Resemblance
Growing up, my husband (adopted at birth) never experienced the novelty of noticing any physical resemblance to any other person, not even in a photograph. In contrast, as one of 28 grandchildren on my father’s side of the family, I had the opposite experience of seeing familial similarities often. In addition to an extraordinarily high number of us sharing a recessive red hair gene, many of us share more than just physical characteristics, identified as being a part of our clan merely from a laugh, cadence of speech, or prominent mannerism.
Thinking about people’s similarities reminds me of a story about a young boy shivering out in the cold in front of a window display of warm clothing. A woman passing by took pity on the boy and invited him inside with her to buy him some brand new clothes. The boy asked her, “Are you God?” The woman replied, “No, I am just one of his children.” The grateful child said, “I knew you had to be related.”
This story brings to mind 2 Cor. 3. Here, Paul is reminding the Corinthian readers of the event in Exodus when God handed down his law, the old covenant, to his chosen people, etching the commandments with his own finger into tablets of stone. In contrast, Paul writes that God now hands down a new covenant, writing instead with his Spirit on the hearts of his people. The old law written in stone was not life-giving and the glow of the glory that accompanied it could not endure. Moses was unable to witness the full glory of God when the law was handed down to him. Exodus 33:20 even states that no one could witness it fully and live.
Moses’s encounter did, however, cause him to reflect God’s glory in his face. Because this glow was so stunning, it had to be hidden or veiled until it eventually faded away. In 2 Cor. 3, the veil has been lifted for obedient believers. Verse 18 reads, “So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (NLT).
This passage evokes for me a memory of passing by a mirror and being caught off guard by how much my reflection resembled my mother. When the Spirit etches upon our hearts, an internal transformation takes place that should similarly reflect the image of God in the “spiritual mirror.” It is this transformation that causes us to keep God’s commandments as we continue to behold his glory and know him. He has stamped his image, the image of Christ, on his people, and we continue to contemplate his greatness.
As we are transformed into his likeness, we will outwardly manifest the will of God in our daily lives. These lines from an old hymn prayerfully anticipate this continuing process:
Breathe on me, breath of God
Fill me with life anew
That I may love the way you love
And do what you would do.
At the birth of our oldest child, I realized that, for the first time ever, my husband was gazing at someone to whom he was blood related. Because of this, one of the most precious moments of my life was when someone commented that our son looked just like his daddy. As time went by, we noticed how each of our four boys looked exactly like their father at various ages and stages of life, especially in photos. It thrills my soul to hear someone say about one of our boys: “He looks just like his father.”
This is our challenge, for we are adopted, spiritually (Eph. 1:5). Despite our adoptive status, people can say about us that we look just like our heavenly Father. By loving the way God loves and acting as God would act, our resemblance becomes so great that it leaves no doubt we are the children of God.
