November 9

“To be conformed to the image of his Son.” Romans 8:29

NO standard short of this will meet the case. How conspicuous appears the wisdom and how glorious the goodness of God in this—that in making us holy, the model or standard of that holiness should be Deity itself! God would make us holy, and in doing so He would make us like Himself. But with what pencil—dipped though it were in heaven’s brightest hues—can we portray the image of Jesus? The perfection of our Lord was the perfection of holiness. His Deity, essential holiness; His humanity without sin, the impersonation of holiness; all that He was, and said, and did, was as coruscations of holiness emanating from the Fountain of essential purity, and kindling their dazzling and undying radiance around each step He trod. How lovely, too, His character! How holy the thoughts He breathed, how pure the words He spoke, how humble the spirit He exemplified, how tender and sympathizing the outgoings of His compassion and love to man! “The chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely.” Such is the believer’s model. To this he is predestinated to be conformed. And is not this predestination in its highest form? Would it seem possible for God to have preordained us to a greater blessing, to have chosen us to a higher distinction? In choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, He has advanced us to the loftiest degree of honor and happiness to which a creature can be promoted—assimilation to His own moral image.

And this forms the highest ambition of the believer. To transcribe those beauteous lineaments which, in such perfect harmony and lovely expression, blended and shone in the life of Jesus, is the great study of all His true disciples. But in what does this conformity consist? The first feature is a conformity of nature. And this is reciprocal. The Son of God, by an act of divine power, became human; the saints of God, by an act of sovereign grace, become divine. “Partakers of the Divine nature.” This harmony of nature forms the basis of all conformity. Thus grafted into Christ, we grow up into Him in all holy resemblance. The meekness, the holiness, the patience, the self-denial, the zeal, the love, traceable—faint and imperfect indeed—in us are transfers of Christ’s faultless lineaments to our renewed soul. Thus the mind that was in Him is in some measure in us. And in our moral conflict, battling as we do with sin and Satan and the world, we come to know a little of fellowship with His sufferings, and conformity to His death. We are here supplied with a test of Christian character. It is an anxious question with many professors of Christ, “How may I arrive at a correct conclusion that I am among the predestinated of God?—that I am included in His purpose of grace and love?—that I have an interest in the Lord’s salvation?” The passage under consideration supplies the answer—conformity to the image of God’s Son. Nothing short of this can justify the belief that we are saved. No evidence less strong can authenticate the fact of our predestination. The determination of God to save men is not so fixed as to save them be their character what it may.

Christ’s work is a salvation from sin, not in sin. “According as He has chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the word, that we should be holy.” In other words, that we should be conformed to the Divine image. That we should be like Christ—like Christ in His Divine nature—like Christ in the purity of His human nature—like Christ in the humility He exemplified, in the self-denial He practiced, in the heavenly life He lived; in a word, in all that this expressive sentence comprehends—“conformed to the image of His Son.” And as we grow day by day more holy, more spiritually-minded, more closely resembling Jesus, we are placing the truth of our predestination to eternal life in a clearer, stronger light, and consequently the fact of our salvation beyond a misgiving and a doubt. In view of this precious truth, what spiritual heart will not breathe the prayer, “O Lord! I cannot be satisfied merely to profess and call myself Your. I want more of the power of vital religion in my soul. I pant for Your image. My deepest grief springs from the discovery of the little real resemblance which I bear to a model so peerless, so divine—that I exemplify so little of Your patience in suffering; Your meekness in opposition; Your forgiving spirit in injury; Your gentleness in reproving; Your firmness in temptation; Your singleness of eye in all that I do. Oh, transfer Yourself wholly to me.”