Images of God
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By Jonny Morrison
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.”
— HEBREWS 1:1-3
Introduction
Our image of God, the way we picture God, shapes the whole of our Christian life. If we imagine God as angry, uninterested, or weak we will approach God in kind. We inherit these images from our religious traditions, families, and culture of origin. We construct images as we read the Bible, listen to music, or hear sermons and we subconsciously absorb pictures from our experiences. The result can be a confusing, beautiful, strange, and often painful gallery of images.
What do we do with these images? And, most importantly, how do we see God clearly?
Seeing Clearly
The apostle John began his gospel in a beautiful and peculiar way,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
John is describing Jesus as “the word” or in Greek the “logos.” “Logos” is a big word and means wisdom, revelation, or word. When John uses it here to describe Jesus he is saying that Jesus is the “word of God” or the revelation of God.
“Jesus = The Revelation of God”
A little later in the passage, John says (v. 18),
“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.”
What is fascinating about this is, it’s not totally true. Quite a few people in the Old Testament had seen God. Jacob wrestled with God. Moses and the elders of Israel saw God on mount Siani. And all of Israel saw God’s fire descend on the tabernacle, as a representation of God’s presence. In some way, many people had seen God. But John is telling us that no one has seen God like this.
The word John uses for “known” is the Greek word, “exegesato” which is where we get our word “exegete.” You might have heard the word “exegete” used to describe Bible study. When we study the language, context, and theology of a passage in the Bible we are “exegeting it.”
In the same way, John is telling us that Jesus “exegetes” God to us. Meaning, if we want to understand God, we look to Jesus who is the “logos” the full revelation of God to us.
“Jesus = The Way We Understand God”
The apostle Paul says the same thing in Colossians 1:15, “The Son is the image of the invisible God.” And the author of Hebrews goes even further saying,
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Hebrews 1:1-3).”
The author of Hebews is saying that Jesus is the ultimate and perfect revelation of God. That means everything we think about God, everything we’ve ever read, heard, absorbed needs to be compared and contrasted to the person of Jesus.
And that’s not just true of what we’ve heard from teachers, books, or family. That is also true of everything in the Bible. Jesus says the same thing about himself at the end of the gospel of Luke:
“This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:44-49)
This means everything we read in the Bible needs to be read through the lens of Jesus. As we interact with images of God in the Old Testament that are hard to make sense of our job is to wrestle with them until we discern how they point us towards Jesus, the ultimate word of God.
“Jesus = The Perfect & Ultimate Revelation of God”
Cruciform
We can take this even further though. The Bible doesn’t just point us to Jesus as the perfect and ultimate revelation of God, it points us specifically to the crucifixion of Jesus as the ultimate revelation of God.
Jesus says this in Luke 24:46,
“This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”
And Paul makes the grand statement in Philippians 2 that Jesus, because he was in every way God,
...made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Because Jesus is God, Jesus stepped down from power and endured the cross. God’s very nature is revealed in Christ on the cross according to Paul.
What does that revelation show us specifically? Jesus tells us in John 15:13,
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
The cross is the great demonstration of God’s nature which is, love. This is exactly what John goes on to tell us in 1 John 4:8,
“God is love.”
Conclusion
Here is what we have. Jesus is the perfect and ultimate revelation of God to the world. If we want to know God, we look to Jesus. If we struggle with an image of God, we compare it to Jesus. And what do we see in Jesus? We see a God of relentless love who displays their very nature, their perfect love, through the cross of Jesus.
