He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

Many are the descriptions, titles and epithets of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the most interesting is that He is the “image of the invisible God.” To Moses, God said, “My face shall not be seen” (Ex 33:23). In the Law of Moses, God commands, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above …” (Ex 20:4). Some English translations use the word “image” for “idol.” God was not to be seen or represented in any way that would provide visual imagery or effigy. Regardless of the reason (and clearly, God warns against pagan idolatry—the worship of lifeless statues depicting divine beings), the command against imagery of God stands at the head of the commandments. The downward spiral away from God always results in people foolishly embracing false imagery of their Creator: “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (Rom 1:22–23).

So against all this, the New Testament declares that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” The only way this could not be a violation of the first commandment is if Jesus were Himself God. Otherwise, He would be a false image, misrepresenting God.

Paul’s declaration that Jesus is the image of God is not the same as what God said at the creation: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen 1:27). Humans were created, and were patterned in God’s image. But the text does not say that humans “are” the image of God. They are facsimiles, replicas, copies, but they are not the originals. To be sure, we should live our lives like fine reproductions that are hard to distinguish from the original, but we are not the original. Christ is the original. He was not “created” in the image of God; He “is” the image of God, the original.

This is what Jesus was getting at when He said to Thomas, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father…” (John 14:9). God in His unmitigated glory cannot be seen by human eyes (Ex 33:20). But God incarnate can be seen “a little lower than the angels” (Ps 8:5-6, Heb 2:7). “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18). If a picture is better than a thousand words, than Christ as the image of God is the perfect explanation of who God is!

Lord Jesus, I look to no other imagination of what God is like, but only to You.