Yesterday I concluded with the encouragement to actually act on what God's Word shows us about ourselves. It is just at this point that many people fail to make proper use of God’s mirror, to their own spiritual and eternal loss. Through the hearing or the reading of God’s Word and the moving of God’s Spirit, they come under conviction concerning those things in their hearts and lives which are unclean, harmful and unpleasing to God. Looking thus into the mirror of God’s Word, they see their own spiritual condition just as God sees it.
Their immediate reaction is one of sorrow and remorse. They realise their need and their danger. They may even go forward to the altar at some church, pray and shed tears. But their reaction goes no further than this. There is no real effectual change in the way they live. By the next day the impression has begun to wear off. They start to settle down into their old ways.
Very soon such a person forgets what kind of man he was. He no longer recalls the unpleasant truths which God’s mirror so clearly and faithfully revealed to him. Unmoved and complacent, he continues on a course that takes him further and further from God.
However, the mirror of God’s Word can reveal not only the unpleasant but also the pleasant. It can reveal not only what we are in our own fallen condition without Christ, but also what we can become through faith in Christ. It can reveal not only the filthy rags of our own righteousness, but also the spotless garment of salvation and the shining robe of righteousness which we can receive through faith in Christ. It can reveal not only the corruption and the imperfections of “the old man” without Christ, but also the holiness and the perfections of “the new man” in Christ.
If, when God’s mirror first reveals to us the truth of our own sin and uncleanness, we immediately act upon this revelation – if we repent, if we believe and obey the gospel – then the next time we look into the mirror we no longer see our old sinful nature. Instead we see ourselves as God now sees us in Christ: forgiven, cleansed, justified, a new creation. We are made to understand that a miracle has taken place. The faithful mirror no longer reveals our sins or our failures. Rather it reveals to us:
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 5:17-18)
Not only have the old things passed away and all things become new, but all things are of God. In other words, God Himself accepts responsibility for every feature and aspect of the new creation in Christ, as it is here revealed in His own mirror. There is nothing at all in it of man’s ways or doings. The whole thing is of God Himself.
A little further on in the same chapter, Paul says again:
“For He made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (v. 21)
Note the completeness of the exchange: Christ was made sin with our sinfulness that we in turn might be made righteous with God’s righteousness. What is God’s righteousness? It is a righteousness without blemish and without spot; a righteousness which has never known sin. This is the righteousness which is imputed to us in Christ. We need to gaze long and earnestly at this in God’s mirror until we see ourselves there as God sees us.
Heavenly Father, dear Lord Jesus, thank You Holy Spirit, for Your constantly cleansing, sanctifying work in my life ... How grateful I am to You that the old things - including my old man - are over. For eternity, beginning today, I now live for You who made me holy and pure through Your substitute sacrifice. I praise You for Your greatness! Amen.
