Jesus Is The Image Of God

Last evening my wife, some friends and I attended a dinner and a movie at The Houston Club. After a fine meal we viewed Mao's Last Dancer, the story of how an acclaimed Chinese ballet dancer defected to the United States here in Houston back in 1981. It was a moving, emotional story and is based upon the autobiographical account of the dancer himself, Li Cunxin. He believed that as a citizen of the United States he had much greater freedom to develop and practice his art. He is now retired from the ballet.


The Epistle appointed for Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church Year of worship, Colossians 1:13-20, speaks of how we Christians escaped from the power of darkness and were transferred to the domain of the Lord Jesus, the beloved Son of God. All this began, Paul writes, when we were baptized and the Spirit worked faith in our hearts to believe in the forgiveness of sins. Paul then goes on to make some astounding claims for Jesus Christ. Permit me to make a list.

1. He is the image of the invisible God
2. He is the firstborn of all creation
3. Through him all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities—all things were created. 
4. For him all things were created. 
5. He is before all things
6. In him all things hold together
7. He is the head of the body, the church
8. He is the beginning
9. He is the firstborn from the dead
10. He is preeminent in everything 
11. In him all the fullness of God dwells
12. By the blood of his cross all things, whether on earth or in heaven, are reconciled to him and at peace. 

This is a rather astounding list, a list that does not exhaust all that the Apostle says about Christ in this marvelous letter to the believers in Colossae and to us. Were we to examine each of these statements in the light of the rest of God's revelation we'd have enough to write for the next two years—and more. So let me lift up but the first, the image of the invisible God. Even that I can but point to, for there is so much wrapped up in it. I have no room here to explore with you all the implications. 

Let's look at Genesis 1:26 where we read of the Creator saying, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The Greek Old Testament word for image, icon, is the same Greek word Paul uses in Colossians. The word for likeness is homoiousin. Both words are claimed for man in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 a man is called the icon of God. In James 3:9 the apostle says mankind was made in God's likeness. So what, if any, is the difference between image or icon and likeness. And what does it mean that Christ is the image or icon of the invisible God?

Perhaps a couple analogies will help. Take out a coin or a bank note from your pocket. On them you find the image or icon of a President of the United States, say Washington, Lincoln, Franklin or Jefferson. Why? Because the coin or the bill has behind it the power of the United States. Its value is drawn from the resources of that country and guaranteed by the same. The image points to all that.

Closer to the heart of the matter is the fact that a child is the icon or image of her parents. She carries their DNA and in most cases their rights as a citizen of a particular country. Her being is  derived from her parents. Of course, she also bears the likeness of her parents. One may say she looks very much like her mother or her father. However, likeness is not the same as image. One can look like others and yet not bear their image. 

Do you begin to get it now? Do you see why Jesus is called the icon or image of His Father in Colossians 1:15? He is not merely like the Father. He is the image of the Father. He has received from the Father power, glory, preeminence and fullness. He is very God of very God. He is not created or made. This is why the church has resorted to the word begotten rather than made. All power and authority reside in Him. By Him were all things made and without Him nothing exists. He is the image of the heavenly Father.

This Son of God was made man and was born of the Virgin Mary. He who is true God from all eternity is also true man, with flesh and blood and lineage. By the shedding of His blood this One of priceless worth has paid the price of all men's sins.

In days gone by the church had a huge quarrel about all this, reaching all the way back to the years following 250 AD and beginning in the city of Alexandria with a clergyman named Arius. Arius and those who followed him were greatly influenced by Greek philosophy. To say that Jesus bore the image of the Father did not make sense. It was, they said, irrational. Instead they taught that Jesus and the Father were not together eternally and before the creation of all things. They denied the Trinitarian teachings of the church.  The Nicene Creed came out of this long controversy, a quarrel that continues in one way or another to the present day as people ask who Jesus was and is.

On this final Sunday of the Church Year we affirm with great enthusiasm that Jesus is the very Son of God, the image of the eternal Father.