01 Jul The Image of God Invisible
You can’t see God. He is a spirit (see John 4:24) so he isn’t visible to us unless he does something to make himself visible.
But Colossians is saying that because in seeing Jesus you see God. It isn’t that Jesus in his physical appearance represents God, although there would be something to that idea that in seeing him physically you see God, but more like in knowing Jesus you know God.
Reading further down in Colossians clarifies more details about Jesus, such as in verse 19. There it explains that Jesus has the fullness of God within him.
The question that automatically arises is how God can be fully enclosed in a human being. Humans are restricted in many ways by gravity, time, human strength and more. God has no logical restrictions, so how can Jesus be fully God. The answer has been long discussed by theologians, but the answer will be something to do with his identity being fully God, even though he is a full human with all of the limitations that implies.
This dual identity is one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith – long discussed, and believed by many despite its logical inconsistencies. However consider this thought:
If you were going to make up something about God – ie the trinity, or the nature of the Christian incarnation, you’d be unlikely to ever come up with the scenario that is believed. People usually create religions that make sense and can be understood. One of the wonderful things about the Lord is that he is beyond our understanding. And you do expect that a truly magnificent, sovereign, omniscient, omnipresent, omnitemporal, eternal and omnipotent God, would be hard to understand.
If parts of his creation are hard to get your mind around (ie quantum theory and gravity) how much more the creator will be hard to understand.
And Jesus…. he is a glimpse into who that God is. That’s what Colossians 1:15 is telling us.