This brief, reflective riff was inspired by a passage I was working on today in Chapter 11 of Christ Formed in You.
When Christ returns, and there is a new heaven and a new Earth, there will also be a new people to live in it. We who are Christians will be among them. Still human, but changed. Still ourselves, and still individuals, but having none of present humanity’s fallen attributes: the pride and greed and jostling for power, the fear and anger and lust. We will be human, but a new race of humans without the sin—like the Savior who walked the earth, fully man, but in moral and ethical perfection. That work, that progress, is begun here, in this life. The advances in sanctification made here are important and permanent, even as sanctification itself awaits perfection in the next life. By the unending grace of God's sanctifying work in us we are becoming, even today, the perfectly sinless beings we will one day be: human as God originally designed, and therefore able to enjoy his perfections and holiness forever.
What counterintuitive creativity: The best model was the prototype.