The grandest of all truths is that CHRIST IS THE IMAGE OF GOD! If you want to know what God had in mind when He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," you have only to look at Jesus Christ.
J. Preston Eby
Growing up in the theology of the church, I always saw the image of God as that resembling myself. After all, God has created man in His own image {Genesis 1:27}. If I am indeed created in His image...then God looks like me. Well, in all honesty, this flesh image of mine has never been my one true image of myself. My true image is one of spirit and not flesh {Paul to the Romans 8:9}. Jesus Himself walked the earth as the spirit likeness of the Father {Johns Account 10:30}. When Jesus proclaimed that He and the Father were one, the Jewish authorities took up stones to stone Him for this apparent blasphemy {Johns Account 10:30-32}. But Jesus was not lying here. Not only could Jesus not lie, He was referring to His union with the Father {Johns Account 14:20}. Jesus and the Father ARE one. Jesus is the very image of God. Notice that I did not proclaim that Jesus was God, but that He is the exact image of Him. So it is that when we ourselves were created in His likeness, we became the image of the Father as well. Now, before you accuse me of the worst of blasphemies, consider the words of the author J. Preston Eby, who proclaims that Christ is the very image of God, created in His exact likeness. Indeed, when we 're told in Genesis that we are created in the likeness of God, this is exactly what our one true image is. The flesh image we all share was as much a part of that first creation as being created in the Fathers likeness. It is the second creation which formed our flesh from the dust of the ground and breathed into the flesh the breath of life, creating a living soul {Genesis 2:7}. The Fathers likeness, in flesh form. Just as it was when Christ Jesus walked the earth, fully God and man. The Fathers likeness in the flesh.
In Whom we are having the deliverance, the pardon of sins. Who is the image of the invisible God, Firstborn of every creature, for in Him is all created, that in the heavens and that on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created through Him and for Him.
Paul to the Colossians 1: 14-16, Concordant New Testament
Have you ever wondered what God was referring to when He proclaimed, "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness?" {Genesis 1:26}. Who is it that the Father is talking to? After all, this is before His creation was complete. Well, if we give heed to the words of the apostle Paul, our eyes are opened to the truth. Paul proclaims that Christ Jesus is the "Firstborn of every creature." Not only that, but that "In Him all is created." Indeed, Christ and the Father were from the beginning {Johns Account 1: 1-5}. It does us no good to play that game of who came first, Jesus or God, that answer is all too obvious. All we need be knowing is that we are created in the likeness of the Father and that through Christ Jesus all things came into being. How the world, through Christ, was created. How I, through Christ, have been created in He and the Fathers likeness. And not just me, but all of the Lords creation. This is the union which we share in the Father and Christ {Johns Account 14:20}. J. Preston Eby proclaims that the life of Jesus is the life of God "Transmuted into the form of our human life." That we might experience the very being and nature of God in our human terms. Paul touches on this in his passage on the indwelling Christ {Paul to the Galatians 2:20}. We can be confident in proclaiming that we are the very image of the Father.
The life of Jesus is the life of God transmuted into the form of our human life, so that we may see, touch, hear, know, understand, and experience the very being of God in human terms.
J. Preston Eby
~Scott~
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