"Jesus Christ is the Image of God" Sermon: Colossians 1:15-20

“Jesus Christ is the Image of God”
[Colossians 1:15-20]
March 20. 2011 Second Reformed Church

Last week we began our look at the concept of the Image of God. As we looked at the creation of our first parents, Adam and Eve, we saw that God created them in the Image of God. By the Image of God, we saw that our text explained that as humans having dominion. And we came to understand that dominion means having care for, stewarding, judging, maintaining, loving, enjoying, etc., the whole of Creation.

God, Himself, has dominion over all that He has created – all that we have, all that we can do, all that we may be – all of this comes from God, the Father Who loves His people. James tells us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation due to change” (James 1:17, ESV). And Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to the span of his life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ Or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:25-34, ESV).

And King Nebuchadnezzar confessed, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures form generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34b-35, ESV).

This is the picture we are given of how God cares for us and the Creation – how God sovereignly exercises dominion over the Creation in care and love. We also know from the Scripture that God judges and guides and punishes and forgives – in all ways, like a Good Father, He superintends over us for our good and joy and for His Glory.

And last week we saw that God has chosen to make humans to be His representatives, His undershepherds, etc. – God has given us the responsibility and the gift of exercising dominion over the Creation under Him and for Him. So, we are to care for the Creation in the same way that God cares for us.

However, we also noted that in our first parents’ sin, the Image of God in us has been corrupted or marred. We are now sinners and the whole Creation has suffered for it. The Creation is suffering and not interacting with us in the way that it should, and we continue to sin and not exercise dominion in the way that we should.

Yet, this was no surprise to God: God’s Plan from before the Creation was to send the Savior to make those who believe in Him and the whole Creation right with God. And so we turn this morning to look at the One Whom God sent to pay the debt for our sins, make us righteous, and reconcile us to the Father. That One is Jesus Christ, the Image of God.

Paul beings in our reading by stating that Jesus Christ “is the image of the invisible God.” Let us notice two things:

A distinction is being made between Jesus Christ and the rest of humanity: all of humanity, as we have seen, was created in the Image of God – we are like mirrors that reflect Who God is and like stewards who carry out God’s dominion over the Creation. But Jesus Christ is the Image of God. In His Humanity, He is in the Image of God, but He also is the Image of God. Paul is letting us know that Jesus Christ is not merely a perfect human being, but He is also the Very God in Whose Image we are created.

Paul is also letting us know that it is only in seeing Jesus Christ, Who is God Incarnate – God and Human in One Person – that we can see the Invisible God. God has no physical body, as we have said, so God is invisible to our senses. However, since God came to earth in the form of a human, we are now – and we will be able in the Kingdom – to see God in Jesus Christ.

John explained, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, [the Son] has made him known” (John 1:18, ESV). And Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9b, ESV).

God has been manifested in human form among humans through Jesus Christ. God the Son took on the real and whole human being Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ is the Image of God because He is God in the flesh.

Paul then says that He is “the firstborn of all creation.” This does not mean, as some have claimed through history – including the Mormons, that the Son of God is a created creature – that would contradict everything else we have been told. What we are being told is that the Son of God is the foundation of the Creation – which is what we are told in the next verse – everything in all of Creation was created by God the Son. So, again, if God the Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, is the Creator of all Creation, and we know that God created everything that is, Jesus Christ is God; He is the Image of God, because He is God.

All things were created by Jesus Christ the Son of God, “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.”

Here we see that Jesus Christ created everything that is, and God created everything that is through the Son – so we have a testimony of Two Persons of the Trinity in this text – and we are told that God created, not because anything was lacking in God, but because God was pleased to created everything that is for Himself, for His Own Reasons.

And, “[the Son] is before all things” – God the Son and God the Father are not rival gods, nor is one greater than the other, but the Father and the Son are the same One God. (We will not perfectly understand the Doctrine of the Trinity this morning, but let us notice that it is plainly taught in the Scripture.)

Paul continues, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Image of God, holds all things together in Himself. As the Image of God Himself, Jesus is the Sovereign God Who has dominion over all of Creation. Everything that is exists by Him and for Him and through Him. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Lover, Provider, and Judge of everything that is.

What does this mean for us?

As we consider the Image of God that we have been created in – which has now been marred or broken through sin, let us understand this:

God created us in His Image, which means that we have dominion over the Creation, which means that we are to care for and steward the Creation on God’s behalf – in the likeness of God’s dominion, stewardship, and care of the Creation.

The Son of God is the Image of God; He is the same One God. This God, in the Person of the Son of God, Incarnate in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, becoming Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Long-Awaited Savior of God’s people.

In Jesus, God has manifested Himself, so, for the first time, humans can look at God and see God and live. We can look at Jesus and see the Image of God. We can look at the record of God’s Word and see what it is – what it should look like – for us to live out our being created in the Image of God. If we want to know how to rightly live out the Image of God in which we were created, we ought to look to God, Whom we can see, Jesus Christ, and see how He lived out His being the Image of God.

That is not to say that we should ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” That is an inappropriate and dangerous and much too simplistic a question to ask ourselves, because we are not Jesus, we are not God, we are not without sin, and we are not called or able to do everything that Jesus did, because He is God.

How might we understand what it means for us to rightly live out our being created in the Image of God? Paul writes, speaking of unbelievers, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Corinthians 4:4, ESV). This implies, does it not, that, as God is willing, the Image of God is seen as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed and heralded throughout the Creation?

So, we are to proclaim and herald the Gospel of Jesus Christ as those who have been created in the Image of God and those who have received Jesus as Savior. If we do let others know that God the Son came to earth in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, lived, died for our sins, rose from the dead, gave us His Righteousness, and ascended back to His Throne at the Right Hand of the Father, just as the Scriptures said, the proclamation that Jesus Christ is the Image of God will go forth and God will use that preaching to work in the lives of all those God chooses, and to change the Creation itself.

If the Lord is willing, over the next three weeks, we will look at how God is restoring His Image in us, and what that means for our living out dominion to the Glory of God. For now, let us understand that we are called to tell others the Gospel, and it is through the Gospel – through reading and hearing the Word of God – that people will respond and understand that Jesus Christ is the Image of God, the Promised and Only Savior.

As we look back at our text, we see that Jesus “is the head of the body, the church.” That means that there is no Church, no salvation, no people of God, without Jesus. Just as Jesus holds all of Creation together according to His Will as the Image of God, so Jesus holds the Church together from Adam until Jesus’ Return, when all those who believe will be restored and brought into the Kingdom.

Jesus is the beginning of the Church; the Church would not exist without Him.

He is the firstborn from the dead, which does not mean that He was the first person ever to rise from the dead, because others had been brought back to life by God before Jesus in His Humanity rose from the dead. What it means is that Jesus is the Guarantor that everyone who believes in Him will rise from the dead. Jesus has secured salvation and resurrection for all of His people. If we believe savingly in Jesus, we will rise from the dead on the last day.

Because salvation is only through Jesus, He is preeminent in all things. Jesus is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Everything that exists exists because He brought it into existence, and eternal joy is only found through Him and His Salvation.

“For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Let us understand that Jesus Christ is not just a Perfect Human Who had divinity in Him. Jesus is both a real, whole, complete human being, and the Almighty God, Himself, in all of His fullness, together in One Person. Jesus is Wholly God and Wholly Man at the same time in the same Person.

Because Jesus is 100% human and 100% God, He can be our Savior. A Man had to be substituted for humanity, and only God could live a holy life and survive God’s Wrath for sin, Jesus has to be fully human and fully God.

It is through Jesus Alone, Paul tells us, that God chose to “reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Lord willing, over the next few weeks, we will see that God has chosen, through Jesus Christ, to make all those who believe, and the whole Creation, right with God, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross – through the shedding of His Blood – and we will see how God is making us and the Creation right with Him – culminating in the great restoration at the Return of Jesus.

For today, let us understand that Jesus is God – the Son of God became human through taking on Jesus of Nazareth – so Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. And since He is God, in Jesus we can see God in the flesh and the Image of God, Himself.

Let us look to the Word of God to know God and His Savior Jesus, to know the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the Only Way of Salvation. Let us consider the love that God has shown to us and learn to reflect that in our care for each other and the whole Creation. And let us tell others the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Image of God.

Let us pray,
Almighty God, we thank You for coming among us in the Person of Jesus Christ that we might see You in the flesh and know the Image of God, Himself. Help us to be the people You have called us to be, living in Your Image, caring as You care, fulfilling the work that You have given us, especially telling others the Good News of Jesus Christ. And may we look forward to the day of restoration and the full indwelling of Your Kingdom, when our ability to sin will be removed, and the Image of God will be seen aright in us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.