The Image of the Invisible God
By Adam Niess - Posted at Gentle Reformation:
"Instead of charting your own course, or idolizing people or things here on earth, you need to look at Jesus in the Scriptures and learn from Him. He will teach you truth about God and help you live in accordance with it."The United States Secret Service is most commonly known for its protection of our nation’s president. However, it was originally founded in 1865 to identify and eradicate counterfeit currency. This is still a significant component of their responsibility today. The Secret Service trains banks and law enforcement agencies internationally to detect counterfeit currency, and has published a short pamphlet entitled Know Your Money, which highlights each security feature of U.S. bills in order to help the reader discern between real and fake currency. Their rationale: the more familiar you are with what is real, the better equipped you will be to identify what is fake. The Apostle Paul uses the same rationale in his letter to the Colossians. Since false teaching affected the church at the time, he focused their attention on Jesus, rather than on the heresy attempting to infiltrate the church. To protect and promote their spiritual well-being, he showed them the real, glorious Savior, so they would be able to identify and reject falsehood.
The glory of this preeminent, all-sufficient Savior is what we find described for us in Colossians 1:15, which begins with the words, “He is the image of the invisible God” (NKJV). Because He is a spirit, God does not have a body, though the Bible does speak as if He has the parts of a body. This is what theologians call anthropomorphism—using human references to help us better understand characteristics of God. Though there is nothing physical about God, He is a real and substantive being, but at the same time, He cannot be touched or seen by any of His creatures. He is spiritual, which makes Him invisible.
How, then, can we know the invisible God? We can only know God as He reveals Himself to us. Like an x-ray machine enables us to see the bones that are hidden from view within our bodies, we need something that will enable us to “see” the invisible God. Jesus is our x-ray machine! Although God has made Himself known to us in the created world (Psalm 19:1), and especially in the written Word (2 Timothy 3:16), we have the greatest revelation of God in His Son, because Jesus is “the image of the invisible God”. Literally, He is the icon (or picture) of God. Therefore, when you look at Jesus you see God.
