Conforming to His Image

This is the third excerpt from Milt Rodriguez’s book The Community Life of God. You can find the links to the other excerpts here. I have done some slight editing to this excerpt.

“Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.” Rom. 8:29

Today, we hear a lot about being like Jesus. Preachers, and consequently believers, talk about Christ-likeness. As individual believers we are told that this is our goal: to be like Christ.

Actually, this is what most “discipleship” programs are all about. We are here to “make disciples,” whatever that means. After all, it’s part of the “great commission” (Matt. 28: 19, 20) to make disciples. We have interpreted this to mean that we are supposed to take individual believers and help them to be like Christ. Usually we do this by teaching them doctrine, how to study the Bible, how to “pray,” how to serve God on the mission field, and basically how to be a good Christian.

But where in the scripture does it talk about becoming like Christ? Where did we get this idea? The only thing that I can see is the passages that deal with being conformed to His image. Perhaps we have paraphrased that to be “becoming like Christ.” If that is so, and I believe it is, then we must look at the context of each of those passages. In what context are we to be conformed to His image?

If you read the passages that have to do with being conformed to His image, you will quickly see that the context is always corporate (Rom. 8:28-20; Rom. 12: 1-5; II Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10, 11). It is we who are being conformed to His image. It is us together, the Body, that is to look like Him. You can never be like Jesus. But She can! I am referring to that beautiful woman, the bride of Christ, who is destined to be His wife (Rev. 21:9).

If you will read the scriptures carefully, especially the New Testament, from this perspective, it will become a new book to you. You will begin to see the proper perspective for the testimony. Things will make more sense when you read it with the “corporate view.” That’s because God’s image is community. So, naturally, the process of being conformed to that image must be communal.

The fact is that we are already one. We are in Christ and He is in us. This makes us one (John 17:22, 23). How could we all be “in Christ” and yet not be one? The problem is not our oneness, the problem is the practical expression of that oneness. That comes through us walking it out together day by day. That comes through us developing a “body consciousness.”

It comes through a revelation of the corporate nature of the church. It comes through developing a lifestyle of community and not one of individualism and independence. And it comes by us sharing our lives with one another and taking care of one another. In a word, this is family, but family in the true sense of the word. Not family as we have seen it in this world, but family as a genuine expression of the community life of God.

Being conformed to His image (or becoming like Christ) is a corporate matter. We are transformed together by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:1-5). This renewal happens because we are learning to think as a body instead of just a bunch of individuals. We are “learning” Christ. We are learning and experiencing the oneness of the Head and Body. We are learning to think and function as the One New Man (see Col. 3:9-11).

This is true discipleship. It’s not a matter of being placed into a program of individual training of Bible study, prayer evangelism, and character development. Rather, it is the life transformation process of being practically conformed into His image. This is the outflowing of His community life. It is the fleshing out of the fellowship of the Godhead.

Therefore, I can only conclude from this that all true “discipleship” happens in a corporate context. We learn together how to live by Christ. This is something that we all learn in the daily fires of organic church life.

Milt Rodriguez, The Community Life of God