A Cracked Mirror & God's Image
Paul sees God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ as a profoundly richer manifestation of himself. This is why he re-works Jewish monotheism in 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 and announces that Christ is embraced in the confession that there’s one true God—a sort of Christian Shema.
The rescue from Egypt was God’s tremendous hand reaching out of heaven in an unmistakable manner, acting on Israel’s behalf, but God’s incarnation in and as Jesus Christ is God becoming one of us. No one could have known God cared that much or was that committed to his creation. 1 John 3:16 is bold. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." And 4:9, as if there’d been no Exodus or gift of Canaan, John says, "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." And in light of all this he concludes in 4:16, "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us." By this we know what love is. Not by Sinai, not by the election of Abraham, not by our astute minds and exalted knowledge but by this. The will of God can be revealed at different levels. In the OT he regulates divorce, polygamy and concubinage and approves of none of them. These were regulated and tolerated because of the hardness of people's hearts. It is never evil for God to do tolerate and regulate while he works for the best. But it settles no major question if we can show that God did this or that prior to Christ. I’m not suggesting that such texts are irrelevant. Far from it; they have their own message to tell. I’m saying that his doing this or that might not express his heart's desire.
But in Jesus Christ his heart's desire is fully shown, as fully in a human as is possible. To image Christ (do I need to say we'll do it poorly?) is to image God's full heart on any matter. I’m not speaking of his wearing sandals, working as a carpenter, choosing honourable celibacy or being an itinerary preacher. I’m speaking of his spirit and mind, his attitude and devotion to the Holy Father and the kind of behaviour that would result in. A mind like his would express itself differently in each individual in specific matters because our relationships, historical, cultural and economic settings differ from his and one another’s.
People—given the time and opportunity—should by and by get some sense of the kind of life Jesus would live if he lived in our society in this phase of human life.
But while our business is to image Christ by fleshing out his mind in our lives and as the church, which is his body, it's more focussed than that. We witness to his having been here and to his life, death, resurrection and exaltation. We're to image him but we're not to say, "How we image him is the full meaning of Christ." We're a cracked mirror. But even a cracked mirror—does not reflect itself; it declares the reality of someone else. The image is not the reality and to the degree that we present our own success in imaging Christ as the matter of real power and consequence—to that degree we worship ourselves! Our business is to remind the world by imaging Christ that there is indeed a Christ beyond the image!
It’s true that by taking him seriously and bringing our lives (by his grace) into conformity to his likeness that we profess his way of living is the true way to live. This is so, but our success or failure in doing this well is secondary. I don’t mean it’s unimportant! I mean it’s secondary! Our business is to say (without ballyhoo or without being tedious—as if anyone would be silly enough to mistake us for Christ himself)—our business is to say, "He lives!"
Jesus Christ is the way God lives the human life. Jesus Christ is a human who lived his life unto God in an earthly phase and now lives as a human in a new and exalted way. So it is meant to be and so it will be for us.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.