CHANGED INTO HIS LIKENESS: A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION, by J. Gary Millar

A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance

by Mark Baker

 

About the Author

J. Gary Millar serves as Principal of Queensland Theological College, Australia. He has written several other books such as Now Choose Life and Calling on the Name of the Lord as well as several commentaries. 

 

Overview

This book seeks to provide a biblical theology of change. The primary biblical concept of change is “transformation.” This book builds on the seminal thesis of David Peterson’s book, Possessed by God. Peterson rightly claimed that “sanctification language” has a “positional bias” in the New Testament. But “when it comes to the real-time change God makes through the gospel as, by the Spirit, we are united to Christ, the New Testament articulates a doctrine of transformation that is multi-faceted, extravagant and immeasurably rich” (172). This book seeks to articulate the way the Bible talks about that kind of real-time transformation. 

 

Table of Contents

1 Clearing the Ground
2 On Being “Us”: Biblical Anthropology and Personal Transformation
3 Can a Leopard Change Its Spots?
4 On Wine and Wineskins
5 Pursuing Change
6 Changed into His Likeness

 

Summary

 

Chapter 1: Clearing the Ground

Change involves “decisively altered behavior, consistently modified thinking, choices and decisions and permanently reshaped character” (4). When Christians talk about change, they often promise too much change or not enough. Some Wesleyan circles promise “entire instantaneous sanctification,” which promises too much change, or an over-realized eschatology. The corresponding error is a promise of too little change. Some people present a grit-your-teeth-until-heaven kind of spirituality, which is likewise underrealized in its eschatology. In response to these twin errors, we need to hold the tension of an already-not-yet understanding of change. The Bible states both: we have already been changed (1 Cor 6:9–11) and we will one day be changed (1 Cor 15:42–44). We must learn how to live life “in the middle.” “This book has been written because it is in dealing with the here and now that evangelical theology is (and often has been) at its weakest” (27). . . .

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