Portraits Of Christ

Spurgeon explains that believers are predestinated to be conformed to Christ's image in three dimensions — in character (humility, diligent service, faithful love, and fervent prayer), in suffering (bearing the reproach and Cross that the world heaps on anyone who truly follows Christ, just as it heaped them on him), and ultimately in glory (for those who bear the image of the crucified will also bear the image of the crowned) — and he argues this is the truest form of imitation, not outward mimicry or cold morality, but an inward transformation of the essential spirit and character. He answers why believers should desire this conformity: it is what was lost in Eden and what Christ restores, it is the very goal of all God's predestinating purposes rather than merely Heaven itself, and it is already the instinctive cry of every regenerate heart — and he adds provocatively that this privilege of becoming like Christ is one even angels cannot share, making the suffering Christian more enviable than Gabriel in some sense. He closes by addressing the seeming impossibility of becoming like the spotless Christ, arguing that none of the three obstacles — the depravity of the material, the corrupting influence of the world, or the height of the ideal — can frustrate a God who decreed it, and that the very act of gazing on Christ in love and longing is itself the chief means by which the Spirit accomplishes the transformation, photographing his image on the soul of all who live in fellowship with him.Sermon delivered by Charles Spurgeon on January 13, 1861.