Restoring His Image and Likeness in Us

“You, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
Isaiah 64:8

We are all being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:18

From conversion to transformation in Jesus Christ

Many of us have experienced conversion. One day we had an encounter with Jesus Christ and were converted to Christ, like many people. They heard the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ, they understood that God loves them in a personal and infinite way, they heard what Christ did for all of us, and they decided to correspond to such a great love by re-directing their lives and their behavior in accordance with God’s law. And they started walking…

They experienced conversion to him, but they did not undergo conversion into him. They did not become transformed into Christ, they did not have his way of being. And that’s where trouble began. They wanted to walk in a different way without being different, to do works of generosity without being generous, to love as Christ without being as Christ, to act like new people while remaining the old people they had always been. They changed their attitude, but not their way of being. And brothers and sisters, I believe that being converted means above all turning into something else, becoming something else, a different person. The frog that becomes a prince, the TV character who becomes an animal have not simply changed their attitudes. They have been transformed into something different. Either you are transformed or you will be in trouble.

And the Lord, who knows that, wants to transform you. Maybe what is really happening to us is this. Scripture says we are living temples of the Holy Spirit. But leaving aside the image of a temple, that can seem to us a little presumptuous, let’s imagine for an instant that we are “living houses”, a small hut in some barrio (neighborhood) of the Kingdom.

And the Lord comes to us in order to rebuild this house. Maybe at first we like what he is doing, and we even find it amusing, because it looks like he has repaired all the plumbing, that he has fixed all the leaks in the ceiling, because he has fixed a few doors that would not open, and now there’s a whole lot of doors and windows open that used to be closed for us… We understand these are things that needed being done, that could not stay the way they were, that were harmful for us and made life unbearable. So we rejoice.

But all of a sudden the Lord starts shaking the whole house. We feel a real earthquake inside ourselves, a tremendous shock, and that scares us. What’s the Lord doing? Some will even say, “Who does he think he is? He’s taking advantage of me!”

The explanation is quite simple. The Lord is building a very different house because he intends to dwell inside you, and the house he wants to live in is very different from what it used to be and even from what you thought it would be. He has now added a whole new wing to your old shed. He has replaced the floor, and you feel as if the floor you were standing on has been removed, as if all the things you used to rely on and find support on have been removed and you have been given a whole new footing. He has erected defense towers, he has set gardens in your backyard that now looks more beautiful, and he has even replaced your very foundations. You are now built on a rock.

And you thought that the Lord had just come to do some repair work in your little house, to do some renovation of your quarters. You now think there is no need to exaggerate; you think it would have been enough for him to plaster your walls, so full of old cracks. It would have been enough to add one good coat of paint and hang a few ornaments that would make you more pleasant in your own eyes and in those of others.

But it turns out that the Lord is building a palace, or a cathedral, or a basilica, because his plan is to come and dwell in you and stay there.

Christ makes all things new

“Behold, I make all things new,” says the Lord (Revelation 21:5). He does not say: Behold I repair, I sew, I vulcanize, I mend, I reinforce, or I decorate all things, but:

“Behold I make all things new.”
Revelation 21:5

He wants new creatures, born again from on high, who have put on the new man. And since he is the owner he can do it, and no one can challenge him.

What I am trying to say is that you’d better not mess with God, unless you are willing to allow him turn you inside out like a pair of socks. God is no seamstress and he’s not going to mend you. Even if you are still full of patches, his plan is much larger and you should place yourself completely in his hands and let him act.

You’ve already got inside you the genes of your father. Since the day of your baptism, you have the Spirit of God dwelling within you, and he is God’s way of being, God’s dynamis and omnipotence. He is the same who, on the day of creation, was hovering over the waters, and with whose power all things were made. Changing you, converting you, is going to be much, much easier than creating a universe out of nothing.

And this is, brothers and sisters, the most important point of our talk. Are you willing to allow the Lord turn you inside out like a pair of socks, to let yourselves be rebuilt, knowing that in order to do that he will have to demolish many things inside you, and even ravage you completely if necessary?

I’m asking you because, if you are not willing, then you are wasting your time, because the first step is desiring to be transformed and allowing him to kill [the “old man” in] us.

“A new heart I will give you”

I always say that Christians, [who are being changed and transformed by God], are people who do whatever they desire to do, because the Spirit of Christ who dwells inside them gives them his desires. What we need to do is allow him to do with us whatever he wills, to turn us inside out till the image of God’s Son is formed in us.

The only problem with this theology is that it usually seems too good to be true. People finds it’s too simple to allow themselves to be transformed by God. They prefer to walk by the law – rather than walk by the Spirit, even though receiving from God this new heart is the quintessence of the New Covenant promised by God and inaugurated in Jesus Christ.

God gave Israel the law as a gift. In fact, the law is good and, as Paul says, it takes us by our hand when we are young children in the Lord. But God also makes Israel a promise: that one day everything would be as at the beginning, as it was before the fall of Adam, and that the law would no longer be written on stones but he would give them a new heart, that is, a new way of being, and that he would write his law in their hearts. And this is the New Covenant.

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean… A new heart I will give you, …and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
Ezekiel 36:25-27

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

It is in order to make all of this a reality that the Lord sent the Holy Spirit upon us. In the work of the Spirit in us the New Covenant is fulfilled… and most people are not even aware! That’s why they continue walking in the law and not in the free grace of God’s Gift, in the Kingdom of God, where everything that is not grace is sin, as Paul says, and is sin because it falls short of God’s actual plan. They thus spend their lives kicking against the goads, and regarding discipleship as an unbearable burden and an uphill walk from one fall to another, without ever finding rest.

33 years ago I had an encounter with Christ and wanted to be conformed to his love. I then made the firm decision to live in accordance with his commands. But his law was merely a mirror that would accuse me every day by showing my blemishes that reflected the ugliness of my sins and defects. And there was nothing in the mirror that was able to save me – the mirror did not include the power to change me.

Tired of kicking against the goads, I fell at his feet in full surrender one day. I acknowledged my powerlessness, and I admitted that everything is grace, and I accepted his invitation to die with him in order to rise again with him as a new man who, having been born again from above, from water and the Spirit, is able to walk every day from one degree of amazement to another, discovering that the Lord is faithful to his promises, and today I am a witness of his new covenant.

I do not boast about what I am, but about what God has done in me. I am now determined not to place limits on his perfect plan, because

“what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, [is] what God has prepared for those who love him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9

Let me end with a comparison that can be helpful. John Paul II’s encyclical Dominum et vivificantem speaks about the work of the Spirit in our “inner man”. A famous sculptor was once asked how he had made such a beautiful statue. He said he hadn’t actually made the statue – the statue was already inside the block of marble, and the only thing he had done was to take away the unnecessary parts of marble. To me, that’s the inner man.

A masterpiece made by God

We are not what we seem to be. Each one of us is much more beautiful and perfect than people can see. We are in fact a master copy of God, of his own Son. But we have a lot of unnecessary parts, the dirt we have gradually collected from the world, the rust of our sins. Only the Divine Sculptor knows what there truly is inside us, and is determined to gradually remove the rust that we have in excess. Sometimes he does so with hard blows of his hammer, and that hurts. But more usually he just melts it with the fire of his Spirit and his love.

With the power of the Spirit he gradually removes the sin that is inside us, that is, our old fallen nature, and he transforms us into his image and likeness, thus giving us his own way of being, so that we can think the way he thinks, feel the way he feels, love the way he loves, act the way he acts.

As this work progresses, it stops hurting. There is no more violent break inside us, but joy and peace. Every once in a while the statue becomes dirty. That’s true. The fact is we are in the world. Statues in the parks will also become dirty. Some of them spend more time dirty than clean. Let us seek to be clean. Let us allow him to cleanse us once and again, every day if necessary. But let us not be content with just being clean.

Above all, let us pray that the Sculptor would finish his work in us, that he would remove each day one more of the unnecessary parts, until the face of Christ which is inside us can be seen in all its clarity and purity.

The following chapters from Egghood to Birdhood by Carlos Mantica have been adapted as articles in Living Bulwark. Reprinted with permission of the author.

See links below to the archived articles / chapters:

Carlos Mantica

Carlos Mantica was a founder of The City of God community (La Cuidad de Dios) in Managua, Nicaragua, and a founding leader of the Sword of the Spirit. He served as president of the Sword of the Spirit between 1991 and 1995.

See Tribute to Chale Mantica by Jean Barbara, President of the Sword of the Spirit

Posts

Restoring His Image and Likeness in Us

From conversion to transformation in Jesus Christ

Christ makes all things new

“A new heart I will give you”

A masterpiece made by God

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