Directly addresses the wonder of Jesus Christ's person, asserting that He is the image of the invisible God, the ultimate reality and truth in contrast to deceptive philosophies. It explores this through the biblical concept of 'image' (eikon), explaining it as both likeness and perfect manifestation, drawing parallels to a mirror and the fullness of God dwelling in Him. The message emphasizes that Jesus is the visible representation of God, the only way to the Father, and that seeing Him is seeing God, as evidenced by the disciples' interactions and Thomas's confession, "My Lord and my God."
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The river Likus flows through the Likus Valley, and in that valley, as we've mentioned, you find the cities of Colossi, Areopolis, and Laodicea. This is a tributary, and it flows into the river known as Meander, and it flows for quite a distance. It's one of those winding rivers, and some of the winds almost form a circle. You would not go that way when you travel because you literally just wind and wind and go round and round it would be a very slow way to travel as most of you know that word meander came into the English language and that word in our dictionary today speaks of wandering aimlessly now I think the church in Colossae was in danger of finding itself meandering, wandering aimlessly around this whole issue of who the Lord Jesus is.
I'm sure that Paul sensed this, that once your eyes are diverted from him, you're just going to go round and round in circles and never really come to the truth. So his emphasis in his letter is on the uniqueness and the wonder of the Lord Jesus. To me it would suggest that Paul realized, and he would sense this from Epaphras, that the Lord Jesus had been degraded, had been brought down, and is just one now among a great number of spiritual beings, and I'm not sure that they even gave him the highest place.
He's lost in this multitude of angels and cosmic spirits. Now Paul deals with this all through his letter. There is one important phrase that you find in chapter two and verse seventeen of Colossians. Colossians chapter two and verse seventeen. Paul knows that those in the church, they're meandering with their philosophies and what he calls vain deceit. And so in this verse he uses the phrase, the substance is of Christ. Now if you're reading the King James Version, the word is body.
In the new King James Version, substance. The substance is of Christ. That is, instead of shadows, limited revelations, partial revelations, you find the truth, the substance, the reality in Christ. I noticed that a number of the translations use the word substance, and it stands for the concept of truth. Now, when truth is used of the Lord Jesus, it is used in a richer sense than just the opposite of lies, of error, and of myths. Of course, that is also true, but truth is used with a wider meaning, a deeper significance, when it's related to the Lord Jesus.
In the dictionary that I use regularly, which is the American Heritage Dictionary, you find that the fifth definition given for the word truth is reality. And I like that definition. It's very close to the concept of substance. So you read in the New English Bible, the solid reality is Christ. or in the new international version, the reality, however, is found in Christ. Now, the word truth is used of the Lord Jesus a number of times, and I would suggest to you it carries that sense of substance of reality.
For instance, John, in his beautiful prologue, he refers to the glory that surrounds the Lord Jesus, and he says it was full of grace and truth. Again, the thought is reality. And then the Lord Jesus said to those who surrounded Him, His own disciples, and we learned the words in Sunday school, I am the way, the truth, the reality, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. So when we think of the Lord Jesus and the wonder of His person, We're looking at that which is real, and he stands in contrast to what Paul refers to in his letter to the Colossians of these vain deceits, of this type of wasteful philosophy that just takes you on a long journey in which you wander aimlessly and never arrive at any firm conclusion.
Now, our verse this morning is not an easy verse. and is found in Colossians chapter one and verse fifteen. The first phrase, He is the image of the invisible God. Now I'm sure you're not here for the first time this morning, but if you are, we'd be watching how Paul brought that church right up to the place where those who listened to his letter, sitting in the congregation, probably a large private home, And listen to this letter that the Apostle sent to them. He very beautifully, in a masterful way, brings them right up to the place.
Each one has to ask the question, who is the Lord Jesus? And then at that point, he just explodes. And he says, He is the image of the invisible God. Now, image comes from the Greek word icon, and I don't think I would recommend... that you take it in the material or physical sense. We certainly would not do that in Latin America. In Latin America we have many images. And again I speak respectfully this morning. I was in Colombia many years ago in Bogotá and I took the gondola that goes up behind the city up on the hill where there is a very large and beautiful shrine.
And I just walked in as a tourist And I remember I saw this long line of people so out of curiosity, I just got in the line and moved along with them. And finally we came up to like a window and in it was an image, an icon. And I noticed the people, so many of them, sincerely and in simplicity, they were deeply moved. and some would put their lips against the glass and they would kiss as close as they could to the image. I don't think that is the type of concept that we should have in our minds when we read from Paul that Jesus Christ our Lord is the image of the invisible God.
If we set that aside, then we must come and face the word and ask the questions, what does it mean? Now scholars would recommend two basic meanings to the word image. And the first one is likeness. You have the exact likeness of God when you look at the Lord Jesus. I know the scholars use illustrations that talk about the coin and you'll have the press and they make that impression and in the coin is the same image that you have from the object that makes that impression.
I like rather the illustration of the mirror. Now I'm speaking kindly and gently this morning, probably all of you, not just the women who are present, but the men. Before you left your home or your room in the lodge, you took one look in the mirror. Now I don't know if you were happy with what you saw or not. You might have said to yourself, I didn't know I had that new wrinkle in this particular part of my face. You might have straightened your tie out if you were a man. But whether you liked it or not, if it was a good mirror, it projected your exact likeness.
And we have to accept that. Now, when you look at the Lord Jesus, You're not looking at someone who is more or less similar to God. You're looking at one who has the exact likeness of God. He is the image of the invisible God. And you read in Colossians one in verse nineteen that it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. We really do not have to speculate on the meaning of fullness. It's linked to God, what God is, His fullness.
It pleased the Father that that fullness should dwell in His Son, the Lord Jesus. He is then the exact likeness of God. The second definition that scholars give to the word image is manifestation, that the Lord Jesus reveals perfectly fully the nature, the being, the character of God. There is a Jewish Christian man now with the Lord who in the latter years of his life translated the New Testament. For reasons that I'm not fully aware of, he requested of his wife that it not be published until after he passed into the presence of the Lord.
He did pass away and it was published and he translates one of the phrases like this. He is the visible representation of the invisible God. Now language, human language, is marvelous and wonderful, but language always fails us when you come face to face with the wonder and the mystery of God. So we use language gently. We realize we may not always have the complete concept, but this man comes very close. The Lord Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible gum.
Now you go to Colossians two and verse nine, and you come to one of those other great statements that Paul wrote, and there he writes, In Him, in our Savior the Lord Jesus, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now that staggers the imagination. Many people would simply smile. If they have some type of concept of a cosmic deity, and to think that all the fullness of this cosmic deity dwelt bodily in a human being, they would smile.
I'm sure the philosophers in Athens would have laughed about that idea. But Paul says, let me read it to you again. In him, our Savior dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I never had the privilege of meeting Professor F.F. Bruce, but literally I sat at his feet as I read so many of his books, and to this day I cherish them. And it was Bruce who said, no attribute of deity was missing in the Lord Jesus. When you look at him, even here in our world, all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily.
In the incarnation, the Lord Jesus beautifully, perfectly, fully, revealed the invisible God. Now Paul uses the word image not often, but he does a number of times, and one of his earlier letters you will find it, Second Corinthians. You need not turn to it this morning. It's really a place where Paul takes you into the inner experience of his conversion. Now if you read the Acts of the Apostles, three times you have the story. Once it is narrated by Luke, twice it is told by Paul himself.
And in those three narratives of his conversion experience, you're looking at it from outside. You almost stand by the gate outside of Damascus, and you watch this happening, but you're looking at it from the outside. It's in Second Corinthians chapter four that I would suggest Paul takes you into the inner meaning of that experience. And this is what he writes. He speaks about the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Now that is followed by these words, for it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So now the emphasis not on the great light, it's not on the fact that he fell to the ground, has nothing to do with those initial moments of confusion. Now Paul is telling us what really happened outside of Damascus. And he speaks about the glory of the gospel of Christ. And he says, Who is the image of God? I would like to suggest that it was there that the seed was planted in his heart, that the Lord Jesus, standing in the midst of that divine glory, was the image of God. Paul knows no one has seen God.
But when he said, Who are you? And the answer came back, I am Jesus. And surrounding His person was the glory of God. That may have been the moment when planted in His mind was the concept, that's where you see Him. That's where you see the invisible God, the Lord Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God. And Paul makes the contrast with the whole created order just out of the blackness of nothing, God brought all things into being. So in the moral blackness of His heart, in that heart that was filled with religious bankruptcy, all of a sudden He looked up and there was the Lord Jesus.
And that was the moment when He came face to face with God. For He is the image of God. He is that perfect revelation of who the Lord Jesus is. Now, it's a great joy to speak about Paul, but every one of us here today who know and love the Lord Jesus, we have our own story. There was some moment in a church service or in your home or talking to a friend that all of a sudden it dawned in your mind and heart who the Lord Jesus was, and you received him as your Savior and Lord. And that translated you into this whole realm of glory and of light.
I want to take you for a moment to the great prologue of John just to read verse eighteen of chapter one. You know it by memory. Let me read it to you. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father He has declared Him. Now, I'm not sure how you study the Bible. I often do this myself when I study, and that is, I take a verse like that, and I break it up into its segments. And I look at each segment and try to understand it.
And then after I understand segment by segment, then I put it back together. Well, let's do that with this verse. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament confirm dogmatically that no one has seen fully God. Listen to the words of God to Moses. No man shall see me and live. And then the words of John in verse eighteen of his first chapter, No one has seen God at any time. Now, I know I have to pause there.
You're already thinking in your mind, but there are stories in the Bible of those who had visions of God, those who had the privilege of hearing His voice. We're talking about that in the evening sessions. But I think you'll understand, none of those incidents in the Old Testament was a full, radiant display of what God is. Had that ever happened, no human being in His sinful condition would have survived. So you remember, there were partial glimpses. There were little revelations.
There was some indication about His character. But there never was a full and perfect revelation. No human being could have supported that. So with that background, you read at the end of that verse, He, the Lord Jesus, the Word, He has made Him known. He has declared the invisible God. The New American Standard Version, He has explained Him. And some of you know that the concept of exegesis, That word that they use in seminaries and you'll find in scholarly works is linked to this concept.
Exegesis is not what you put into the Scriptures. It's what you allow to come out of the Scriptures under the guidance of the Spirit of God. And there is exposition. It is explained. It flows out of the Word of God. Well, the same thought is involved here. The great wonder of God that goes beyond our ability to fully understand, this God has been declared. He has been explained. He has been revealed. And it happened in our world two thousand years ago.
Now, how did it happen? Well, in the verse, you have this phrase, the only begotten Son, a phrase that refers to the Word, a phrase that refers to our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Now, it's very interesting to compare the versions at this point, because you're dealing with a very significant phrase, again, the new King James Version, the only begotten Son. Now, let me share with you some of the translations God's only Son, the new English Bible, the new American Standard Version, the only begotten God.
And then you have the international version, the new international version, God, the only Son. And then today's English version, the only Son who is the same as God. It is a powerful phrase, It brings into focus the dignity, the wonder, the majesty of the Lord Jesus. He is the one and He is the only one who has fully and beautifully declared who God really is. Now the thought is so important that Paul, pardon me, John goes farther still and he speaks now of the link or the relationship between the Father and the Son.
And in the New King James Version it reads, Who is in the bosom of the Father. In a sense, and I speak kindly, that would be in our contemporary world a rather archaic expression, who is in the bosom of the Father. So let me share with you one or two other translations in our contemporary language. He is the nearest to the Father's heart. Now it conveys the same meaning. In that heart of the Father, no one is closer or nearer than the Son.
Another translation, He is at the Father's side. Again it speaks of nearness and of intimacy. Now you take all of those segments and you put them back together. And this is what you read. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." Now what does that mean? Only one who is fully God can perfectly reveal God. And that one, of course, is the Lord Jesus, in the language of Paul.
is the image of the invisible God. And because of its importance, I go back to Colossians two and verse nine. In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, let's try and bring the great concepts down onto a level that we can understand. And I'd like you to go back in your mind to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. That's where you read about the Lord Jesus. And as you read through there, you watch the Lord Jesus as He travels, as He displays compassion, as He teaches the multitudes, as He stands for the truth and will not yield.
When He is unfortunately misunderstood, you watch Him when He weeps openly. unashamedly in front of the tomb of Lazarus. Up on the brow of Mount Olive, looking over the holy city of Jerusalem, you have one whose heart is broken and he weeps openly. You watch him when he displays indignation. And you see him when he enjoys friendships. Martha and Mary in Lazarus. You watch him when he is ridiculed. and you watch Him in moments of rejoicing. And as you look at those stories, those narratives in the Gospels, you are looking at the invisible God who has been revealed visibly by His unique and special Son.
It's when you look at the Lord Jesus, you realize God is not aloof. He does not stand away. He has not ignored us. He came right down into our world and in those everyday situations that I outlined a moment ago that you see in the life of the Lord Jesus, you're looking right into the heart of God, right into His character, into all of His virtues. One has said in a new translation that came out some years ago here in the United States of America, we look at this sun. and we see the God who cannot be seen.
That's one of the marvels of our Christian faith. And one scholar, you may have known him, Merrill Tenney, who came down to our country years ago and gave a series of outstanding lectures on the Acts of the Apostles. He wrote these words, God's personal revelation of himself in Christ has no parallel elsewhere. nor has it ever been repeated. Now the importance of that phrase goes back to the words of the Lord Jesus. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.
I know in our world today It is so common the idea that all religions eventually reach God. I am not arrogant. I come back and listen to the words of the Lord Jesus, and if they are true, and we believe they are true, there is no other way to reach God. He came, revealed who God is. It happened once. It has never been repeated. There's no other way into that eternal glory. And perhaps we want to mention at this point that this was only possible because the human being himself was made in the image of God.
For instance, in all of the pagan religions, the gods manifested themselves in the forms of animals. I don't think for a moment that even the Israelites considered the golden calf to be the deity itself. The animal, the golden calf, was the way in which the invisible deity expressed himself. This was common in the world of idolatry in ancient times. The sun was able to come down into our world and become an authentic and real human being, because the human being, and only the human being, was made in the image and the likeness of God.
And thus we stand in awe as we think of the incarnation. We must hurry this morning, and I would like to ask this question in our final moments, because it's a question that's been asked today in our seminaries. It's been asked in the wide Christian world. Was Jesus himself aware of who he was? Now we can come up with a quick answer and say, yes. But it is a question that challenges us. I very briefly take you to John's Gospel. You need not turn to it. We're at the end of chapter thirteen. The disciples know there's a conspiracy up in Jerusalem to destroy the Lord Jesus.
But this is their confidence. He is with us. If He can raise the dead, if He can do miracles, if He can walk on the waters, if He is with us, there is no danger. And then all of a sudden, the Lord Jesus said, and I think it's the only time talking to His disciples, they were His companions. They were all more or less of the same age in their thirties. And here's the Lord Jesus saying to men of his own age, little children. It's a beautiful, tender phrase. I think he uses it because he's going to say something they don't want to hear.
And so he prepares little children. And then he added, I shall be with you a little while longer. Now that was like a bomb that went off in the minds of the disciples. they would be literally shocked out of their minds. You see, they never asked to be His disciples. He was the one who asked them to follow Him, and they responded positively. And now in the moment of crisis, He tells them, I'm leaving. And I'll be leaving in a very short time.
Peter is astounded, and he says to the Lord Jesus, where, pardon me, he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, where are you going? It's evident he didn't have an idea in the world what the Lord Jesus was talking about. And the Lord Jesus answered, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. And that didn't help one little bit. The idea of a separation and then a reunion, that did not satisfy Peter. What Peter wanted was the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus with him moment by moment.
No separation. Finally, Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? And they went on to say, I will lay down my life for your sake. Please don't be hard on Peter. I think you have a man here who's telling the Lord Jesus in a manly way how much he is committed to him, how much he really loves him. And he's saying to the Lord Jesus, I would rather go with you, whatever the danger is, and die with you than to go on living without you. This is a man committed to the Lord Jesus.
And you ought to remember that when he denied the Lord, he did so in the separation he never wanted. When the Lord Jesus had been removed in his confusion, that's when he denied the Lord Jesus. But I take these words at face volume, and he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, why can I not follow you now? Is it because of danger? If it's because of danger, I will lay down my life for your sake. And the Lord Jesus, of course, knew what was going to happen. These men are standing around about the Lord Jesus, and he said to them, Let not your heart be troubled.
I'm positive if I'd been standing beside Peter, I would have heard him mumble something like, It's easy to say that, but we are deeply troubled. The very thought that he was going to leave them filled them with a sense of despair. They were deeply troubled. But the Lord Jesus said, Let not your hearts be troubled. And then he went on to add, You believe in God, believe also in me. Now, you can translate those verbs different ways. Some scholars would suggest that perhaps the best way, not the only way, the best way is to translate both verbs as imperatives.
And the new international version does that. And it reads like this. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. I think he's saying to them, it's the same thing. You trust in God, then trust in me. It's one and the same thing. They're listening to him, and he goes on to speak about some very beautiful things. And you know the portion well. He said to them, If I go away, I will come again and receive you to myself. But where I am, there you may be also.
I would suggest that is one of the most tender phrases in all of John's gospel when you read, and receive you to myself. So he's trying to encourage them. And then he ended up by saying, and sometimes I really ask the question, why did the Lord Jesus say this? He said to them, and where I go you know, and the way you know. Now we've already heard Peter say, we don't know where you are going. We want to know where you are going. And now the Lord Jesus said, Where I go, you know, and the way you know.
Now, just place yourself with the disciples. Here's Thomas. He's heard this whole thing. I can see him step right up to the Lord Jesus and look him right in the eye. And he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, we do not know where you are going. Now, you've got a flat contradiction. The Lord Jesus said, And where I go, you know, and the way you know. And Thomas says, we do not know where you are going. And Peter had already said the same thing to the Lord Jesus. If it appears to be a contradiction, there is an answer.
If they did not know, it's because they never seriously listened to what the Lord Jesus was saying. And he had repeated over and over and over that the Son of Man must be rejected, must suffer, must die, and then be raised again. They did not want that message. They never really accepted it. They ought to have known what he was talking about. But when Thomas made that very strong statement, notice what he said at the end, and how can we know the way I like that. He's telling the Lord Jesus, we're confused.
We don't know what you're talking about, but we want to know what you're talking about. And that's when the Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. Philip is right there. Philip has heard all of this conversation. Now he would not take the word Father in a Trinitarian concept. You must remember that these men are taking their first steps. They're monotheists. They would understand Father in the sense of God. And the Lord Jesus, no one comes to the Father, no one comes to God except through me.
Now Philip thinks we've seen the miracles, we've heard the wonderful teachings, but there's one thing we have not received from the Lord Jesus. We have not received a theophany. We've never had a revelation of God. Ezekiel did. Isaiah did. Moses had one. They could go back and think of those great stories. And he says to the Lord Jesus, Lord, show us the Father. Give us a glimpse of God. And it is sufficient for us. And those words mean we'll be satisfied. We'll never ask for another thing. And then you come to something, and the magnitude of these words, they still leave us after years and years with a sense of amazement and of awe.
For the Lord Jesus said to Philip, Philip, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father? In other words, Philip's request gives the idea behind the Lord Jesus. Above the Lord Jesus is the great mystery of God. And the Lord Jesus, and there's a simplicity, but there is a profundity about His words. He says to Philip, He who has seen me has seen the Father.
I don't think they ever really understood the impact of what the Lord Jesus said. For instance, and He who sees me sees Him who sent me. Or again, He who receives me receives Him who sent me. They never realized just who the Lord Jesus was until after the resurrection. And Thomas is the one, and we close with his words when he looked at the Lord Jesus. He was absolutely overcome. I would also suggest be gentle with Thomas.
Here's a man who saw the brutality of a Roman crucifixion. He saw how the body of the Lord Jesus had been so cruelly violated. He watched that lingering death. And then when his fellow disciples said he's alive, Thomas is telling them, I want to make sure we're talking about the right person. If I can see the marks in his hands and the wound in his side, then I'll know it's true. And when he saw the Lord Jesus, you can see him as he would say to Philip. Now, Philip, if you want to put your finger in the hole in my hand, and he would open his shirt, if you want to put your hand in the wound in my side, you can do that.
And Philip looks at the Lord Jesus, and he says, My Lord and my God. Don't separate the concepts. Don't try and put Lord over there. in God over here and give different meanings to these terms. Jews in their writings for emphasis, they repeat, but not a vain repetition with a slightly different word. And when this man says, My Lord and My God, in our contemporary language, he's saying, Now I really know who you are. And he was face to face with the wonder that the Lord Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Our Father, we bow our hearts this morning in your presence, and we realize how incompetent we are to deal with a subject of this nature. We thank you for the simplicity of the message of the words, words that each word, they're simple words, for he is the image. of the invisible gone. But when we put these words together, we realize we stand before a mystery that goes beyond us. As Paul said, great is the mystery of godliness. Gone was manifest in the flesh.
We just pray this morning as we quietly sit here that each one of us in our relationship with the Lord Jesus will stand with Thomas and say to the one who loved us and died for us, my Lord and my God. And now to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.