MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

Each child enters life with weaknesses to face a world of struggle and turmoil. The Bible explains the condition clearly: we are born in the likeness of Adam, the first man who turned away from God. Yet in the same Book, we find the most hopeful news imaginable. Through Jesus Christ we're invited to leave behind our old identity and become a child of God. The transformation is not a small religious upgrade. It is a complete change of family, a new birth that redefines who we are.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, the apostle Paul listed behaviors outside God's kingdom, then he added three words that describe are acts of God, and which usher in new life and new growth. "Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

To be washed means that past guilt and stain have been cleaned away by the blood of Jesus. To be sanctified means we're set apart as God's own possession. The decisive break with our old life has already happened, and daily growth toward Christlikeness continues. To be justified means that God declares us righteous. The Judge of the universe applies the perfect righteousness of Jesus to our account, and He pronounces us not guilty.

Paul also provided a protecting principle. "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything" (1 Corinthians 6:12). Christian freedom is real, but it is not unlimited. The greatest liberty is the ability to say no to anything that would take the place of Jesus. The climax of the passage is found in verses 19-20: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” We're not in charge anymore; we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus. Therefore, the only fitting response is to glorify God with everything we are and everything we do.

Many people excuse their failings by saying, "I'm only human." That is true. We carry the weakness of fallen humanity, but the good news of the gospel refuses to leave us there. John 1:12 gives the invitation and the promise, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” Receiving Jesus is the entryway. Believing in His name is the means. And the result is a real change of family. We're adopted, we receive a new name, a new inheritance, a new Father.

In the beginning, God created humanity in His own image (Genesis 1:27). After the fall, that image was deeply damaged. Genesis 5:3 records that Adam fathered a son “in his own likeness, according to his image.” From that point forward, every newborn human is marked by sin, mortality, and separation from God. Left to ourselves, we would remain in Adam’s family under the reign of death.

But Paul explained with powerful clarity that God provided a second Adam. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive… The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. … Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 45-48).

Paul in Romans 5:12-21 explained the same truth. Through one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners and death reigned. But through one Man’s obedience - the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus - the many are made righteous. Where sin increased, grace abounds all the more. Condemnation gives way to justification. Death gives way to life. The family of Adam gives way to the family of God. No longer defined by the first man’s failure; our life can be transformed by the imprint of Jesus' faithfulness of Jesus.

Many of you know my favorite verse in the Bible: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is not merely endless existence. It is knowing the Father and the Son in a relationship that is the essence of a new identity.

To summarize: we begin life in Adam's likeness, marked by sin, subject to death, and distant from God. Through faith in Jesus Christ we are washed, sanctified, and justified, bought with a price. We become temples of the Holy Spirit and children of God. This transition is not achieved by moral effort or religious performance. When we receive Jesus, we enter a relationship with Him that is lived out daily as we seek to glorify God.

Anyone born into the image of Christ is no longer merely human. We are children of God, set free from death and brought into a reign of grace. We live in the freedom and bear the imagine of One who loved and gave Himself for us. Kowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, brings eternal life as a child of God.