Conformed to the Image of God’s Firstborn Son (2)
Romans 8:29 tells us that God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Firstborn Son, Jesus Christ. New Jerusalem will be the corporate expression of this image.
This conformation is accomplished by the growth of God’s eternal life, which we received when we first believed into Jesus. Conformation is a change in our expression, our appearance, resulting from 
an inward change in our nature.
The inward change reconstitutes us from the old man, Adam, to the new man, Christ. This is a renewing, a transformation of our entire inner being.
In baptism we put on the new man but this was merely a change in position, not yet a change in nature. Colossians 3:10 speaks about this, saying we “have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him [Christ] who created him [the new man].”
The renewing in Colossians 3:10 is according to the image of Christ. As our inward being is renewed to God’s newness, we are in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ.
Second Corinthians 3:16-18 says that when we turn our heart to the Lord, “we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”
The inward transformation by the Spirit is for the conformation which brings forth the image, the living expression, which God desires for the glory of New Jerusalem.
Image courtesy of pixabay.com.
Posted by Don on November 22, 2021
