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Jesus the Savior

Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus knows what God is talking about. Jesus is God and can do anything he wants to.

  • Here is the good news, Jesus wants to introduce me and you to His Father.
  • That is what it is all about.
  • Jesus wants me to have a passionate relationship with His Father.

Jesus is the way to that relationship in the new plan of God. It is a new day with God through Jesus.

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Master of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

ESV (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Luke 10:21–22

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This is indeed a stunning reality. When we see Jesus, we see God. How is that possible?

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

ESV (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Col 1:15–16.

Paul used the word image to make it clear who Jesus is in God’s world. It means “an exact representation and revelation.” The writer to the Hebrews affirms that Jesus the Messiah is “the express image of His Person” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus was able to say, “He that has seen Me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

In His essence, God is invisible; but Jesus has revealed Him to us (John 1:18). Nature reveals the existence, power, and wisdom of God; but nature cannot reveal the very essence of God to us. It is only in Jesus the Messiah that the invisible God is revealed perfectly. Since no mere creature can perfectly reveal God, Jesus must be God.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Besides the obvious meaning of likeness, “image” implies representation and manifestation. Like the head of a sovereign imprinted on a coin, so Jesus is “the exact representation of [the Father’s] being” (Heb. 1:3).

As Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Anyone who saw Jesus, the visible manifestation of the invisible God, has thereby “seen” God indirectly. For “no one has ever seen God, but God the only Son … has made Him known” (John 1:18).

Paul wrote of the “invisible” God (1 Tim. 1:17), but Jesus is the perfect visible representation and manifestation of that God. Though the word “image” (eikōn) does not always denote a perfect image (cf. 1 Cor. 11:7), the context here demands that understanding. Indeed, like the word “form” (morphē; trans. “nature” in Phil. 2:6–7), eikōn means the very substance or essential embodiment of something or someone. In Hebrews 10:1 “shadow” and “the very image” (eikōn), which is the Messiah, are contrasted. So the Messiah’s supremacy is first shown in His relationship with God the Father. Jesus is the perfect resemblance and representation of God.

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Sources:

Norman L. Geisler, “Colossians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 672.

Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 116.