Greetings!
Do you tend to imitate Christ or release His personhood?
The goal is not simply the imitation of Christ, but the manifestation of Christ. The purpose of Christ
in us
is Christ
through us
. This involves obedience and surrender. Paul says, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Corinthians 4:10–11). We don’t become Him. We are not “little gods,” as some claim. We are the vehicles through which Christ expresses Himself in the world.He does this with our cooperation.
Jesus said,
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). And, “the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:38). And, “it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work (John 14:10). Yet, He referred to the Father and Himself as distinguishable beings. He obeyed the Father; He loved the Father; He came to do the Father’s will.
Jesus also said,
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). because the Father lived in Him, and He obeyed the Father, therefore the Father worked through Him and He was the manifestation of the Father in the world. Jesus in man form was our archetype. An archetype is the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based. He was the last Adam, the forerunner, the first born among many. “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).
The goal, then, is that when we live out our lives in the world, we could say, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen Jesus. Look! This is what Jesus looks like.” He is working out a process of cleansing and restoring that is strategic, deliberate, and purposeful. The better we understand it, the more effectively we will cooperate with it. Let’s look at the process from the ground up.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Romans 3:23). Sin caused mankind to fall short of the
glory
of God. Not the expectations of God; not the standards of God; the
glory
of God. What is the glory of God? How did sin cause us to fall short of the glory?
The word
glory
is a multifaceted word. In Hebrew it is
kahvohd.
It means “brightness or outshining.”
“As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning................................ Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory”
(Luke 9:29, 32)
.
It means “manifested presence”— the invisible put in visible form.
“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory”
(Matt.
16:27)
.
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”
(Heb.
1:3)
.
“Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle”
(Exodus 40:34–35)
.
Let me pull many of the layers together. Let’s start with the word “outshining.” If I were standing in front of you right now and you were seeing me, it would not be
me
you were seeing. You would be seeing the light rays that bounce off of me. You would be seeing my “outshining.” The only way for you to know what I look like is for you to see the light rays that bounce off of me.
You can’t see in the dark.
In the dark, I would be invisible to you, even if I were present. So when you see my “outshining,” you are seeing my “manifested presence,” or my presence made visible. Even though I had been present all along, the light bouncing off of me would cause my presence to become visible. When I am revealed and my presence becomes visible, then my features emerge. My true value becomes obvious because I am on display. No longer am I covered by darkness (psalm 97:2). Now, instead of guessing about me, you
see
me — I am revealed to you. You might say the light has made me known (John 1:18).
What does it mean that we have fallen short of the
glory
of God? To understand, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. In the creation account, the plural name for God,
Elohim
, is used. Throughout the account, the triune nature of God is emphasized. Notice the conversations that the Three-One God has with Himself. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us’” (Genesis 3:22).
The triune God is God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. When the Scripture refers to God, it is speaking of the Three-One. The triune God is Three acting as One; Three living and acting in such perfect harmony that they are One.
The Triune Design
I personally hold to a triune design of man. It seems to me to fit exactly into the theme of the whole counsel of God, as I will lay out in this summary. Sometimes Spirit and soul are used interchangeably, but are separate often enough to give them separate consideration. Here is how I understand the triune design of God, upon which the design of man is based.
“Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live”
(1 Corinthians 8:6).
“Since we live by the Spirit”
(Gal. 5:25)
.
Elohim created humankind in Their own image and likeness. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26). The triune God created a triune being. He created the human with spirit, soul, body. “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground [(body] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life [spirit], and the man became a living being [soul]” (Gen. 2:7).
Humans were designed to be the “glory” of God.
They were created to operate according to the Triune Design:
from
the spirit,
through
the soul,
by
the body. I believe the spirit was to be the command-center of the soul; the soul was the command-center of the body. This mirrors from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. Elohim’s intention in creating Adam and Eve was to point to them and say, “Do you want to know something of what I look like? Look at him. Look at her. They are My outshining. They are my manifested, visible presence” He wanted mankind to be able to say, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” Mankind was intended to be the glory of God.
Humans were designed so that the body, soul, and spirit were to operate in perfect harmony. Spirit, soul, and body were to operate in such perfect harmony that they would be one. Humans were to be the glory — the outshining, the manifested presence— of Elohim. His purpose for mankind was to make Him known, to shine the spotlight on Him.
Sin Disrupted the Triune Design
The Deceiver appealed to the human soul. The soul (mind, will, emotions) responded to the appeal and acted through the body. Now the harmony was disrupted. The human soul acted as its own master rather than as the vehicle through which the spirit operated. With the entrance of sin, not only did humankind come into conflict with God, but also with itself. His spirit, soul, and body were out of sync. When the one who was created to be a life container becomes a death container instead, nothing worked as it was designed to work. paul describes this state of death in Romans 7.
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing”
(Rom. 7:15–19).
No longer did the humans operate according to the triune original design. Mankind sinned and so fell short of the
glory
of God.
QUESTION
In what ways do you identify with the struggle Paul described in Romans 7:15– 19? Be specific about areas of your life.
Jennifer Kennedy Dean
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2019
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