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Love
Teaching Text: 1 John 2: 29 - 3: 2
If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Themes
Consider these themes and ask your group what else they see in the passage:
FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT | Meditations on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit
Seal | Evidence of Adoption
Formation
Thoughts and notes you can use for discussion:
What are some unique personality traits in your family of origin?
What are some habits that are unique to your family growing up?
A family image.
In the book of Genesis, the author is describing the thought process of the creator God and writes:
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
– Genesis 1:26-27
Image: the Hebrew word is selem and in the bible it is mostly used— outside of this verse and a few others in Genesis—to describe idols. We tend to talk about idols today in sort of metaphorical terms: things that we build our lives and worth around that are not God (work as an idol, marriage as an idol, etc. But biblically idols were very literal—they were structures made of materials that people carved or smelted into the shape of other created things (whether animals or other humans) and then they worshipped those structures.
“You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.”
– Amos 5:26
That same word is used in the psalms to describe a phantom or a shadow—something that has form, but no substance—like the same way a ghost is an image of a human being, but is in fact disconnected from its life source.
“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.”
– Psalms 39:6
God takes his image very seriously. Later in Genesis, God is speaking—making a new covenant with Noah. God says:
“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
– Genesis 9:6
You and every person you have ever met carries the image of the creator. Being made in the image of God means that you have inherent worth and value as derived from the one who gave you that image.
The word “Likeness” (in Hebrew demut): is used to compare things that are similar in substance. This one thing is like this one other thing—they share a quality or qualities.
When Isaiah is prophesying trying to put into words what he’s hearing, he says:
Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.
– Isaiah 13:4 NIV
We were created in God’s image and likeness. We both bear the mark of creator God in our physical bodies, but we were also meant to share in his character–in the substance of who he is.
The image of God in you is immutable. It cannot be changed.
Wherever you are, whatever you do in this world, you will always carry the indelible mark of the one who created you. We look like our Father.
So we carry the indelible mark of our creator, but the fall did happen. And part of what was broken or injured was the likeness. The separation that humanity experienced made us not unlike the phantom images the psalmists wrote about. The events in the garden disconnected us from the source of life and cast a shadow over the likeness of God in us.
And that is what Jesus came to repair. It says in Colossians that:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him…– Colossians 1:19
Jesus came and showed us how to live, not only as an image of God, but also in his likeness–the full likeness of God, in Jesus.
Jesus, through his life, showed us how to live by the power of the spirit–the spirit is what re-creates us the likeness of God that was marred in the garden.
“Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:5
In the biblical story, seals were a big deal. It was the way you authenticate a message from a person of importance, usually a king. It indicates a decision that cannot be changed.
“Now write another decree in the king’s name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king’s signet ring—for no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.”
– Esther 8:8
The clear implication here is that once you believe the good news and receive the Holy Spirit. That the King—our living and eternal king has made a decision about you that cannot be changed
Here, the thing that is promised, the thing that God has sealed and made an irrevocable deposit toward is our full and complete redemption.
Like the immutable image of God in us, the seal and deposit of the Holy Spirit makes God’s likeness in us an inevitability—it makes it a promise. This is the description that Paul is giving us and the picture that John is painting for us.
When you see Jesus, you will be like him. You will be like him. Somehow in the mystery of the gospel and of grace, by the power of the holy spirit, what was lost in the garden will be fully restored to us when we see our savior face-to-face.
There will be an unmistakable family resemblance—not just appearance, but also character.
That is the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives—reconciliation into the family of God.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
– Galatians 5:22-23
