After Jesus returns God will complete our Christformation. “When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, NIV). “We shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49, ESV). Therefore, we will not need more purification because we will be pure as Jesus is pure.
This brings us to a critical question. If God is going to complete our Christformation after Jesus returns, why should we go to all the trouble of letting God transform us now? Why should we “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body” (2 Cor. 7:1, ESV), “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13, ESV) and try to reach “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13, NIV)? This involves sacrifice and struggle. Why do this now when God is just going to instantly do it after Jesus returns (1 John 3:2; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:20-21)?
We will look at five reasons for passionately pursuing this path of purification.
The first and biggest answer to this question is that our Christian life should be powered by love for God. If we think of Christformation as something we do only because God asks us to then our motives are out of order. God wants us to want him because he is our good Father who gives us the supreme life and everything else pales in comparison. This is why the greatest commandment is to love God with our whole self (Matt. 22:34-40). We cooperate with his purifying fires because he “betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2, ESV) and we are yearning for our wedding day. We will not rest until our desire is satisfied.
The second reason we submit to God’s Christformation is because God’s love compels us to love others in a Christlike way. We can either influence the people around us an immature Christian or as a mature Christian. The people around us need to see and experience God’s goodness through us. We are the light of God for the world. We are the hands and feet of Jesus. If we love others and abide in Christ we will bear the fruit of greater patience, mercy, and wisdom towards the people around us. This naturally flows out of us if we have the heart of God. In fact, when we bless others we bless Jesus. When Jesus judges everyone at the end of the age he will remind us that “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40, NIV).
The third reason we sacrifice ourselves now is that we desire to be who God meant us to be because every other “self” is vastly inferior. This is why the Apostle explains: “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (Rom. 6:1, NIV). This means that our true self is a self that has no relationship with sin. It has no heartbeat for sin; it is flatlined. Sin is anything that damages what is good and our new self is designed in the image of the Lord who is perfectly good. So obviously we sacrifice the destructive self so that we can fully embrace our new self. What else would we do?
Paul could have motivated his readers by saying something about consequences that God might inflict on their lives when they sin but instead he motivates them by their identity. And Paul is definitely trying to influence his readers to make choices. He knows that believers do sin; the purpose of Romans 6:1 is to persuade believers to stop sinning and “offer every part of yourself to [God] as an instrument of righteousness” (Rom. 6:13, NIV). We can choose which direction we will travel. Shouldn’t a caterpillar become a butterfly? So we submit to transformation because we want to be the glorious self God is making us.
Next week we will look at the last two reasons for embracing purification and transformation now.
