“CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON”
Alistair M Brown
Romans 3: 21-26; 6: 10-11; 8: 28-30
The text for the day on our calendar this morning was Romans 8: 28, and as I read the passage further I was struck by this, that God’s desire for those who love Him is that they should be “conformed to the image of his Son, so that He should be the firstborn among many brethren”.
God’s desire is that Christ should be glorified, and that He should have the pre-eminent place. That is conveyed in the expression that Christ should be “the firstborn among many brethren” It is remarkable that the Holy Spirit brings this thought into the foundational epistle to the Romans. It is a fundamentally important epistle: if we are not, in our measure, formed by the moral exercises that the apostle writes about in Romans, then we will be like a ship without a keel and without any ballast. We will be unstable.
The truths in Romans bring stability to believers. We learn what we are according to nature - which is worthless and sinful, as we read in chapter 3. We discover in chapter 7 that “in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell”. These are fundamental matters, to be received in the depth of our souls as believers. It is vital to be grounded in the truth of Romans. But the truth of Romans also includes this - that God intends that those who come to trust in Christ also come to love God, and will be conformed to the image of his Son.
We can say therefore that God’s objective in causing the gospel to be preached is that people might come to know Him, and might be conformed to the image of His Son. You may think that is going beyond the gospel. But this great objective could not be gained if it were not for the gospel. God would not reach His end of Christ being “the firstborn among many brethren”, having the place of pre-eminence among those that love God and are the subject of divine grace, were it not for the gospel being preached and received. The gospel takes up man as he is - God does not overlook what man is. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. God does not overlook that, but He has the answer to it. The answer is in a Man, the same Man who so delights God that He wants a whole company of people conformed to His image. That is what God has in mind.
The object of the gospel is the salvation of sinners; certainly it is. But God goes further than that: He desires to have a company secured like Christ. We can see from this passage in Romans 8 that the full result that God has in mind is that people should be secured who are like Christ. That is what being conformed to His image means: people who are like Jesus. And that is with a view to marking out Christ in His pre-eminence as “the firstborn among many brethren”. God is so pleased with Christ that He wants a whole universe populated with people like Him, and He will have that. In the gospel, God presents that One as Saviour. We come into God’s thoughts of favour and blessing because the gospel is preached to us: what abundance of grace!
There is a lot said about infection, and how it strikes one after another, spreading through the population and incapacitating people. It makes us think of the way that sin has infected mankind, and brought in distance and distrust between men and God. We are told at the beginning of Genesis that God came down into the garden to commune with man. I do not know how long that went on, but I think the period was very short before sin came in to spoil things. God desired to commune with His creature, made in His own image, a distinctive part of His creation with intelligence and affection and a capacity to understand God and to respond to Him. Man is a creature, but he is a distinctive part of creation and God desired to commune with him. Then sin came in and it brought distrust. Satan brought about a breakdown of trust on man’s part towards God. He injected into Eve’s mind thoughts about God that were not true, and she gave room to them and began to doubt and to mistrust God: ‘Had God really said this? Is that what God really meant?’. The enemy was speaking as though he knew better than God did. And Eve fell into that trap, and Adam also.
That is the state in which sin leaves man: helpless and sad, and exiled from the grace of God and the blessings of God. How much sorrow there is in the world today as a result of sin. We see only the tip of the iceberg in the newspapers, and sometimes what we come into contact with. But what sorrow and moral dislocation and grief has been wrought in people’s relationships with each other, starting from the dislocation of relationships between people and God. God takes account of all of that and He does not overlook it, but He has the answer to it. His answer is not in philosophy or politics or man’s self-improvement. His answer is in Jesus, God’s blessed Man.
In chapter 3, it says that “righteousness of God is manifested … righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all, and upon all those who believe: for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. What a coming short there has been. God made man upright, in His own image: “Let us make man in our image”, Gen 1: 26. Man was the special part of creation - the top stone - but all have sinned. That includes you and me: we all come short of the glory of God. What we do not have, but need, is righteousness. By sinning we come short of God’s standard, and we cannot stand in the presence of God, whose eyes are too holy to behold evil, Hab 1: 13. But God has not been thwarted in His desire to have people like Christ in His presence. We have spoken of Christ being God’s answer. God brings in righteousness in Christ. And then, by faith in that blessed One, righteousness is available: “righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ, towards all” - God has in mind blessing for everyone. Then it adds, “and upon all those who believe”.
The gospel is preached so that we might believe what God says about Christ. The enemy of our souls works, as he worked at the beginning in Eden, so that Adam and Eve should not believe what God said. That was the whole point of what the enemy put before Eve, that she might not believe, and he is still at it today. He will distract people and try to turn their attention away from the message of the gospel, saying it is a fable, and not to be believed. What audacity on the part of the enemy of our souls to stand against what God is saying in the gospel and to put in our hearts the thought that we should not believe God! It is a terrible thing. I trust that everyone here has believed. If so, the righteousness of God is upon you. How wonderful to believe what God says about Christ in the gospel, and thus to know God’s righteousness upon us. What we needed most and what we did not have, and could never provide for ourselves as sinners, God has provided in Christ. And it is ours through believing in Him.
Though the scripture says that all men have sinned, there was one Man “who did no sin” (1 Pet 2: 22), “who knew not sin” (2 Cor 5: 21), and in whom “sin is not”, 1 John 3: 5. These three things are said about Jesus - one Man in the whole history of the race who was different. He was sin apart, as a lamb without spot and without blemish, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, 1 Pet 1: 19. God brought His man in - Jesus! A different kind of man entirely, the lowly Son of the carpenter in the world’s eyes, but now set forth by God a mercy-seat. How is God able to set Him forth a mercy-seat? Because He was obedient unto death. The sinless One offered Himself spotless to God. What a basis on which God can bless, a basis on which He can attribute righteousness to those that believe on Him! God gave His best, Christ the One whom He loved and loves above all - He gave that One, gave Him for sinners like you and me. And Jesus in complete obedience to the will of His God and Father was obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. That righteous One gave Himself as a ransom for sinners, so that you and I and everyone who believes may come under the shelter of His precious blood, and be regarded by God as righteous - “righteousness of God …. upon all those who believe”.
God has not left us hopeless. He has come in in Christ to justify us freely by His grace - “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”. What a wonderful expression! It is not that God has hidden the matter away, or made it difficult to come to salvation: God sets Christ forth. The mercy-seat was where God met and spoke with His people. He did it through Moses originally, but God’s thought was to be able to meet and speak with His people at the mercy-seat. God has now brought in Christ as the mercy-seat, the One in whom He is able to meet us and speak to us. How God loves to set forth Christ as a mercy-seat. He loves to bring Christ to the attention of people in that way. The way of salvation is in Christ, through faith in that blessed One and in His blood. We are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. It is Jesus that has done the great work to manifest God’s righteousness, and has given His life, paid the price that God required, and His blood has been shed, so that we might be justified. God is righteously able to justify us freely by His grace. Justified means being made righteous, and God is able to justify us because of what Christ has done. If God makes you righteous, no one can question that. God’s attribution of righteousness as a result of faith in the blood of His blessed Son is what matters for time and eternity.
How wonderful that, by taking God at His word and believing in His Man, we are made righteous in God’s sight. We are counted righteous by God.
The sinner who believes is free,
Can say, The Saviour died for me;
Can point to the atoning blood
And say, This made my peace with God.
(Hymn 357).
This is how God looks upon you as a believer in Jesus. He sees the blood and He sees complete righteousness there; He attributes that righteousness to you, friend, as a believer in Christ and His blood. All we have to do is take God at His word. Simply believe - the work has been done, by the One who has so delighted God. Another hymn says -
God is satisfied with Jesus,
We are satisfied as well,
(Hymn 410).
How full, eternal and assured our salvation is. The guilt of our sins blotted out, our unrighteousness atoned for, covered, in the death and blood-shedding of Jesus, God’s righteousness upheld, so that He is able to forgive in righteousness. The hymn says that -
But in the cross of Christ we see
How God can save, yet righteous be.
(Hymn 357).
He maintains His righteousness while pouring in His grace, because of the work of Christ. How delighted God is with that blessed One.
How essential, then, to come in faith and repentance to Christ. How deep a matter it is to see that my sins have been covered by His blood. What a matter that my sins were laid upon Him, that He confessed the sins of His people as His own, as another has said (JND Collected Writings vol 29 p287), and suffered for me - suffered judgment that I could never bear. That is a deep matter for the believer to go into; it involves repentance. As a repenting sinner, I take sides with God in relation to what I am as a sinner. I freely acknowledge that I am a sinner, and that the burden of my sins was laid upon Christ and not upon me. The Saviour has taken my sins upon Himself, God has placed them there, and they are regarded as His so that He should bear the penalty and the burden and the guilt that were mine - and take them away. That should freshly affect us. Those who have come this way are repenting sinners: that is, we are always to be marked by the spirit of repentance and of thankfulness to Christ and to God.
And yet, wonderful as this deliverance from guilt and judgment is, God (we speak reverently) does not stop there. There is joy in heaven when a sinner repents, but God does not stop there: He has more in mind. The scripture we read in Romans 6: 10,11 refers to Christ having died to sin once for all, and now living to God. And then the apostle says, “So also ye, reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” The apostle is speaking about sin - the principle of disobedience, and to be free from its power we have to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. How can that be? Mr Coates said that reckoning comes by love (CAC The Food of Life vol 17 p146) - love for Christ, for the One who died for me. It is not difficult to love Christ because He has given His life for us. Every believer in Jesus loves Him. But love is to have a result in us. If our love for Christ is sincere and deep, we are going to put Him first, and we are going to judge what we find in ourselves that is not consistent with Him and would dishonour Him. Loving the One who is righteous leads me to a deeper judgment of the unrighteousness that I find in me. The great point Paul is making is that the believer has resources available to enable us to align ourselves with Christ and to derive our life from Him. Our motivation, priorities and walk are derived from Christ. A believer who understands this puts Christ first and loves Christ deeply.
We are challenged as to the depth of our love for the Lord Jesus, and whether we love Him so much that we are prepared to take account of ourselves as being in the same relation to things as He is, CAC The Food of Life vol 17 p146. If He is rejected in this world, we stand rejected too. We will not find our pleasure or place in a world that has rejected Christ. We cannot be a friend of the world and a friend of Christ. We cannot be a lover of things that are in the world and a lover of Christ. If we give Christ the first place, we are sowing to Him and we are sowing to the Spirit, Gal 6: 8. What the apostle brings out in Romans is that the gift and power of the Spirit is essential if the believer is going to live for Christ here, as the verse that we have read says - “alive to God in Christ Jesus”. We cannot do that in our own power. We might try in zeal to live for Christ here, but God has provided resource in the Holy Spirit so that the believer who loves Christ and is obedient to Him, who owns Him as Lord and desires to have the gift of the Spirit, is able to live thus. The matter of obedience is vital in that - the Holy Spirit comes upon those who obey Christ. If we are characteristically obedient, and desire to have the Spirit’s help, He comes in to help us. The Spirit helps us in every right desire, and He helps to keep Christ before us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is immense. How wonderful that the Spirit of Christ should be available to us. And as we sow to Him and grow in our affection for Christ, He gives us power to live - to be “alive to God in Christ Jesus”.
Every day we are to prove the Spirit’s power and to call upon Him. The Spirit is to be drawn upon as the power for us to live to God in Christ Jesus, and to resist the efforts of the enemy. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4: 4. Not only is He powerful for us in the struggle against the flesh, but the Spirit is the power for bringing Christ before us, so that we can rejoice in communion with that blessed One in the power of the Spirit. Christ is our great High Priest, and the Holy Spirit is our Friend here who joins Himself to us. What power is towards us as believers both in heaven and here with us on the earth.
In Romans 8, the word is, “we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”. Everyone who has accepted Christ as Saviour has become a lover of God. Have we become lovers of God, knowing that all things work together for good to us? Do we accept that what God allows and brings in is for our blessing? If we do, we prove Christ as our High Priest. We increase in our knowledge of the One who intercedes for us and who strengthens us. The deeper the sorrows and the exercises, the more we come to know Him. It is easy to speak about it, but how vital to have the experience. I am sure that each of us knows something of it. Some are passing through deep waters, but we can be assured that all things work together for good to those who love God.
And then the apostle adds, “who have been called according to purpose”. We do not preach God’s purpose, exactly; but those who have trusted in Jesus and have become lovers of God know that they have been called according to purpose. It has often been said that above that narrow gate whereby we enter into blessing, we see the words, ‘Whosoever will’ - that is, God has everyone in mind for blessing. But once we have entered in, we look back and see written above the door on the inside the words, ‘Foreknown in Christ before the foundation of the world’. Both are true. God has called us according to purpose, in that One who is our Saviour, because God has no other in mind. His purpose is that we should be conformed to the image of that One. This is the One to whose image we are to be conformed.
God has in mind to bring us through to conformity to Him for our blessing. It is a wonderful matter to be like Christ and to know something of the company of many brethren who are conformed to Him. It leads us on to appreciate something of the blessedness of Christ as the Firstborn - the One who is pre-eminent in a company of those that love Him and who are like Him. These are tremendous blessings for us. Yet there is more to it than our blessing, for this is all to God’s glory. The result of all God’s great thoughts and His purpose, the result of the giving of His Son, is that He should be glorified. And He is. The scripture speaks of the saints being to the praise of the glory of God’s grace, Eph 1: 6. It is wonderful to be for the praise of God’s glory, to hold forth the excellence and the glory of God’s grace in the circle of the saints, and also in this contrary scene in the world.
That is what God is achieving in believers. God’s achievements are tremendous. All this has been made possible and is secured in His Man, in Christ. Our entering in is through Christ, and we enter in by believing in Him; into the most wonderful blessings that God has in mind. It is all with a view that God should have a company that is to the praise of the glory of His grace. He has such a company. I am not referring just to the circle of fellowship, but He has a company in believers with the Spirit who are to the praise of the glory of His grace: what blessing to appreciate God’s thoughts and contribute to them. God will be glorified eternally in the innumerable hosts of those whom Christ has secured for the glory of God. Wonderful sovereign mercy, and riches of grace, that we have been brought within the range of God’s thoughts in purpose.
I trust that we might be strengthened and fortified in our faith in Christ and in our love for Him, and in our experience of Him by the Spirit, so that we are here to the glory of God’s grace, and for our own blessing.
For His Name’s sake.
Kirkcaldy
20 September 2020