Bible Stories

God’s true image

Humanity’s fall is not just a theological statement; human history and experience show us that the image has been defaced in us all. As Paul puts it, ‘We have all fallen short of God’s standard’. But does this mean that God’s image has never been seen in its fullness since the beginning? No, because Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God. That is the New Testament’s bold declaration. The task of his mission was to lead us back to God and to restore the image in us.

This is where the New Testament connects the study of Christ with the study of humankind. Because Jesus is both true likeness of God and perfect man, he is the promise of a renewed humanity. To be ‘in Christ‘ is to belong to a ‘new humanity‘, just as to be ‘in Adam’ is to belong to the old, sinful humanity. The apostle Paul wrote of the ‘new nature which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’. As the ‘image of the invisible God‘, Jesus is the model of what men and women were created to be.

God’s grace in the world

Sin is a reality. It is divisive and tragic. But God is still a loving creator. His ultimate purposes are not thwarted by us. Sin and evil never have the last word in God’s creation.

God’s love is seen as he acts to care for us and to restrain evil. This is expressed in the word ‘grace‘. Grace is God’s way of giving himself freely. We see it in its full glory in Jesus‘ death on the cross, which shows us just how much God loves us. But God’s grace is also experienced in his personal, day-by-day caring and loving. We can distinguish two aspects of grace: ’special’ and ‘common‘.

* Special grace refers specifically to God’s grace as it reaches those who want to follow Jesus. It is God’s way of blessing his people, the church, as he saves them and gives them his Holy Spirit.

Common (or general) grace applies to everyone alive; it stems from God’s universal Fatherhood. His grace is received by us all, whether or not we are Christian, as we share in the many blessings of life. Through our sin we have lost any claim on him, yet he still gives abundant tokens of his generosity and goodness day by day. These gifts are showered on all, regardless of creed, character or colour.

Perhaps the clearest expression of God’s common grace is as he preserves truth and morality among people. Christians do not have a monopoly of true and good things and neither is morality the province of the Christian alone. Everyone keeps some sense of what is true, good and beautiful, and this is due to God’s grace.

Paul sees a further result of this common grace. It opens people’s hearts and minds to the goodness of God, and so prepares them to receive God’s special grace in Jesus Christ. When we look around at everything good in the world, it speaks to us of a loving God who wants us all to know and experience his love and enter into a deeper relationship with him.

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