I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
— 1 Corinthians 3:6

As we saw in the previous Note, to grow in Christ really means we allow Him to grow in us. It is not just that we begin to behave in a way that is “Christ-like,” as some say, but that Christ Himself is being manifested from within us in our daily living. (See “How Can We Grow In Christ?” • 3)

Of course, as we grow, we will indeed manifest the virtues of Christ. However, rather than others appreciating us for being such a good person, when they contact us they will touch something divine, something of God in Christ Himself, being expressed through us.

This is an entirely different matter; it is what the New Testament speaks of as “transformation” (Rom. 12:2, 2 Cor. 3:18), based upon the fact that, as the believers in Christ, we are now partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). As Paul tells us of his experience of giving up on his law-keeping—in our case we might say, of giving up on “trying to be Christ-like”—when he turned to the Lord,

I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
— Galatians 2:20

So, the normal experience of Christians is that we ourselves—even in terms of our natural virtues and our trying to please God by our own effort—are put to death through the cross so He Himself may live again in us. As Paul says elsewhere, we are growing with Christ “in the likeness of His death,” so that we may also be “in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5).

This process of growth in Christ should take place throughout our entire life, as we behold Christ and are thus transformed into His image:

But we all, with unveiled face beholding and reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.
— 2 Corinthians 3:18

It will be completed only when we, as the many brothers of the first-born Son of God, are fully conformed in glory to the image of the glorified Christ:

For those whom He foreknew, these He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers; and those whom He predestined, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified.
— Romans 8:29-30

This is the ultimate conclusion of our growth in Christ.

Praise the Lord for giving us such a wonderful, wonderful destiny as this! Lord, bring all of Your believers into the experience, even today, of the genuine growth in Christ! Amen.

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—  26 April 2025 —