Christ: The True Image and Restoration of Humanity
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In Christ, we find the true image of God, and through Him, we are re-humanized, renewed in the likeness of our Creator. This transformation is not achieved through our efforts but by fixing our gaze on Christ, who transforms us by His glory. [00:14:24]
Adam was created son of God specifically to be like the uncreated Son of God, reveling in the love and care the eternal Son had always enjoyed. Adam was made to know the love of the Father. Now, Adam undid all that he was made to be by sinning. [00:04:53]
Adam was serving as an illustration of the One to whom every knee will bow, to whom every creature will submit, the last Adam, who would be crowned the everlasting king of all. But Adam is also strikingly called "the son of God" in Luke 3 verse 37. [00:04:21]
And the account of it in Genesis 2 certainly makes you sit up and wonder, because there in Genesis 2, remember, it's a world before all death and agony, and Adam is wounded. "The LORD caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept the LORD took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh." [00:06:23]
At a tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam committed the mother of all sins, and he fell into death. At a tree, the cross, Christ obeyed His Father to the uttermost and conquered death. Adam brought sin and death; Christ brought righteousness and life. [00:09:04]
Yes, that first Easter morning was indeed a wondrous new beginning like a new Eden, reestablishing all that God had once declared good. A man, yes God, walked in the garden, ruler over all things, in perfect harmony with God. Only now there'd be no threat of death, no danger of a serpent to wreck it all. [00:09:52]
He said, "Adam was like a beautiful portrait painting. On him, the image of God was drawn. And what happened at the fall was that the portrait was utterly wrecked. Adam was no longer anything like God. He'd become vicious, selfish, horribly unholy. And so the image, the painting was ruined." [00:13:06]
Our only hope of wholeness is in Christ, the image of God. Humanity can be mended nowhere else. To be out of Christ, whatever we do, whatever we try, is to remain dehumanized by the fall. But to know Christ, to be in Him is to be humanized, to be renewed in the likeness of God because in Christ, we see perfect humanity. [00:15:58]
This true humanity that we see in Christ, think, is so full of life. Just think what Jesus was like as a man as you read the Gospels. He was anything but boring and anemic. Here was a man with towering charisma, running over with life, health and healing, loaves and fishes. Everything abounded in His presence. [00:16:21]
In other words, he was a man who embodied the truth that to be in Christ means to be made ever more roundly human, more fully alive. Now, if you've ever read a sermon of his, and if you haven't, you must. If you've ever read a sermon of his, you'll know he was an unmistakably earnest man. [00:23:26]
Spurgeon held that to be alive in Christ means to fight not only the habits and acts of sin but also sin's temperamental sullenness, ingratitude, bitterness, despair. And so, to enter into Christ's life entails entering into the joy of being fully human, of being at peace with the blessed or happy God of glory. [00:25:13]
We become what we were made to be by looking to Christ, who is the image of God. Beholding Him, we become most truly human. And all our faculties, our minds, our hearts, our lives get aligned right, and we are transformed into His image. Friends, it matters what you fix your gaze on every day. [00:32:43]
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Adam was created son of God specifically to be like the uncreated Son of God, reveling in the love and care the eternal Son had always enjoyed. Adam was made to know the love of the Father. Now, Adam undid all that he was made to be by sinning. [00:04:53]
Adam was serving as an illustration of the One to whom every knee will bow, to whom every creature will submit, the last Adam, who would be crowned the everlasting king of all. But Adam is also strikingly called "the son of God" in Luke 3 verse 37. [00:04:21]
And the account of it in Genesis 2 certainly makes you sit up and wonder, because there in Genesis 2, remember, it's a world before all death and agony, and Adam is wounded. "The LORD caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept the LORD took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh." [00:06:23]
At a tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam committed the mother of all sins, and he fell into death. At a tree, the cross, Christ obeyed His Father to the uttermost and conquered death. Adam brought sin and death; Christ brought righteousness and life. [00:09:04]
Yes, that first Easter morning was indeed a wondrous new beginning like a new Eden, reestablishing all that God had once declared good. A man, yes God, walked in the garden, ruler over all things, in perfect harmony with God. Only now there'd be no threat of death, no danger of a serpent to wreck it all. [00:09:52]
He said, "Adam was like a beautiful portrait painting. On him, the image of God was drawn. And what happened at the fall was that the portrait was utterly wrecked. Adam was no longer anything like God. He'd become vicious, selfish, horribly unholy. And so the image, the painting was ruined." [00:13:06]
Our only hope of wholeness is in Christ, the image of God. Humanity can be mended nowhere else. To be out of Christ, whatever we do, whatever we try, is to remain dehumanized by the fall. But to know Christ, to be in Him is to be humanized, to be renewed in the likeness of God because in Christ, we see perfect humanity. [00:15:58]
This true humanity that we see in Christ, think, is so full of life. Just think what Jesus was like as a man as you read the Gospels. He was anything but boring and anemic. Here was a man with towering charisma, running over with life, health and healing, loaves and fishes. Everything abounded in His presence. [00:16:21]
In other words, he was a man who embodied the truth that to be in Christ means to be made ever more roundly human, more fully alive. Now, if you've ever read a sermon of his, and if you haven't, you must. If you've ever read a sermon of his, you'll know he was an unmistakably earnest man. [00:23:26]
Spurgeon held that to be alive in Christ means to fight not only the habits and acts of sin but also sin's temperamental sullenness, ingratitude, bitterness, despair. And so, to enter into Christ's life entails entering into the joy of being fully human, of being at peace with the blessed or happy God of glory. [00:25:13]
We become what we were made to be by looking to Christ, who is the image of God. Beholding Him, we become most truly human. And all our faculties, our minds, our hearts, our lives get aligned right, and we are transformed into His image. Friends, it matters what you fix your gaze on every day. [00:32:43]
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