Renewal, Divine – Charles Spurgeon

IN the creation of the old world God first gave light, and afterwards he created life—the life that crept, the life that walked, the life that dived, the life that flew in the midst of Heaven. So has he wrought in our hearts; he has given us the life that creeps upon the ground in humiliation for sin; the life that walks in service, the life that swims in sacred waters of repentance, the life that flies on the wings of faith in the midst of Heaven; and, as God separated the light from the darkness, and the dry land from the sea, so in the new creature he has separated the old depravity from the new life. He has given to us a holy and incorruptible life which is forever separated from, and opposed to, the old natural death; and at last, when the old creation was all but finished, God brought forth man in his own image as the topstone. A like work he will do in us as his new creatures. Having given us light, and life, and order, he will renew in us the image of God. Yes, that image is in every man who is in Christ Jesus at this hour. Though it is not yet complete, the outlines, as it were, are there. The great Sculptor has begun to chisel out the image of himself in this rough block of human marble; you cannot see all the features, the lineaments divine are not yet apparent; still, because it is in his design, the Master sees what we see not; he sees in our unhewn nature his own perfect likeness as it is to be revealed in the day of the revealing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.