“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” (Rom 8:19).God is not content to leave his image marred in humanity.
God had a plan, conceived before the foundation of the world, whereby he would rescue his rebellious, broken images. The first big truth about humans is that we are immensely valuable to God. The second is that we are all in rebellion against God and so deserve destruction. The third is that God plans to set all that right at great cost to himself.
Tim Keller writes, “The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone.”1
People who think that Christianity is down on people have not listened to the whole gospel. Not only does God want to rescue us from the consequences of our sin, he plans to make us more than we ever were. The image of God will be repaired when his people are united with him through Christ. Don’t read that too quickly. United with him through Christ.
He is not going to just fix us. We’re getting an upgrade. We’ll go deeper into this later, but God’s plan is that those he redeems should become his children, “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17, cf Tit 3:7, Gal 4:7, 1Pet 3:7), who will “participate in the divine nature” (2Pet 1:4). CS Lewis wrote:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."2
God’s plans for redeemed humanity are glorious. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1Cor 2:9). Until that day, we wait patiently for the restoration of all things and work to make sure that as many people as possible are in the company of the redeemed.
For more on this topic, I recommend “The Weight of Glory” by CS Lewis.
1 Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
2 CS Lewis, “The Weight of Glory” in The Weight of Glory, emphasis in original
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