I am not ashamed of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, for
it is the power of God to make me like him.[1]
It is in the gospel of God that the power of God takes hold
of sinners, saves them from their sinful condition, and returns them to the
fulfillment of God’s plan to have a people in his own image and likeness.
We can only understand the gospel by going back to the very
first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter one. It is in this chapter that God
tells us who we are. After he created everything else as the backdrop to his
final, glorious act of creation, the Triune collaborated to make man in their
own image and likeness.[2]
Just as with everything else in creation, what they said they would create,
they created. Man, as male and female, was now the only creature created in God’s
own image.
Everything from that point, the fall of man into sin, the
creation of the nation of Israel, the prophets speaking of a coming Messiah who
would suffer and die in the place of sinners, the birth of Jesus Christ, the
ministry of the Savior in calling Israel to repent and enter the kingdom of
heaven, the crucifixion, the burial, the resurrection, the empowering of the
church with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and the gospel spreading out to
Jew and Gentile alike, all work together to the same end: to give God a people
in his own image and likeness.
The last book of the Bible, the glorious book of Revelation,
gives this beautiful description of the grand finale of God’s work:
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”[3]
And, because of this, that the work from beginning to end is
God’s, “he is able to save to the
uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make
intercession for them.”[7]
If God wants a people in his own image and likeness, and we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God,”[8]
his work of salvation MUST be able “to
save to the uttermost.” To save us any less than that would not leave us
like him, and to not be like him would mean that he failed to do something he
set out to do, and it is impossible for him to fail.
So, redeemed sinners stand in awe and wonder that the God
who created us out of dust into the image and likeness of his Son, has also
defeated sin, death, hell, Satan, the grave, and any other enemy or obstacle to
our Christlikeness, in order that we will one day be just like him when we see
him as he is.[9]
God will not fail to so take hold of those he has foreloved because
“he also predestined” his beloved “to be conformed to the image of his Son, in
order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”[10]
Because of this, and because he would not fail to accomplish what he
predestined to do, “those whom he
predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and
those whom he justified he also glorified.”[11]
Because God is carrying on to completion the good work he
started in us,[12]
his redeemed and justified children have this present experience of the work of
God:
“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.”[13]
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Romans 1:16
[2]
Genesis 1:26-27
[3]
Revelation 21:3
[4]
Ephesians 1:3-14 shows how God made decisions prior to creation that he worked
to fulfill through the gracious gift of salvation.
[5]
Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 7:23, 11:4, 30:22; Ezekiel 36:28
[6]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[7]
Hebrews 7:25
[8]
Romans 3:23
[9]
I John 3:2
[10]
Romans 8:29
[11]
Romans 8:30
[12]
Philippians 1:6
[13]
II Corinthians 3:18
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