Introduction⤒🔗

Man has been created as the image of God. Did he remain that way? Sin intervened. Sin destroys everything. Good relationships are disturbed. Relations are broken. Sin results in death (Rom. 6:23). Therefore, the question needs to be asked: what consequences does sin have for man, created as image of God? Is he still able to fulfill the mandate from God? Can he still be held accountable?

Sin is disobedience to God’s law←⤒🔗

Sin is disobedience←↰⤒🔗

In paradise God gave man his commands. He was not allowed to eat from every tree in the garden. Actually, only one tree was not to be eaten from. That was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God determines what is good and what is evil. By eating from that tree anyway, man has sinned. He transgressed the commandment of God. Sin is being disobedient to the law of God.

Sin is arrogance←↰⤒🔗

He who sins, refuses to give the love God asks from man. Therefore, sin is lovelessness. It is arrogance. It wants to manage and decide arbitrarily about life. It turns itself against God and against man. Remember the picture of the three concentric circles from the previous chapter. When things go wrong in the inner circle, it has consequences for the two other circles. They are not separate from each other. They have the same centre.

Sin makes slaves←↰⤒🔗

He who sins, comes under the rule of sin. He becomes a slave to sin. He becomes sin himself. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Man is so engulfed in the power of sin, that he must be born again. In the conversation with Nicodemus the Lord Jesus makes clear that no man can enter the kingdom of God without being born again (John 3:3–5). Paul calls man dead through sin. That means that man lives out his activity in sinning.

Sin is enmity←↰⤒🔗

This is also what Paul means, when he speaks about man as flesh. With that he does not only refer to the frailty of human existence, he characterizes man as sinful and rebellious toward God. “For to set the mind on the flesh is death…to set the mind on the flesh is enmity to God, for it does not submit to God’s law, because indeed it cannot. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (direct translation; Rom. 8:6–8). Flesh is the characterization of man in his disobedience and rebellion against God. Sinful man is of the flesh (Rom. 7:14). He is permeated with the disobedience and opposition to God. That is how the Bible portrays the human life to us. That is how God sees us.

Is man still an image of God?←↰⤒🔗

Can we then still speak about man as the image of God? When “the image of God” refers to the right knowledge of God, acting according to God’s commandments (i.e., righteousness) and faithfulness and devotion to God (i.e., holiness), then only one conclusion is possible: man no longer have the image of God. The great gift from God has changed into its opposite.

What has man become then? That question remains unanswered. He has remained man; he has not become an animal, has he? We sometimes say that: a beast of a man. That refers to exceptional levels of brusqueness and cruelty. We call such an action inhumane. It is even worse when a man acts that way! Also, after the fall there remains an essential difference between man and animal. From God’s side, man continues to have the calling to serve him, to live in a good relationship with his neighbour (=love), and to rule, protect, and cultivate creation, as he was originally destined to do. Man has not become something other than human; he remained human. God continues to hold him accountable for the calling and destination given to man. That calling has not been cancelled. In that way man remains the image of God, even though he inwardly lost the capacity to fulfill his calling. Through sin he has become incapable to fulfill the commandment.

Christ the Saviour←⤒🔗

The Lord saves←↰⤒🔗

The biblical message is a message of salvation. We must express it with two words: sin and grace; damnation and salvation; death and life. Adam who sins and Christ who saves! God sends his Son. The Old Testament is the book of the preparation and the expectation. The further we get in the Old Testament, the closer we come to Christ. The prophets draw his profile for us. We refer to Isaiah 53 (the suffering servant of the Lord) and Daniel 7 (the Son of man). He came to save — his name, “Jesus,” says it. That name has been given upon the command of the angel of God, who appeared to Joseph in a dream. God determined the name of our Saviour (Matt. 1:20, 21). In John 3:16 we read: “That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Forgiveness and renewal←↰⤒🔗

Salvation concerns two matters: forgiveness of sin and the renewal of the heart; reconciliation with God and the re-birth through the Holy Spirit. Christ grants both blessings. His sacrifice is sufficient for the propitiation of the guilt. In 1 Corinthians 6:20 Paul writes: “For you were bought with a price.”

Christ received the Spirit from the Father! Peter reminds us of this in his sermon on Pentecost. In the light of the Old Testament, he explains that what has happened in Jerusalem: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33). Pentecost is the climax of Jesus’ glorification. Forty days after his resurrection he is taken up into heaven by his Father. He is clothed with glory and power (Matt. 28:18, Rom. 6:4). That shows in particular at Pentecost. From the Father he received command over the Holy Spirit. He pours out the Spirit; therefore, the Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). Christ is entitled to give the Spirit. Christ brings the sacrifice for the propitiation of the guilt. Christ obtained the power over the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit we come to faith and renewal. The Spirit is needed for faith and re-birth. Christ wants to give us both. Through his Holy Spirit he personally applies the salvation he obtained.

Restoration of the image of God←↰⤒🔗

Christ renews people through his Spirit, so that they may be conformed to his image. Paul writes about that in Romans 8:29: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Paul calls Christ, “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15). Through Christ and his Spirit people are renewed into the image of God. In a previous chapter we already referred to texts such as Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10, which speak about man who is renewed into the image of the Spirit of God his Creator! The biblical idea of the image of God does not drown in sin. The salvation through Christ also means renewal of this image. That renewal even gives perspective for the end time. Only at Christ’s return will the renewal be perfect. We expect from heaven the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, “who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Our body shares in the salvation. That, however, waits for the return of Christ.

So, Christ has a double meaning: he came and is given for justification and sanctification. We cannot believe the justification without sharing in the Spirit. We cannot exercise the sanctification without the Holy Spirit. For both, forgiveness and renewal we need Christ, who teaches us everything through his Spirit (John 14:26).

Called←↰⤒🔗

We are called to Jesus Christ and to the salvation in him. It is striking how often the verb “to call” occurs in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. This verb indicates that we do not, by nature, share in salvation. It is granted to us by God. That happens in the manner of calling. The congregation is being addressed as those that are called (Rom. 1:6, 7; 1 Cor. 1:2; Eph. 1:11). God calls into his kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2:12). God also calls to sanctification (1 Thess. 4:7). Being called to eternal life, man must fight the good fight (1 Tim. 6:12). Man must proclaim the good acts of him who has called him out of the darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). Man is a sinner and a called one.

Already and not yet←⤒🔗

Faith and prayer←↰⤒🔗

The Christian life is a life under the dominion of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Without Christ and the Spirit, no Christian life is imaginable. In the New Testament we constantly find the warning and the call to live with Christ and to seek it with him. That is why Christian life is characterized by faith and prayer. Without these two there is no question of Christian life.

Already←↰⤒🔗

Are you there yet? Characteristic of the Christian life is what is written above this section: “already and not yet.” In Philippians 3:12 Paul verbalized this double term: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Paul has been taken hold of. We notice that in all his letters. He is the servant (the Greek word even means slave) of Christ. He already is that in his life. He is renewed. What he writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 is also applicable to him: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

Not yet←↰⤒🔗

And still, he is not there yet. He presses on so that he might take hold of it. He is still on his way to the finish (1 Cor. 9:24–27). He is not perfect yet. He has not yet left sin behind. The Christian life is a life of struggle. Paul describes in Romans 7:13–20 the battle a believer must fight with himself. It is a bitter and hard battle, but not without a prospect of the victory. Once the unholy saint will be completely holy through God’s grace in Christ.

It is striking that before and after this chapter, the talk about the service to God, is very positive. The calling for that is not weakened.

The discord as internal conflict←↰⤒🔗

In Romans 8 Paul even deals very extensively with the contrast between spirit and flesh (also in Gal. 5:13–26). This contrast is relevant for the believers. Paul does not deal with this topic with an eye to unbelievers, people outside the church; he particularly deals with this for the believers. The duality of “already” and “not yet” characterizes their lives. There is a discord in their lives that takes form in the internal conflict. That is characteristic of the Christian life. The renewal, the new is there! At the same time, it must be sought after constantly. It remains a struggle, but not without hope (Rom. 8:7–9). “And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith” (1 John 5:4). Christian ethics is ethics of faith. That faith is not only connected with the acceptance of God’s law as a standard, the faith connects to Christ, without whom a Christian life would be inconceivable. Faith also gives a perspective for the future. The discord will end. The internal conflict is lifted: Christ gains the victory.