Changed into Christ's Likeness (2)

Also, the image of God in the second Adam is more durable. All excellencies and grace are more firmly set on Christ than they ever were upon Adam. They are set upon him with such a character and stamp that they shall never be altered. When God set his image on the first Adam, it decayed and was lost by the malice of the devil because it was not set on so firmly, Adam being a man and a good man, yet changeable. But Christ is the God-man. In one nature God has set such a stamp of grace on the human nature, eternally united to the Godhead, that it could never be altered. We are renewed according to the image of God as it is stamped on Christ, not as it was stamped on the first Adam.
And that is why the state of God's children is unalterable, why being once graced they are so forever. If God set the stamp of the Spirit of Christ on them, it is firm, as it is upon Christ. It never alters in Christ nor in those who are members of Christ, except in growth from better to better. God's children sometimes deface that image by sin. But as a coin that is somewhat defaced, yet still retains the old stamp and is acknowledged for a good coin, so a Christian in all desertions, in the worst state, bears the stamp still. Though darkened by sinfulness, yet after it once receives a fresh stamp, it is an everlasting stamp. When once we are God's coin, we are never reprobate silver. That is all because we are 'renewed according to the image of Christ.’ Grace is firmly set in our nature in Christ, so sure that all the devils in hell cannot obliterate it. Christ is the ‘quickening Spirit,' able to transform us to his likeness better than the first Adam was. The image of God, then, is the likeness of the second Adam, and we are changed into that.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 108-09 [118-19]
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