“I fell away from thee, O my God, and in my youth I wandered too far from thee, my true support. And I became to myself a wasteland.”1 This is how St. Augustine of Hippo described his life before Christ. He shares his story in his book “The Confessions,” charting the before and after of his conversion to the faith. Most of us are drawn to dramatic change, the complete and sudden makeover of a person’s life, but that’s not what many experience. Either way, dramatic or subtle, all believers are walking in the same direction toward being made like Jesus.
When we share the gospel, we can sometimes lose sight of this end. We can forget that “being made like Jesus” is in fact the good news. Of course, it is good news that because of Christ’s death and resurrection we can be forgiven of our sins. Likewise, it is good news that we can have eternal security as we put our faith in him. However, if forgiveness and immortality are all we present, then we are leaving out a huge portion of what makes the gospel great. Yes, our record is clear and the penalty removed, but new believers should be acutely aware of the sanctifying process that stretches out before them. A life of being conformed to the image of Christ.
Recall the promise of the New Covenant found in Jeremiah 31:33 [ESV] that Christ would establish, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
The very next verse contains the promise of forgiveness, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Often evangelicals highlight this detail far more than the detail we see in verse 33 – God’s law will be written on our hearts, marking us out as the people of God. This too is good news.
With this in mind, here are some things to do when sharing the gospel:
Emphasize that sinners are saved for a purpose
How much meat do we leave on the bone when sharing the gospel? How often do we explain the offer of forgiveness and eternal life, but make little mention of life transformation in the here and now? I think it happens quite often, not because we deny this effect of the gospel, but because we forget that it is in fact the very purpose of the gospel. The good news not only contains what you have been saved from (destruction), but also what you have been saved for. Even as the apostle Paul articulates how we are saved by grace through faith in Christ and that this is a gift, not something earned by us, he nevertheless drives home the salvific purpose in verse 10 of Ephesians 2, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Imagine if when sharing the gospel we simply stated, “You can become like Jesus.” Reflect deeply on that statement and consider how much it contains. As Jesus is accepted by the Father, through faith in him you too can be accepted by the Father. As Jesus now lives in a resurrected body, so too will you be raised from the dead. Already we have covered both forgiveness and eternity. What kind of man was Jesus? You can become that kind of person. What kind of relationship does he have with the Father? You can share in that kind of relationship. Becoming like Jesus fulfills Jeremiah’s New Covenant prophecy through and through.
Underscore that becoming like Jesus is a process driven by the Holy Spirit
The end of becoming completely like Jesus awaits, but that work begins today.
It goes without saying that none of us have become completely like Jesus. Hebrews 10:14 (ESV) perfectly captures the salvific paradox in which we live when the writer says of Jesus, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” We are both perfected and in the process of being sanctified. In Christ, both the eternal reality and our present condition are contained; this is entirely his work, not our own. This transforming work is facilitated through the divine person of the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer and is a central figure of the good news. When Peter preaches to the Jewish crowds on the day of Pentecost, his good news offers more than mere forgiveness: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38, ESV). This gift of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than complete personal transformation (Galatians 5:16–25).
The end of becoming completely like Jesus awaits, but that work begins today. The apostle John neatly captures this future and present dynamic:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him (1 John 3:2–6, ESV).
Remind new believers that transformation is a result of time spent with Jesus in his Word
We are God’s children here and now and our end is to become like Jesus. This awaits complete realization, but the transformation begins now because Jesus came to take away our sinning ways (not just our guilt). John echoes here his record of Jesus’s teaching in John 15 wherein he describes himself as the true vine and his disciples as branches. Abiding in Jesus results in transformation, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5b). If there is no fruit, if the branch remains empty; if we stay in our sins, clearly we don’t know Jesus. But the more time we spend with Jesus in his Word, the better we know him, and as we know him better, the more we will become like him. His Word is key to abiding and bearing this fruit in our lives.
Don’t shy away from sharing the promise that believers will become like Jesus
We should do nothing less than proclaim the gospel under the promise: “You can become like Jesus.” Anyone repulsed by that either does not understand the gospel or simply rejects it. God sent his Son to redeem a people for himself, and in Jeremiah 31 we see that God has both forgiveness and transformation in mind under the New Covenant. Many people do have a vivid sense that they are not the kind of person they ought to be. The salve of forgiveness is wonderful, but the promise of transformation is all the more.
We must not hold back this promise because of the errors of others. Yes, some have twisted the present benefits of the gospel to mean the assurance of financial prosperity and bodily well-being for believers. This does not square with Jesus’s call for his disciples to take up their crosses, following him at any cost, sharing in his suffering and the world’s hatred (Matthew 16:24–26, John 15:18–20). Likewise, some today have gained new respect for the Christian faith, but they wish to reduce it to a set of self-help principles. Again, this does not square with the teaching of Christ and his apostles in which transformation is centered in new birth and the work of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5–6, Galatians 5:16–26).
Despite these errors, we must not deny that we can experience present day blessings as our lives are conformed to Christ. Recalling Jeremiah 31, Psalm 1 (ESV) is no less true for the Christian as s/he undergoes the progressive work of sanctification today, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Warn them it won’t be without opposition, then encourage them that it’s worth the fight
The blessings that follow from delighting in the law of the Lord are not always deferred to the coming age.
God’s Law is divine wisdom for living the human life.2 God’s blessing is not arbitrary; it is naturally attached to his wisdom shaped in accordance with his design for human flourishing. However, because we live in a broken world filled with sinners, a world subject to satanic oppression, like Christ we will sometimes suffer even when we obey. Still, even in this broken age, the blessings that follow from delighting in the law of the Lord are not always deferred to the coming age. We can admit that our perfect happiness awaits Christ’s return, that our journeys will include many kinds of crosses, and still assert that becoming like Jesus is the best way to live.
Salvation – already and not yet
The gospel is good news that Jesus died and rose again in our place and when we put our faith in him we have the promise of eternal life when Jesus returns. The gospel is also good news that we can become better spouses, parents, children, employers, employees … it is good news that we can become better people and enjoy better lives. It is good news that we can become like Jesus, because of Jesus. The world apart from Christ is a wasteland and those outside of him know that barren plain in their own lives. Jesus is ready to meet us today and begin the radical work of new creation. Do not sell the gospel short, do not reduce it to an eternal insurance policy. Embrace it and go tell the whole story of what Jesus came to do, the work that is living and active today — that Jesus came to make us like him.
