The Image of the Invisible God Colossians 1:15

Paul the apostle wrote to the church members in Colosse not only to commend them for their faith in Jesus Christ, but also because their minister, Epaphras, told him there were false teachers among them. The Gnostics who denied the deity of Jesus Christ and the Judaizers who mixed works and faith as necessary for salvation brought into the church their heretical doctrines, and the church members were affected by them. As Paul continued his prayer in verse fifteen of the first chapter of the letter written to the Colossians, he began to address who Jesus was as part of a reaction to their false teachings. We read:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

The verse begins, “Who is the image of the invisible God,...” The first characteristic mentioned of Jesus Christ who is God's Son was that He “is the image” or “figure or likeness in both his divine nature and absolute moral excellence” “of the invisible God” which refers to “the unseen, or that which can not be seen” God. John the apostle made reference to this in chapter one of his gospel in verse eighteen where he wrote:

No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,

which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared (or manifested) him.

John also wrote in verse fourteen of the same chapter:

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory,

the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in chapter one and verse three wrote:

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Paul was abundantly clear that Jesus Christ was and is indeed the expressed image of God Almighty, the Heavenly Father, and the Gnostics who argued otherwise were to be put to silence concerning Him.

The verse continues, “the firstborn of every creature:” The second characteristic of Jesus mentioned by Paul was that He was “the firstborn of” which means “precedent or above” “every creature” or “creation or thing created, of individual things, beings, anything created, or the sum or aggregate of things created”. In other words, before anything was created, Jesus Christ was there. He was and is “the “image of the invisible God”. Jesus existed before, took precedence and was above all created things.

When we begin to think about who Jesus really was, we cannot help but see that He was God incarnate. He came to the Earth as a man to identify with us, know what it is like to be us, and pay the price for our sins that we may live with Him for all of eternity. It is important that we know just who Jesus was, and all false doctrine about Him must be squelched. As Paul continues this description of Jesus, let us allow the Holy Spirit of God to know just who Jesus is and why we should continually worship Him.

Next time Paul will write more about Jesus Himself, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.

Until tomorrow...there is more...

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