that we may attain that goal

“Calling” is not a general gospel invitation. It is God’s effective summoning of us into relationship with himself through Christ

The ultimate good is God’s glory, and he is glorified when his children live as Christ did (v. 29) and attain the glory he has destined them for (v. 30; cf. vv. 31–39).

to be conformed to the image of his Son. According to the divine plan, Christians are destined to reproduce in themselves an image of Christ by a progressive share in his risen life (see 8:17; Gal 4:4–6; Phil 3:20–21); “all of us, with unveiled face, are beholding the glory of the Lord (and) being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18; cf. 4:4b–6). In other words, through faith and baptism the sinner becomes a Christian, who bears the shape or form of God’s own Son. Christians are not just adopted children (8:15), but are being continually transformed or metamorphosed into an eikōn, “image, likeness,” of the Son of God.

PETER MARTYR VERMIGLI: Since Christ is the perfect image of the Father, when we are conformed to him we approach a likeness to God. What this conformation to Christ rests on is to be understood in this way: Christ is now in glory and is seated at the right hand of the Father, happy, blessed, and immortal, and it is for this same happiness that we also have been destined. God so ordained that that which will be perfected in the next life should in some sense be begun in us now in this life. We are accordingly rendered as those conformed to Christ by good works, holy manners, and a blameless life. Just as it was for this purpose that he was continually harassed by crosses and tribulations while he walked in this world, so we also must undergo crosses and torments for the same reason. Just as these trials worked together in Christ for his happiness and glory, so they will work together in us for a similar purpose. COMMENTARY ON ROMANS (1560).

God’s children becomes obvious to all creation (8:21, 23).

When Paul speaks of the conformity of believers to the “image” (εἰκών) of God’s Son, he recalls the theme of creation’s restoration implicit in its eager longing for release from its bondage to corruption in 8:18–23. The term reaches back to the language of Genesis where God created humanity in his image (Gen 1:26–27; 5:1; 9:6) and hints that Paul thought of the resurrected Son of God as the archetype of a newly restored humanity (cf. 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4; Col 1:15). Paul probably imagined this new humanity as the answer to the plight into which human beings plunged themselves according to 1:19–32 when they began to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.

The transformation of God’s people from mortal to immortal human beings happens at God’s initiative and direction from beginning to end, and its accomplishment is therefore certain.

the final goal is what we might call Christification or even Christosis. The meaning is that humanity will recover the glory lost in Adam by sharing in the glory arrayed in Christ. The divine purpose for humanity to reign over creation on God’s behalf is recovered by the Messiah and shared with his people. For believers the redemption of their bodies and the revelation of their sonship will be a cosmic event that will spill over and lead to the renovation of the cosmos. In the meantime, however, Christians must exhibit a hope characterized by “patient fortitude”3 and rely on the Spirit’s intercession to get them through it. They do so knowing that the golden chain of salvation, from God’s eternal decision to our eschatological deliverance, is immutable, and it will bring believers into the glorified family of the Son of God.

Entering the world of Romans 8:18–30 forces us to understand Christian life as a pilgrimage that takes us from groaning to glory. We are all spiritual sojourners making our way in a fallen world and looking ahead to the celestial city as the hope that lies before us. We follow Christ, who paved the way ahead of us, a way of suffering, the way of the cross; yet it is also the way to life and glory. Those who bear Christ’s name are not excused from this journey; on the contrary, it is precisely because they are in Christ that they too must share in Christ’s sufferings so that they might also share in his glory.

The believer’s conformity to Christ:—There is a threefold conformity which a believer is said to have to Christ—of holiness, of suffering, of glory. First, of holiness and sanctification

Conformed to the image of his Son” refers to the Christlikeness of Ephesians 4:13, “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

The chief steps of salvation are listed in verse 30, as working together toward that final goal. Four stages are indicated here. First is the “predestination,” looking back (as explained above) to God’s plan made before the foundation of the world.

Second is the “call.” Of course the gospel call goes out to all men. But Paul is thinking especially about the truly saved here. Only in the hearts of those who respond in faith is the gospel call truly effective. This call includes the preaching of the gospel, with its invitation to “whosoever will,” and the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, the “drawing” Jesus spoke of in John 6:44. God must always take the initiative in man’s salvation.

Third is justification

Finally will come glorification

It may come as a surprise that being conformed to Jesus’ image is not for our benefit: God’s desire is for Jesus to be glorified as the firstborn of all creation and to hold this preeminent position over creation. Once again we are reminded that although God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives, this plan is more about Him and His bigger purpose than about our happiness. Whatever benefit we gain in being conformed to God’s image is ancillary to His greater purpose in seeing His Son properly honored.

In the simplest possible terms, God’s eternal purpose for his people is that we should become like Jesus. The transformation process begins here and now in our character and conduct, through the work of the Holy Spirit, but will be brought to completion only when Christ comes and we see him,164 and our bodies become like the body of his glory.