We cannot see Christ as He was and is without being acted upon and formed according to Him. There is an assimilating power in Christ such that it is impossible to have to do with Him without feeling His constraining influence and becoming like Him. Thus knowing Him as the life, we have life ourselves. Knowing Him as the Son, we too become sons of God. If He is the King, He has made us kings. If He is the Priest, He has made us priests. Because He is our life, we have life eternal in Him. He is our righteousness, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him.
We see Him now by faith, but we shall see Him soon face to face. This gives us the desire to be more like Him now. By the Spirit we are being changed into the same image. When we see Him, we shall be both inwardly and outwardly conformed to Him. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
We were dead in sin. By God’s love and Christ’s death and resurrection we are alive forevermore. Now His love constrains and conforms us to live, not for ourselves anymore, but for Him, displaying His love in us to our brethren and to the lost.
Christian Truth, Vol. 15 (adapted)