The Image of God

"And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26)

Here we have the first thought of man - his origin and his destiny entirely Divine. God undertook the stupendous work of making a creature, who is not God, to be a perfect likeness of Him in His Divine glory. man was to live in entire dependence on God and to receive directly and unceasingly from Himself the inflow of all that was holy and blessed in the Divine Being. God's glory, His holiness, and His love were to dwell in him and shine out through him.

When sin had done its terrible work and spoiled the image of God, the promise was given in Paradise of the seed of the woman in whom the Divine purpose would be fulfilled. "God's Son, the effulgence of His glory and the very image of Hi substance" (Hebrews 1:3), was to become a Son of man in whom God's plan would be carried out, His image revealed in human form. The New Testament takes up the thought of Creation and speaks  of those who are 'foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son"; of "the new man renewed after the image of Him that created him"; and gives the promise: "We know that when He shall be manifested, we  shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is."

And, between the eternal purpose and its eternal realization, we have a wonderful promise in regard to the life here upon earth. "We all, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It was of this that Paul had said just before: "Shall not the ministration of the Spirit be glorious by reason of the glory that excelleth?" Let us take home the promise of the text as the possible and assured experience for daily life to everyone who gives Christ His place as the Glorified One. Let us keep the heart set upon the glory of that image of God in Christ in the assurance that the spirit will change us into the same image day by day, from glory to glory. O my soul, take time to believe firmly and confidently that this promise will be made true in thy Christian life.

"Let that mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."  "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."

"Lord, increase our faith."

~Andrew Murray~