Transformation,
according to the New Oxford American Dictionary is “a thorough or dramatic
change in form or appearance.” [1]
The promise of transformation is big business today, and I’m certain economic
historians could verify for us that such has been the case throughout human
history. Human beings are obsessed with change. At a very practical level most
people want change. It may be the vehicle they drive, the home they live in,
the job they work at, or even the appearance of their body that they want to see
change. But these are merely surface level changes that serve to mask the even
greater desire for internal change.
There are
those stubborn types who claim “they ain’t chang’n for no one.” I guess this
perspective is fixed after years of justifying one’s own shortfalls, either
that or a complete failure to recognize greater potential within themselves or
within those around them. But, for the rest there remains within an unsettled
component to our lives that longs for perfection, one might even say, eternal
life. The ways in which people hope to obtain this perfection are endless. But,
what each has in common is an image. This image, let’s call it a god or gods,
represents the promise. In other words, the promise of perfection, of eternal
life, resides in this image. This image becomes the object of the devotee’s
worship and in time, the devotee is transformed into this very same image.
Recently,
in studying II Corinthians, I have had the blessing of thinking more deeply on
a verse that has always fascinated me. The verse is 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to
another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” This verse captures a truth
about the destiny of our souls. Whatever we devote ourselves to, or whatever we
worship, bears the image of what we ourselves will become. So, if through
Christ we see God face to face, that is, if in our devotion to Jesus we come to
know our Creator as He truly is, then we are destined to regain the likeness to
our Creator that was lost at Fall of Man. (See Genesis 1-3)
In contrast, if we remain in our
deception, in our blindness, and we waste our days beholding the image of a
thing temporal or the image of a thing created rather than that of our Creator,
we are destined for destruction. We will have been transformed into an image
infinitely more inferior than that of our original purpose.
Paul,
writing in Romans 1:24-25 says, “Therefore
God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring
of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God
for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is
blessed forever! Amen.”
In these two passages, II
Corinthians 3:18 and Romans 1:24-25, the idea of transformation is implied. As
human beings we have coded into our DNA the reality of our potential perfection.
We long for transformation to recover what has been lost. We were made perfect.
We were created in the image of our Maker and are restless until we recover
that image. When we look to Jesus
Christ, who is the exact image of our Creator, when we behold our image bearer then
we are transformed, in time, into His very image. When we look to anything
else we are transformed into an image that is not only false, but leads to our
demise. Let us keep your eyes on Jesus, who is the Author and Finisher of our
faith.
Eyes
on Jesus
Pastor
Gibbs
