We shall be like Him
The final likeness
In the red half-dark of a darkroom, a sheet of photographic paper lies face-up in a shallow tray of chemicals, and at first there is nothing on it but pale grey. Then, slowly, a shape begins to surface from the blankness, an edge here, a shadow there, a face starting to gather out of the bath. The one who developed it is not anxious; the image is coming, it simply has not finished arriving. John stands a reader in front of exactly this tray. Beloved, he writes, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, for we will see Him just as He is. There it is, the whole condition of a remade life named in a sentence. The picture is real, the chemistry is working, the likeness is genuinely forming. It is simply not yet resolved. And the moment of its resolving is fixed: the day the face of Christ comes clear before you, you will at last come clear into His likeness.
“When he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.”
— John — 1 John 3:2 (WEB)
“Who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory.”
What Cannot Be Shaken, here, is the certainty of an unfinished work. Watch the face surfacing in the developing tray: that is you, mid-resolution, the likeness real but not yet sharp. This phase does not pretend you are complete. It guarantees the completion, fixed to the day you see Christ revealed and, in seeing Him, are made fully like Him at last.
Stop reading your half-formed places as a verdict on the whole project. The blurry print is not a failed one; it is an unfinished one, and the One developing it has not lifted His hand. Whatever in you is still unhealed, still surfacing, still indistinct on the hard days, hear the fixed point: when you see Him as He is, you will be like Him. The image is genuinely coming; the chemistry is working even when you cannot yet make out the shape. So be patient with what is still vague in you, and do not mistake the blur for the end of the story.
You are not the finished version of yourself, and on hard days that can feel like proof the whole project has failed. You are a print still developing in the bath, the image surfacing but not yet sharp. John will not let you read your half-formed state as the end of the story. What you will be has not yet appeared, he says, but when Christ is revealed you will be like Him, because you will see Him as He is. Read both halves.
The remaking that this long upheaval has been working in you is real; and its completion is not a hope you must talk yourself into but a guarantee fastened to a specific day, the day you see His face. Paul says it from another angle: He will change your lowly body to be like His glorious one. The developer is not finished. The image will resolve, and it will resolve into Him.
The Church swings, age after age, between demanding finished saints on the spot and quietly abandoning the hope that anyone truly changes at all. John holds the truer line for the whole Body: we are God's children already, not yet fully shown, certain to be made like Christ when we see Him. Across history the Church has been healthiest where it was patient with the half-developed without shaming them, and expectant of the end without faking its arrival. Before a watching world that either demands instant perfection or despairs of growth, the whole Church bears witness that every believer is an image still surfacing, sure to resolve. The Body itself is unfinished, mid-bath, and its completion is guaranteed on the day it sees His face.
Much in you is still blurry, and may stay blurry for a long while yet. What cannot be shaken is the certainty of the last frame: the day Christ is revealed, you will see Him as He is, and in that seeing be made wholly like Him. The developing image has a guaranteed end, and the end is His likeness.
- Which half-formed places in me have I mistaken for proof the remaking failed?
- Do I actually believe the completion is guaranteed, or only that it might happen?
- If I will be made like Him the moment I see His face, how does that steady me with what is still unfinished now?
Lord, I look at all that is still blurry and unfinished in me and lose heart. Remind me I am a print still in the bath, the image surfacing under Your hand, not yet sharp but certainly coming. Thank You that on the day I see You as You are, I will be made like You at last. Be patient with me, and keep developing the picture until it resolves into Your face. Amen.