Glorious and Depraved (20): Redeemed Humanity

Perhaps the most amazing fact about the human race is that the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, took on human nature and became one of us.

¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. ¹⁶ For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. ¹⁷ For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:14-18, NIV)

Jesus became the second man and the last Adam. He is the progenitor of a new sub-race within humanity, the redeemed, having passed the test that Adam failed, a test that will never have to be repeated.

⁴⁵ So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. (1 Corinthians 15:45-49, NIV)

In the redeemed man or woman God is restoring the part of His image that humans lost, the righteousness of God.

⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. (Colossians 3:9-11, NIV)

To say, of course, that redeemed humans are being renewed in this image, that expresses the fact that we are not yet totally renewed. There is still within the redeemed human race a penchant for sin. The process of renewal will last until we die and our spirits are made perfect (Hebrews 12:23), and then, at the return of Christ, our resurrected bodies are rejoined to our spirits and we are walking in complete likeness to Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Philippians 3:20,21).

Then, what David wondered and marveled about, will be fully realized in God’s great purpose for mankind:

³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, ⁴ what are mortals that you concentrate on them, human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them a little lower than elohim and crowned them with glory and honor. ⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: ⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, ⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:3-8)