Redemption: Becoming who we were made to be.

Humanity is totally depraved. That is one of the ideas central to reformed theology. G.K. Chesterton said that original sin is "the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved." It is this very important concept that often leads Christians to mistakenly say that they are "only sinners saved by grace" or "just a wretch who found God's mercy." The words "just" and "only" render those statements entirely false. It is true that we are all sinners who need God's grace, but it is also true that that is not all we are.

John Eldredge in Waking the Dead says, "Your story does not begin with sin. It begins with a glory bestowed upon you by God." Sin was never a part of the plan. It is the greedy imperialist invader of our souls, exploiting it's original habitant, the image of God. We must recognize this and not allow the exploitation to continue. We were created as glorious beings, not only that but as the most glorious beings on earth. It was only humanity that was pronounced "very good." As the Christian music artist David Crowder sings, "You (God) make everything glorious. What does that make me?" Redemption holds the beauty of Christianity. It returns us to creation, saying sin is not what you are made for. Redemption brings us back to the intended purpose.

That is what I feel Plantinga was driving when he spoke of regeneration. Nothing can be regenerated unless it was generated in the first place. Therefore we can say both that, "the old has gone and the new has come" and that the old has gone and the even older has come back. Plantinga points out how this regeneration is a return to the original plan, "In the terms Jesus used to describe the prodigal son, regeneration is the mysterious turn of the heart towards home "when he came to himself." That sinful profligate, womanizing, free spending nature, was not who the son truly was. Regeneration and redemption brought him back to who he truly was. Our truest nature is not our sinful one, but the one that is the image of our creator.

Some people struggle with that saying that in redemption we strive to be more like Christ, therefore how can that be truly our nature and not his that is glorious. Plantinga brings up the example C.S. Lewis uses in Mere Christianity of a child trying on his parents clothes. Plantinga says that Christian are people who dress up like Christ ... because the only way we can become better than we are is by trying on our grown up clothes." By imitating Christ we are not trying to become him, rather trying to become better. Elsewhere in Mere Christianity Lewis remarks on how the more we become like Jesus the more we become our true self. In fact without becoming like Jesus we cannot find our true self, as Lewis says, "Until you have given yourself up to Him, you will not have a real self."