Friends, I'm so sorry we can't be together
in person now, but we have a sovereign God and glorious, certain promises from Him we're
going to see to help us stand strong in harrowing times. Now, friends, we live today in a culture where
everyone desperately wants to be fulfilled, and yet we're in a culture which doesn't know
what it means to be human. Witness the abortions, the racism, the objectifying
of people in the sex industry. And if we don't know what it is to be human,
how can we ever know how we can be fulfilled as humans? Now none of that should surprise us, for you
cannot know what it means to be human without Christ, the image of God. And my aim now is to look together at what
it means that Christ is the image of God and see what that teaches us about what it means
to be human. Now, in the first few hundred years after
the apostles, "the image of God" was a theme that grabbed theologians in a way we don't
really see today, theologians like Irenaeus and Athanasius. They loved this theme because they saw the
story of reality is the story of the image of God. For eternity past, the Son has always been,
as Hebrews 1 verse 3 puts it, "the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of
His nature." "He is," as Paul explains in Colossians 1,
"the image of the invisible God." Not just like God, not just friendly with
God, He is of the very being of the Father so that when He appears, we do not just see
a faint echo of divinity. When Philip, in John 14, asks Him, "Lord,
show us the Father," Jesus said to him, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father," for He is
the very expression of the Father, the perfect image and radiance of the glory of God. He is the image of God. But then in Genesis 1, we read about the creation
of Adam, and we're told that he was created in the image of God, in Genesis 1:27, "after
our likeness." Now, there's so much to say about what it
means that Adam was created in the image of God, but something Paul picks up in Romans
5 is fascinating. Paul there describes Adam as "the pattern
of the one to come," Romans 5:14. In other words, Paul is saying the first Adam
was intended to be a picture of what Christ, the last Adam, would be like. For remember, Adam was crowned by God as the
ruler of all creation in Genesis 1. God said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill
the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds
of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." That's Genesis 1:28. So Adam was to look after and rule over the
creation as God's steward and regent, not that Adam was ever the true monarch. Now, in the beginning, we're being shown the
end of humanity. 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. That's the climax of Luke's genealogy of Jesus. Do you remember, "Jesus," Luke explains "was
the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of," keep going a bit, "Enos,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God." 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. He listened to Satan. And when listening to Satan, he was no longer
imaging God. He was doubting God's fatherly kindness to
him, and so he was no longer being a faithful son. He was the prodigal son. But even in his sin, he actually still managed
to serve as a mirror image of the Son of God. Adam did not do what he was commanded, and
precisely because he no longer loved the Father. And in that moment, he could not have been
more perfectly opposite to the Son of God who said, John 14:31, "I love the Father,
and I do exactly what He commands." But more that all that, the first Adam shows
us what the last Adam is like through his marriage. 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." Adam falls into a deep, strange, deathlike
sleep, and from his side the Lord takes a rib and builds it into a woman. And she becomes…she comes from him, and
they become one – husband and wife. John Calvin, when he wrote about this, he
wrote "In this we see a true resemblance of our union with the Son of God." What did he mean? Well, the biblical commentator, Matthew Henry,
elaborates. He says, "In this, as in many other things,
Adam was a figure of Him that was to come. For out of the side of Christ, the second
Adam, His spouse, the church was formed when He slept the sleep, the deep sleep of death
upon the cross in order to which His side was opened, and there came out blood and water. Blood to purchase His church, and water to
purify it to Himself." No wonder the Apostle Paul, reading of this
first wedding in Genesis 2, saw it as a picture of the last and ultimate wedding, saying,
reading from Genesis 2, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall
become one flesh." And he says, "This is a profound mystery,
but I'm talking about Christ and the church," Ephesians 5:32. That in Adam we see Christ's glorious intention
to give life to His bride, to be one with her. And so, Adam was created as the pattern of
the one to come. And from that moment, all of history would
be the story of these two men – Adam, the head of the old humanity, and Christ, the
head of the new. And the fate of every person would be wrapped
up in one or the other. And what Adam would break, Christ would mend. So 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. And then, wrote G.K. Chesterton, "On the third day, the friends
of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled
away. And in varying ways, they realized the new
wonder, but even they hardly realized the world had died in the night. And what they were looking at was the first
day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth. And in a semblance of the gardener, God walked
again in the garden in the cool, not of the evening, but of the dawn." 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. Death had been swallowed up in victory, the
serpent crushed. And where Adam had been banished from the
Lord's presence and expelled from paradise, Christ would ascend to be where man was made
to be with God. And a man would sit with God in perfect harmony. Adam had been told, "Fill the earth and subdue
it," but Ephesians 4:10, Christ "ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill
all things. And He gave gifts to His people" that His
people might be built up that they, the new humanity, might fill God's new creation. In his great Christmas hymn, "Joy to the World,"
Isaac Watts wrote, "No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make His blessings flow far as
the curse is found." Yes, Christ mended all that Adam broke, the
humanity, the image and likeness of God that was broken in Adam was mended in Christ. And more than mended, for Jesus is greater
than Adam. And as there was more glory in the days of
Solomon than in the days of his father David, so there will be more glory in the days of
the Son of Man than ever that had been in the days of the first man. For as the last Adam is so much superior to
the first, so must His reign be. And He, unlike the first man, will never fall
or fail as Adam did. And so the rule of the Son of Man in paradise
restored will never pass away. In harrowing times, think on the Son of Man. And do you know, one of the great heroes of
the faith was the mighty fourth century theologian, Athanasius? His name means "immortal." And it's quite appropriate. And Athanasius had a lovely image to help
us get how Christ is the image of God and how He restored the image of God in humanity. 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." So, how could this precious portrait be restored? And the problem was there was nobody who knew
what the portrait had once looked like. They couldn't restore it. To restore it, you had to know God. You had to know what He's like. Otherwise, you could never know what the image
of God should look like. There was only one hope. The original subject of the portrait had to
come and have His likeness redrawn on the canvas of humanity. Only the One whose likeness was originally
drawn on Adam could restore and renew it. And so the image of God Himself came. He took humanity to renew His image in it. He came and showed us the image of God in
the flesh. And in Christ alone could humanity be restored
from what Athanasius called all this "dehumanizing of mankind." Only He, the image of God Himself, could rehumanize
us. Only in Him could we, as Paul puts it in Colossians
3:10, "put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its
Creator." Friends, no wonder our society is crawling
with identity issues. With the image of God ruined in Adam, sinners
don't know what they're for. So we seek to mend ourselves, but we don't
know what mended looks like. Sensing our brokenness, we try to restore
ourselves with morality or with authenticity, but we're fumbling in the dark, trying to
redraw a portrait when we have no idea what it should even look like. All we can come up with are monstrous aberrations. 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. We see humanity as we should be. Now we often, we use a negative word to describe
Christ's life. It was, we say, "sinless," which it doesn't
sound immediately very exciting, does it? "Sinless." But think what it means. That Christ was sinless means He was not selfish,
heartless, cruel, abusive, twisted, petty, proud. To be sinless is beautiful, and that is what
humanity should be and is destined to be in Christ. 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. So compelling did people find Him that crowds
would throng round Him – men, women, children, the sick and the mad, the rich and the poor. They found Him so magnetic. Some just wanted to touch His clothes. Kinder than summer, He befriended the rejects
and He gave hope to the hopeless. And the dirty and the despised found they
mattered to Him. His closest friends found that as the Son
of Man came eating and drinking, being with Him, it was like being with a bridegroom at
a wedding. He was generous, genial, and firm and resolute. He was always surprising. Jesus was utterly loving, but He wasn't soppy. His insight would unsettle people, and His
kindness would win them. Indeed, you read the Gospels and you see Jesus
was a man of extraordinary and extraordinarily appealing contrasts. You simply couldn't make Him up. Just try to imagine the perfect man. If you do, you'll come up with some wooden
caricature of a man, a saintly bore. But Jesus is so much more realistic, so much
better than any imaginary perfect man. You see, we would make Him only one thing
or the other. But Jesus, you see, He's red-blooded and human,
but not rough. He's pure, but He's never dull. He's serious, but with sunbeams of wit. Sharper than cut glass, He would out-argue
all comers in debate but never for the sake of a mere win. He knew no failings in Himself and yet was
transparently humble. He made the grandest claims for Himself and
yet does so without a whiff of pomposity. He ransacked the temple, He spoke of hellfire,
He called Herod a fox, He called the Pharisees "corpses in makeup," and yet never do you
doubt His love as you read His life. With a huge heart, He hated evil and felt
for the needy. He loved God, and He loved people. So you look at Him and you have to say, "Here
is a man truly alive, unwithered in any way, far more vital and vigorous, far more full
and complete, far more human than any other." And so it is for those who come to know Christ. They find themselves being re-humanized in
His image, after His likeness. A great example of this was the nineteenth
century London preacher, Charles Spurgeon. Now a few years ago, I was doing some work
on Spurgeon for a book that I was writing. Now, I had enjoyed reading Spurgeon's sermons
for years, but the more I read about the man, the more I'd started wondering, "Is this guy
for real?" You know, he's so full on in the pulpit and
in public. And I thought, "Surely, there's a quiet at-home
Spurgeon." I had a sneaking fear that I might find a
lack of integrity. So I found myself one day in a library in
Oxford, where there is an archive of Spurgeon, bits and bobs. And there were all his private letters to
his parents, completely unprotected, no gloves, no plastic covers. You could take these handwritten letters out
and put them in your pocket. Yeah, I didn't. Don't worry. But what struck me in reading them was how,
whether he was talking about his daily life or what he was praying for, just the same
passions and concerns were there in his private letters. He was the same man in the privacy of letters
to his parents that he never thought some grubby scholar would leaf through. He was just the same man as in the pulpit. And the more I got to know him, the more I
saw how all round, full of life Spurgeon was. He wasn't just a marvelous preacher. He wasn't simply a large presence in the pulpit. He was a great man. He was a large presence in life. I saw he went at all of life full on. He was a big-hearted man of deep affections. He wasn't just passionate when preaching;
he was tenderhearted in life. So he…Spurgeon laughed and he cried much. He read avidly. He was intellectually curious and hungry. He was a man who felt deeply. He was a zealously industrious worker and
a sociable lover of play and beauty. 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. And yet earnestness and zeal for Spurgeon
were never confused with gloominess and melancholy. It's telling and very fitting that a whole
chapter of his autobiography is entitled "Pure Fun." A friend of his called William Williams once
said, "What a bubbling fountain of humor Mr. Spurgeon had…was. I laughed, I believe, more in his company
than during all the rest of my life besides." And few, it seems, expected to laugh quite
so much in the presence of this zealous pastor. And Spurgeon knew this, and he seemed to take
an almost impish delight in springing comedy on those around him. So grandiosity, religiosity, humbug pomposity
could all expect to be pricked on his wit. But most essentially, Spurgeon's sunny manner
was a manifestation of that happiness and cheer which is found in Christ, the Light
of the world. The lightheartedness he found in himself came
from his clear refusal to take himself or any other sinner too seriously. 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. Spurgeon knew and lived out his belief that
the Christian life is not a dull, ethereal existence on some high-up invisible plane. It is being heavenly, and it is being more
full, more human, brighter, more involved, more lively. And so, he would encourage his students. Here's what he said. He said to his students, "Labor to be alive
in all your duties. Brethren, we must have life more abundantly,
each one of us, and it must flow out into all the duties of our office. Warm spiritual life must be manifest in the
prayer, in the singing, in the preaching, and even in the shake of the hand and the
good word after service. Be full of life at all times," he said, "and
let that life be seen in your ordinary conversation." But here is the million-dollar question. Here's the question that can put the airport
pop psychology and self-help book business out of business. Here's the question. How did Spurgeon get to be like that? Because everyone wants to be that joy-filled,
full of life person. So how was he so fully, so vividly human? Answer? By fixing his eyes on Christ, the image of
God. And how relentlessly Spurgeon did that. And to prove that, I want to read to you the
very first and very last words he ever preached in the Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit in London. So in his very first sermon on March the 25th,
1861, his first sermon in the Tabernacle, he announced, "I would propose the subject
of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, shall be the person
of Jesus Christ." And in his thirty years of pastoring there,
Spurgeon didn't stray from that theme. So witness these. These are Spurgeon's last ever words from
the pulpit. They're dated June the 7th, 1891, thirty years
later. Spurgeon said his last words in the pulpit, "It is heaven to serve Jesus. I am a recruiting sergeant, and I would find
a few recruits at this moment. Every man must serve somebody. We have no choices to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend on it, you will either serve Satan
or Christ, either self or the Savior. But you will find sin, self, Satan, and the
world to be hard masters. But if you wear the livery of Christ, you
will find Him so meek and lowly of heart, you will find rest unto your souls. He is the most magnanimous of captains. There never was His like among the choicest
of princes. He is always to be found in the thickest part
of the battle. And when the wind blows cold, He always takes
the bleak side of the hill. The heaviest end of the cross ever lies on
His shoulders. And if He bids us carry a burden, He carries
it also. And if there is anything that is gracious,
generous, kind and tender, yea, lavish and superabundant in love, you will always find
it in Him. These forty years and more have I served Him,
blest be His name. And I have had nothing but love from Him. I would be glad to continue yet another forty
years in the same dear service here below if it so pleased Him. His service is life, peace, joy. God help you to enlist under the banner of
Jesus even this day. Amen." And when he died, the olive-wood casket that
held his body was drawn through the streets of south London. And on top was a large pulpit Bible opened
at Isaiah 45 verse 22, where the Lord says, "Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends
of the earth." Those, in fact, had been the very words that
had first shown Spurgeon the way of salvation forty years earlier. "Look unto Me," says the Lord. Spurgeon had learned that people are first
saved when they look with belief on the Son of Man lifted up, as the Israelites once looked
on the bronze serpent in the wilderness. But more, Spurgeon had come to understand
the deep truth Paul had spoken of in 2 Corinthians 3. Do you remember Paul's argument in 2 Corinthians
3? It's worth turning to. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul, he was thinking
of Moses who, do you remember, Moses asked to see, to look upon the glory of the Lord? And the result was, we read, "When Moses came
down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the law in his hand, as he came down from
the mountain, Moses did not know the skin of his face shone because he'd been talking
with God." And Paul writes, commenting on that, 2 Corinthians
3:18, "And we all," like Moses, "with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another," created in
the image of God that we might be like God, sharing His life, His vitality, His loving
holy character. 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. Life, righteousness, holiness, redemption
are found in Jesus and are found by those, and only those, who look to Him believingly. And perhaps, I should be clearer. It's not that we look, get some sense of what
He's like and then go away and strain to make ourselves like Him. No, we become like Him through the very looking. The very sight of Him is a transforming thing. And so, for now, contemplating Him by faith,
we begin to be transformed into His likeness. But so potent is His glory that when we clap
eyes upon Him physically at His second coming then, 1 John 3:2, "When He appears, we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." That full, unveiled, physical sight of the
glorified Jesus will be so majestically affecting, it will transform our very bodies around us. The sight of Him now, by the Spirit, makes
us more like Him spiritually. The sight of Him then, face to face, will
finally make us body and soul as He is. Dear friends, looking to Christ, the image
of God will do for you what no self-help books will do. Pressing in to know Him and to know the privileges
we have in Him, our righteousness before God, our adoption as children of God, there is
the ultimate answer to all our identity issues, to all our brokenness. When you look, when you seek to know Him ever
better, that is when you find yourself humanized. That is when you see what it means to be human,
when you begin to hate all perversion of what we were made to be, when you slowly conform
to His likeness, the image of God. And it means, friends, that when you see the
brokenness of our society with all its piled-up wickedness, be sure no moral patches or patches
of any sort will suffice as an ultimate cure. Only in Christ is the cure for humanity. Only in Christ could there be a cure, for
He is the image of God. And so look to Him, proclaim Him the Son of
man whose glorious rule shall never pass away. Let's pray. Our Father, we delight to confess that Your
magnificent Son is Your perfect image, the bright radiance of Your glory. In Him we see You, and in Him we see humanity
as we should be. And so we ask, fasten our eyes on Him that
we might be healed, that we might be transformed into His image from one degree of glory to
another. And in His majestic and sweet name we pray
it. Amen.
