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At Christ’s Return: Complete Restoration of God’s Image
The amazing promise of the New Testament is that just as we have been like
Adam (subject to death and sin), we shall also be like Christ (morally pure, never
subject to death again): “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,
we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).The full
measure of our creation in the image of God is not seen in the life of Adam who
sinned, nor is it seen in our lives now, for we are imperfect.

The New Testament emphasizes that God’s purpose in creating man in his image
was completely realized in the person of Jesus Christ. He himself “is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). “He is
the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). In Jesus we see human likeness to God as it was intended to
be, and it should cause us to rejoice that God has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his
son” (Rom. 8:29, 1 Cor. 15:49): “When he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). It is true that in our
present condition God’s image in us is blemished by the remains of indwelling sin. But it will not always
be so. The transformation into image of Jesus Christ is achieved through the process of sanctification
which is ultimately completed at the resurrection. Only then is the body changed until it is fashioned like
unto the glorious body of Christ (Phil. 3:21).

Our Great Dignity as Bearers of God’s Image

Being created in the image of God means that we image God. We reflect God. God’s Image Restored. We
live in a way, we think in a way, we feel in a way, we speak in a way that calls attention to the brightness
of the glory of God. If you create an image, if you make a sculpture of someone, you do it to display
something about that someone. You put it in the square in the middle of town, and you want people to
look at it, notice it, think about that person, think something about them—that they were noble or strong
or wise or courageous or something. https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/what-does-it-mean-to-be-
made-in-gods-image( June 20/2020) It would be good for us to reflect on our likeness to God more often.
It will probably amaze us to realize that when the Creator of the universe wanted to create something “in
his image,” something more like himself than all the rest of creation, he made us. This realization will give
us a profound sense of dignity and significance as we reflect on the excellence of all the rest of God’s
creation. If we ever deny our unique status in creation as God’s only image-bearers, we will soon begin to
depreciate the value of human life, will tend to see humans as merely a higher form of animal, and will
begin to treat others as such. We will also lose much of our sense of meaning in life. 180

God has been Pleased to Employ three Means in Restoring His Image to His People.

1. The Lord Jesus Christ as the sole object of our faith, for in him alone we have a true and objective
knowledge of God. In Christ, we recognize anew that we are God’s creatures, that we are utterly lost
in sin, and that he came to bring us back to God. And in receiving him by faith, we want to become
‘receptively reconstructive’ of God’s image in us.

2. The gospel is the only medium by which Christ is revealed to our faith. We must live by revelation
now as we lived by revelation before the Fall. And since it is the image of Christ that is to be restored
in us, we can only see what that image is in and through the gospel.

3. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, who enables us to discern that image and
who conforms us to it.

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