Images

Right lets kick this off with something thats been swimming around my head for a couple of days. It got started when I was looking at Colossians 1. Verse 15 says "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." Then I read Hebrews 1:3: "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."

Here we have the reason why it makes God so angry when people make images/ idols of him. The fact that idols take people away from Him is not the only reason (although it's a very good reason to be angry). It is the fact that God already has an image! Jesus Christ! And Christ is the best image because he is "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.." Jesus Himself says "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father"(John 14:9). Nothing man can make out of gold can come close to the image we have in Jesus Christ! So no wonder God is angry when the Israelites make a golden calf because they are effectively saying God looks like a cow. Most humans take great offence when you say they look like a cow, so imagine how furious it must make the Almighty!

Of course we are made in God's image- "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26) which means that we are to look like God's perfect image- Jesus! That is another reason why He came as a man, to show us what we originally were meant to look like. Now sin has wrecked it all but in Jesus we have the purification for sin! The Father sent him to save us and grant us eternal life. "For God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," (John 3:16). It is through Jesus and only through Jesus we are saved. "Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save," (Isaiah 45:20). False idols are unable to save us because God is not a block of wood nor are we meant to look like blocks of wood! We are meant to reflect God's glory! The only way we can do that is to fix our eyes on Jesus, the "radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being," "the author and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12:2) the one who "provided purification for sins and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven."

We should look to His sacrifice for cleansing from our sins and follow His example at all times because "He is the image of the invisible God"- the one we are meant to look like.