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The sermon teaches that believers are predestined not merely to receive a Christian name but to be genuinely conformed to Christ’s image. This conformity includes Christlike humility, diligence, love, holiness, and willingness to suffer before sharing His glory. Human effort alone cannot produce this likeness; God creates it through His power as believers behold Christ in faith. The sermon ends with a decisive gospel warning: faith in Christ leads to salvation and His image, while unbelief leads to condemnation and the image of darkness.
Theological center: God’s saving purpose is to restore His image in believers by conforming them to Jesus Christ through divine transforming power, culminating in glorification.
Applications: Imitate Christ’s character · Bear Christ’s cross · Behold Christ · Believe in Christ
Primary texts: Romans 8:29 · 2 Corinthians 3:18 · 1 Corinthians 15:49
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Romans 8:29 IT is not so much predestination which will occupy our attention this morning, as the fact that believers are predestinated to be conformed to the image of God’s dear Son. Perhaps nothing in the world is a surer sign of littleness than a slavish imitation of any man. Men lose that which is an honor to them—individuality—and then, they lose that which is a power to them— originality—the moment they commence walking in another man’s track. When one painter slavishly copies another, he is only known as the satellite of the greater luminary. He himself is neither respectable nor respected. But this is not the case when men select models which are confessed to be perfect. You never hear a man accused of a want of originality because he studies the models in sculpture of Ancient Greece. It is not usual to hear the accusation of imitation brought against painters who have studiously examined the works of Michelangelo or of Raphael. These men are put at the head of their respective schools and the following of these masters of the art is voted to be no folly, but true wisdom. ’Tis even so with the imitation of Christ. To imitate other men is weakness—to copy Christ is strength. Christ is the perfect type of manhood. He who should imitate Him the most nearly, would be the most original man upon earth. It may seem a paradox, but it is one which, nevertheless, needs only to be tried to be proved. No man will be looked upon as so strange, so singular a being among his fellows, as the man who shall nearest approach to the image of the Lord Jesus. He imitates, we grant you. He copies, we confess it, but he is himself, despite his copying, an original to other men, and he stands out from the common herd as being a distinguished and celebrated individual—he will be “known and read of all men.” If I should stand here this morning, my hearers, to exhort you to imitate any one model in manhood except Christ, I should feel that I had a difficult task with sensible men. There is not in all the annals of our race, a single name which I could bid you love and reverence as much as to shut your eyes to the faults connected therewith. There is not a single biography truthfully written, which I would have you read, and then say, “I will re-live this man’s life precisely as he lived it.” You would make shipwreck if you should blindly steer in the wake of the noblest of your brethren. You may take a virtue here, and a virtue there, and then in God’s strength seek to imitate tho…