Changed into Christ's Likeness (1)

The pattern to which we are changed is the image of Christ. It is a true rule that the first in every kind is the measure—the idea and pattern—of all the rest. Now Christ is the first, for he is the 'first-born,’ the 'first fruits,' the 'first beloved.' The nearer we come to Christ, the better we are. Before being changed, we are corrupted and depraved according to the likeness of the first Adam after his fall. If Adam had not fallen, we would have been born according to his likeness, that is, good and righteous. But now, being fallen, as soon as we are planted and grafted by faith into the second Adam, we are changed into his likeness. Christ, as it were, is God's masterpiece, that is, the most excellent work and frame of heaven that ever was: such a mediator, to reconcile justice and mercy in bringing God and man into one person. Christ being God's masterpiece, the best and most excellent of all. He is the image, the idea, the pattern of all our sanctification.
We are changed by grace. From the second Adam derives all good, opposite to all the ill we drew from the first Adam. From the first we drew the displeasure of God; by the death and satisfaction of the second we obtain the favour of God. By the wrath of God, we drew corruption from the first Adam; in the second we have grace. From the first Adam we have death and all its attending miseries; in the second Adam we have life and all happiness, until it ends in glory. In a word, whatever ill we have in the first Adam is repaired abundantly in the second.
When you read of the image of God in the New Testament, it must be understood of the image of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam. This image consists in knowledge, in holiness and in righteousness. Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 show that these were perfect in Christ, who was the image of his Father. And we must be like Christ, the second Adam, in sanctification.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 107-08 [117-18]
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