“Conformed to the Image of God”
[Romans 8:28-30]
March 27, 2011 Second Reformed Church
Have you every conformed a pie crust to a pie plate? Have you ever conformed a meatloaf to a loaf pan? Have you ever conformed to the rules and regulations of a group or organization? Have you ever conformed to the dress code of a group of organization?
Paul uses three words to describe how the Image of God is restored in humans: conformed, transformed, and renewed. Today, we will look at the first of these words.
Remember that we saw that humans were created in the Image of God, which means we have dominion over the Creation. We are to care for, steward, protect, judge, and so forth, the Creation, in the same way that God has dominion over us and the rest of the Creation.
We saw that after the sin of our first parents, the Image of God in us was marred and broken. We did not exercise dominion and care for the Creation as God does, and God was no longer obviously seen in humanity.
But God sent His Son to be human, and so Jesus is the Image of God in the flesh. In Jesus we can see God, and His Perfect Dominion, and His Image in the flesh for the first and only time, and we can continue to see Him through His Word.
Yet, as we know from considering the Gospel – that God the Son came to earth, took on the human, Jesus of Nazareth, lived a perfect life, died for the sins of all those who would believe in Him, rose from the dead, gave His people His Righteousness, and ascended back to His Throne at the Right Hand of the Father – God does not leave us in our sin.
Although we know that the world is still broken and we are still sinners, even as Christians, we know that is not the end of the story. In the section before this morning’s reading, Paul explains how the entire Creation was cast into corruption and suffering for the sake of our sin, and we ourselves are a mess
Paul writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:15-25, ESV).
This is the state we find ourselves in with a sin nature – with a corrupted and marred and broken Image of God in us. But let us understand, Paul is not making excuses – he is saying that he knows what is right and what is wrong and sometimes he gives in to the temptation to do what is wrong, not because it is inevitable, but because he gives up and gives in to it; we are responsible for our sin. Also, understand, he is not saying that our physical bodies are evil, he is using another term, which we translate “flesh,” to refer to the sin nature – to the inclination we have towards sin, which is not completely removed from us even after we believe savingly in Jesus.
So take heart – in this sense – if you confess faith in Jesus and you still struggle with sin and give in to it – we are all the same. I struggled with sin and give in to sin and throw up my hands and wonder if I will ever mature in the faith, turning from the temptation to sin, following the way of escape that God always promises for us, being an obedient son of the Father Who loves me so much that He gave His Son for me.
We may at times, with Paul, cry out, “Wretched man that I am ” Or, “Why?” Or, “It this ever going to change?”
And the answer, brothers and sisters, is “yes.” Paul exclaims, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord ” In other words, in this life we are in a war against sin, and we will suffer, and we will give into temptation and sin, and we will wonder if we will ever be what God has called us to be – and we will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. We will never become all that we are called to be through our own efforts – though we are to fight to be faithful – but it is God through Jesus Christ our Lord Who is making us and will make us – Who will perfect and restore in us – the Image of God – and all things.
After describing the affliction and depths of suffering that humans and the whole Creation have fallen into through our first parents’ and our sin, Paul writes a very familiar and oft misquoted verse. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard people say, “God works all things together for good,” but there is no such verse or promise in the Scripture.
What Paul writes – the promise that is given – is this: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” God does not work everything together for everyone’s good – God works everything together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His Purpose.
The terrible truth is that there are people that never love God and have not been called according to His Purpose. These are the people who will suffer for all of eternity for their sin – they will not find that everything has worked out for their good, because they hated God.
So, who it is whom God will cause all things to work together for good? Who amongst us sinning messes will be made right with God?
Paul explains that these are those who believe savingly in Jesus. And the reason we can be sure the work will be accomplished in us is that the work is completely God’s.
Paul continues in our text telling us that those whom God foreknew – and let us not be confused – when we think of the word “foreknew” we often think of knowing ahead of time or seeing the future –that is not what this word means – it has the same root as when we read that Adam “knew” Eve and she bore a son. The word “knew,” here, means a passionate, intimate love. So, here, we are told that God has a passionate, intimate love for those who believe savingly in Him before – before what? Before we believed – and not based on our doing or not doing anything – or God looking into the future. As Paul explains in the next chapter, referring to Jacob and Esau as symbolic heads of humanity, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good of bad – in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call – [Rebecca] was told ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated’” (Romans 9:11-13, ESV).
What did Jacob do to be loved? What did Esau do to be hated? Nothing. God loved Jacob – he foreknew him – before he existed, before he had done anything right or wrong. God chose to love all those who would believe in Him savingly, not based on anything they would do or not do – no one has merited God’s Love.
Have we got the point?
We know that God will cause everything – sin and failure and suffering – to work together for the good of those who believe savingly in Him, because God chose them and loved them with a passionate and intimate love before they existed and before they did anything right or wrong – before anyone “merited” being loved.
And those whom God chose to love – for His Own Reasons, which have nothing to do with what anyone does or does not do – God “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” God determined that God would conform each one who believes in Jesus into the Image of His Son.
What does it mean to “conform”? Bering conformed means being made to have the same form or nature, to bring into harmony, to make the same, and to be in agreement.
So, what Paul is telling us is that God has chosen and will cause to occur that all those who believe savingly in Jesus will finally have the same Image of God in them that Jesus is. In other words, God will restore the Image of God in us to the way it was before sin entered the world, and the Image of God in us will appear as the Image of God Who Jesus is. We will once again be able to exercise perfect dominion, as Paul wrote to Timothy, “if we endure, we will also reign with [Jesus];” (II Timothy 2:12a, ESV).
But where shall we reign with Jesus? Since we reign with Jesus in the sense that we have dominion over the Creation, we will again, after Jesus returns, reign over the Creation will Him, as it was in the Garden of Eden. For the whole Creation will also be restored to its state before the Fall. As Paul explains in the verses preceding this morning’s text, in the Kingdom, we will live on earth with Jesus – in a perfect and sin-free world.
Why have we been predestined to be conformed to the Image of God? So Jesus “might be the firstborn of among many brothers.” What does that mean? Although we shall have dominion over the Creation with Jesus, since Jesus is no mere man, but God Himself, He will have pre-eminence in having dominion over the Creation, though He shares dominion with His brothers and sisters – all those who believe savingly in Him.
John Calvin explains that “Christ is a living and conspicuous exemplar [of the Image of God,” and there shall not be a single heir of the Kingdom of God who has not been conformed to the Image of God, Jesus.
Paul wrote, “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 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. Just as we have bourne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (I Corinthians 45-49, ESV).
That is, Adam was created from the dust of the earth and given the Image of God to have dominion over the Creation. He sinned and every mere human being after him was born with a marred or broken Image of God in him or her. But Christ came to earth, and Jesus is the Image of God. And just as Jesus was physically risen from the dead to eternal life, we shall be physically resurrected from the dead to eternal life, and the Image of God in us shall be restored; we shall be conformed to the image of God in Jesus; we shall rise in new and perfected bodies and reign over the Creation with Jesus, perfectly exercising dominion over the Creation.
And those that God predestined, He also called – everyone whom God has chosen to believe, God will call to repent and believe. And everyone that God has called to repent and believe will be justified – everyone whom God called to repent and believe will be declared “innocent” through Jesus, and in fact, we will no longer be able to sin and Jesus’ Righteous Life has be credited to our accounts. So when God looks at us, He sees Jesus’ Perfect keeping of the Law, not our sin.
And just as surely as God has loved all those who will believe since before the Creation, and predetermined that they would be conformed to the Image of Jesus, that they would hear the call to repentance and belief and would do so, having been forgiven and accounted as righteous through Jesus, they are, now, in the Father’s Eyes, and will truly be on that final day – glorified.
What does it mean that we – and all those who believe – will be glorified? It means that we will be put in a position of great honor and authority and power, which will enhance God’s reputation that all the world would praise and glorify Him for Who He is and all that He has done.
What does it mean that we will be conformed to the Image of God? It means that God is restoring in us the same Image of God that Jesus is Himself. On that final day, we will bear the Image of God rightly and truly. We will exercise dominion over the restored and perfected Creation, with Jesus, our Brother, as the Head of the Church and the Head over the Creation.
Let us then look forward with great hope and expectation that though we continue to sin and suffer in this life, the day is coming when Jesus will return and we will be made like Him, bearing the Image of God that we might reign over the Creation with Him as humans were created to do.
And let us trust in our Great Savior, Jesus, that no matter how we struggle in this lifetime, and no matter how we may fall down and not know how God could make us right and use us in having dominion in His Kingdom, let us trust Him, as He has promised us, that He has chosen us for His Reasons, and He has brought us to Himself, forgiven us in love through His Son, making us also righteous through Him, and God is making what was fallen and corrupted and broken in us – including the Image of God – whole again – to His Eternal Glory.
For His is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever.
Let us pray:
Almighty God and Savior, we are humbled to look at all we have done wrong and how we have rebelled against You. We stand in Your Presence in awe that You have loved us and made us Your own, that You have forgiven us and made us righteous in Jesus, and You are conforming us into His Image. How can it be? May your Kingdom Come; May You be glorified by all of Creation. And may Jesus Christ be praised, Amen.
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