By James R Wood, TGC.
In Christian spiritual formation, image-bearers are conformed to Christ, the true image of God (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3; see John 1:18; 14:9). Scripture consistently frames the Christian life as following in Jesus’s steps (1 Pet. 2:21), walking as he walked (1 John 2:6), and being shaped into his likeness (Rom. 8:29). Therefore, Christ isn’t merely the inspiration for spiritual formation; he’s its form—the definitive pattern into which believers are being fashioned.
For this reason, spiritual formation isn’t a self-directed project of personal optimization or a set of therapeutic life-hacks. It’s the shaping of human life according to a given norm. And because God has predestined his people “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), that norm is irreducibly christological.
This raises a pressing question: What’s the role of God’s law in this process of becoming like Christ? Haven’t Christians, freed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:10–13) and the debt it held over us (Col. 2:13–14), also been released from the law (Rom. 6:14; 7:1–6; Gal. 2:19; 3:24–25; 5:1, 18)?
In answer to these questions, Reformed theology has long been clear: Christlikeness isn’t opposed to God’s law but is its embodiment. To be formed into Christ’s image is to be conformed, by the Spirit, to God’s moral will—not as a means of earning life but as the shape of a life lived in filial communion with God through union with his Son.
Christ Came Not to Abolish but to Fulfill
Jesus fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf (Matt. 3:13–17; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 4:4–5). He obeyed where we failed, and he accomplished what we couldn’t in our sinful flesh (Rom. 5:18–19; 8:3). Yet the One who fulfilled the law also insisted he hadn’t come to abolish it (Matt. 5:17–18).