What should be the goal of our self-image? We were created good in God’s image. This image is distorted through sin and, the goal of a biblical self-hatred and self-love is to be conformed to the image of Christ. The Bible again and again calls us to be conformed to Christ. When God works His grace in our hearts, He begins to restore that image of Himself in us. We can make two distinctions in God’s work in this restoration of His image. First, He restores that image completely in principle. God views us as completely remade when we are united with Christ by faith; He looks on us through Christ, and sees Christ in us. This is the beauty and completeness of God’s work in His children. In practice, the second distinction, we find an ongoing process of being restored. To us, living in this world, it seems that this image is continually being shaped and molded. God is at work in our lives if we are His children.

Michelangelo often carved angels from blocks of marble. When people would pass by his workplace, they would see him studying a block of marble before he started. Those who watched saw only a block of unshaped marble, but Michel­angelo already saw in his mind the angel that would take shape from the marble. He would start carving with special hammers and chisels, each tool used to get a specific angle or feature just right. This is how God works in us, restoring His image, the image of His Son in us. He sees in us the image of His Son and He sets about working in our lives. He takes the chisel of providence and so directs it that we begin to look like Christ in one area of our lives. He takes the hammer of affliction and shapes us through trial and trouble to look more and more like Christ. Perhaps His hammer is the death of a family member or special friend that shapes us to look more and more like Christ through our loss. Or maybe He uses the chisel of sickness to beautify us like His Son. He keeps working and working until that image is fully restored in us and we will be both with Christ and like Christ.

This is what the apostle John speaks about in 1 John 3:2: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” When we are the children of God, we have this hope that we will be made like Christ. Paul also lived with this hope as he speaks of it in 1 Corinthian 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Paul was looking through a glass or a mirror darkly while living in this world. We often don’t see Christ’s image reflected in us as we ought to; sin clouds the view of the image of Christ, but we know that God is faithfully at work in us.

If you are not a child of God, however, then you don’t have this hope. You will continue to bear a broken self-image. This means that God is not working in your life and that you need His regenerating Spirit to work in your heart. You can be discontented with how you look or how you feel in this life, but your eternal destiny is at stake. Do you see in Christ what you need to have His image restored in you? Do you desire to have your sinful self-image restored to the image of the Savior? Bow before Him and confess that you have a broken image that needs to be restored; cast yourself upon His grace and power to restore you.