The Greatest Image Series

This third verse of Hebrews 1 does not merely say that Jesus was like God, or that he was

a reflection of God’s nature, but it says He is the exact representation of His being. It is not

approximate, but the exact representation of His being. In other word, Jesus is exactly like

God. He is the greatest image of God we can have because we have in Jesus exactly what we

have in God the Father. Like Father, like Son, for they are closer in identity than identical

twins. When you see Jesus you see the Father. God had forbidden that His people ever

worship any idol that was built to supposedly represent Him. There is nothing on earth or in

heaven that can represent God, and so it was folly to ever have anything to be an image of

Him. But when God came into history in the person of His Son He was here in person. It is

now legitimate to have an image of God to worship when that image is the person of Jesus

Christ. To worship His is to worship God, for they are one and the same. It sounds like

heresy, but the reality is that we, as Christians, worship an image of God, and that image is

Jesus.

When you have a seal that can make a mark on paper, that mark is an exact copy of the

original seal. It may be a seal that is used to put its mark on clay or wax, but it is always just

like the original. The reason all our coins look the same is because they are made from the

same mold that stamps them as identical to the original. There can be nothing different

from the original in the copy. The point is, God is represented perfectly in the copy of

Himself, which is Jesus. There is no difference between God the Father and God the Son.

Any characteristic you find in Jesus will be a characteristic of the Father, and vice versa.

As Pink says, “All that God is, in His nature and character, is expressed and manifested,

absolutely and perfectly, by the incarnate Son.” In Col. 1:15 we read it again, “He is the

image of the invisible God…” All that we cannot see of God because He is invisible, we can

see in Jesus who is His image. We know exactly what the original seal looks like because we

have the image and impress of it. We know exactly what God is like because we have an

exact copy in Jesus. He is the visible manifestation of the invisible. J. B. Phillips put it,

“Jesus is God in focus.”

This is Christology at its highest level, for in essence it is saying that Jesus is God. Paul

spelled it out even more clearly in Col. 2:9 where he says, “For in Christ all the fullness of

the Deity lives in bodily form…..” Jesus is the fullness of Deity means that He is fully God.

Those who do not accept the New Testament revelation that makes clear that Jesus is God

are not New Testament believers.

Pastor Worthen writes, “The Greek word used for exact representation is

(charakter) which is where we get our English word character, which could mean a

symbol used to describe a particular letter of the alphabet. And so by inference

they're interchangeable. If I say the letter A, you think of the character which has two

slanted lines coming together at the top with a vertical line in between connecting the

two slanted lines. If I were to show you this character you would immediately think of

A. (One and the same).”

His point is, just as when you see the character A you know that it is A, so when

you see Jesus you know it is God you are looking at. He is the character that

represents God, for He is the image of God. All people are made in the image of God,

and this means that even though fallen with a marred image they still have some of

the characteristics of God that no other creature has. But Jesus has them all in

perfection and fullness. He is the exact representation of God.

What this means is that all the virtues, graces and attributes of God are combined

in Jesus in complete harmony. He is all that man was meant to be in perfection, for

He has all of the image of God in fullness and completeness. Every attribute of God

that we can study equally applies to Jesus. No one can compare with him - not

Mohammed, not Krishna, not Buddha and not Confucius. Not even Moses can

compare with Jesus. As with all of the other statements in these first three verses of