Jesus, the "Eikon" of God!
Pastor Bill Nichols - August 8, 2010Today's Scripture reference is Colossians 1: 15 - 23
All Bible Quotes are from the NIV unless stated otherwise!Introduction
I have in my hand this morning a picture, an image of our grandchildren. This picture was taken with a camera. One of the best camera's on the market is the Nikon camera. According to Wikipedia,
The name Nikon, which dates from 1946, is a merging of Nippon Kogaku meaning Japan Optical, and an imitation of Zeiss Ikon."
Prior to WWII, Carl Zeiss AG was the world's largest location of camera production. His company - Zeiss Ikon - located in Dresden Germany, was broken up into several smaller companies after the war. The word Ikon is an alternate spelling of the word icon, which comes from the Greek word eikon meaning image. So when you take a picture of something the finished product, the picture, is an image or an icon of the original.
Why all this information about taking pictures with cameras? Because the most important point that I want you to take away from my message this morning has to do with this Greek word eikon.
Turn with me to Colossians 1: 15 - 23.
15 He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation- 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
In this passage, Paul makes some pretty important claims about Jesus. He does so because he is confronting a heresy that has crept into the church called Gnosticism. Gnosticism was basically a mix of Greek philosophy, Judaism and Christianity. It taught that material things were evil and spiritual things were good. Creation could not be a direct act of God because God is spirit and spirit is good, while the physical world is material and therefore evil. It also taught that like God, matter is eternal. Gnosticism taught that the creation was accomplished by a distant emanation from God, or a lesser, imperfect god. The more distant these emanations were from God, the more ignorant of Him and hostile toward Him they became. (Summary from - The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians Revised Edition, by "William Barclay") The word gnosis means knowledge, and the Gnostics considered themselves to be "the intellectual ones". (Barclay)
Gnosticism taught that Jesus could not be God in the flesh because the flesh is evil and spirit is good, so they taught that Jesus was a spiritual phantom with no real physical body. It was said of Jesus that when He walked, he left no footprints on the ground. (Barclay)
The Gnostics believed that salvation could only be attained through intellectual knowledge, therefore salvation was only for the intellectual and not for the ordinary man. (Barclay)
Paul, in writing this letter to the Colossians, attacks these tenets of Gnosticism and in effect has given a most complete picture of the person of Christ in relation to His Deity and humanity.
The Image of the Invisible God
Verse 15 says that "He is the image of the invisible God." Children have very vivid imaginations. I have had the opportunity to watch our granddaughter London a lot this summer. She keeps asking if she can have items that I or someone else has discarded. A couple weeks ago she saw this pamphlet from our storage building project and dug it out of the trash. She went into the nursery and a couple hours later had created from a box and some construction paper, a replica of one of the buildings for me. Last week she took some used aluminum foil and made little animals for me. This week she took a candy bar wrapper and created a little girl from it. I think she will be a very artistic person as an adult if we do not squelch her imagination.
As human beings, I think we have a difficult time imagining what God is like. We read in the Old Testament that Moses' face was shielded from God when He passed by because he could not see God and live. (Exodus 33: 21 - 22) In the New Testament, the Apostle John wrote in his gospel,
"No one has ever seen God, but God the One and only, (referring to Jesus) who is at the Father's side, has made Him known." (John 1: 18)
But then along comes Jesus and in response to Phillips request to show them the Father Jesus states;
"Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14: 9)
When we get to know Jesus, we get to know God.
Paul here tells us that Jesus is the image (eikon) of the invisible God. He is the representation of who God is. And then in verse 19 Paul states that "God was pleased to have all His fullness to dwell in Him." This word fullness means completeness and Barclay says that it means that: "He (Jesus) is the full revelation of God, nothing more is necessary." When we take these two words eikon and pleroma together in the context of Paul's words to the Colossians, Paul is stating that Jesus is both the exact representation and manifestation of God on earth. To know Jesus is to know God.
Jesus is God in the Flesh
Not only is Jesus the image or representation of God, He is so while in the flesh. Jesus was not a phantom manifestation as the Gnostics taught, He had a physical body. Verse 22 states:
"But now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight."
In Colossians, Paul presents Jesus as both God and man to combat the Gnostic heresy that had invaded the church. By doing so, he in effect takes one leg out from under their false teaching. In Jesus we see spirit and flesh in contact with one another.
Jesus in the flesh represents what man was created to be like. In Genesis 1: 26 - 27 it says
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. . ." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.
We were created in God's image to be in relationship with Him. Mankind was the pinnacle of God's creation, and after He had created man, He ended His creative processes.
The Bible tells us that God was in relationship with man daily in the Garden until sin entered the world. That which is physical has indeed been affected by sin, but it was not created that way. Genesis 1: 31a says "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good."
One more thought before we leave this point. In the Hebrew, the word "created" in Genesis 1: 1 is bara. In Latin the word supplied is ex-nihilo which means "out of nothing". Not all Biblical scholars agree, but many, based on this translation and other supporting Scriptures including the passage we are studying in Colossians, agree that God created all things out of nothing. We will not get into that this morning, but do recognize that much of our modern philosophy and theology today is based on this one key principle, creation from nothing or creation from existing matter. Paul's argument in Colossians is that Jesus is both the creator and the sustainer of all that is in existence. That, would definitely fly in the face of the Gnostic teachers of His day.
Jesus is the Firstborn Over all Creation.
The final point I want to make this morning we find in verse 15. Jesus is "the firstborn over all creation." When you and I hear the word firstborn, we think firstborn "in sequence". Paul does not make sense if he is trying to state that Jesus is the "first born" of creation. If we believe the Bible, Cain was the first born in order of sequence, of all creation. Jesus did not come along until thousands of years later. Paul cannot be implying that Jesus was the first "person" that God created because the Scriptures clearly teach that the pre-incarnate Jesus, or as John calls Him, the Word, is eternal with God. (John 1: 1 - 2) And next week we will see that Jesus is the agent of creation. (Colossians 1: 16)
According to Barclay, when Paul uses the word "firstborn" here he is using it to state two things. The first is that the term firstborn was a title of honor. It was the firstborn who received the blessing from the father and a double inheritance. Israel is called the firstborn son of God. (Exodus 4: 22)
Second, it was a title ascribed to the promised Messiah in Psalm 89: 26-27.
"He will call out to me, 'You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.' I will also appoint Him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth."
So you see that here, Paul uses first born to refer to order of importance.
Conclusion
Well, there is so much more in this passage of Scripture, and I will be sharing with you the next two weeks from this same passage. Read it. Meditate on it. Study it. But today, take with you these three thoughts:
- Jesus is the most important person that has ever lived.
- Jesus was the God Man, God in the flesh.
- Jesus is the eikon of God, the exact representation and manifestation of the eternal God.
If what Paul says is true, then what should our response to him be?