He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Colossians1:15
Jesus is not a guru, a wise man or a prophet. He is much more!
He is the one who makes the invisible God visible to us. The writer to the Hebrews puts it even more clearly: He is the "radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being." (Heb1:3)
God is community: an in-love-perfectly-united-family of Father, Son and Spirit. God the Father and the Holy Spirit reveal God's glory through the Son.
The Father has chosen the Son to make God's goodness known. You want to know what God is like? Look at Jesus:
1. His eternal-ness: Jesus didn't have his beginning at Bethlehem: He has always existed. He is not the first born OF creation but first born of God and as such is OVER creation - all of the glory and all the rights of the Father are His. Creation is His. John says He is the WORD of God who has been with God since the beginning - He is the orderliness, the reason, the logic of creation. For God SAID "Let there be light..." As we will see tomorrow, Jesus is the agent of creation (and its destination...)
2. His OT presence: Right through the Old Testament we have accounts where THE angel of the Lord appears and people take off their shoes and cover their faces*. These are what we call pre-incarnate appearances of Christ - Each time he appears in this way, e.g. to Joshua at Jericho, He is in charge and in control and worthy of worship.
3. The incarnation, cross, resurrection, and ascension. In all of these roles Jesus makes God known to us. He reveals God's love, God's power, God's kindness, God's graciousness and God's determination.
4. He will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev19:16) which reveals His power and majesty.
The false teachers in Colosse wanted to put tradition, ritual and their so-called "secret knowledge"# in the spotlight: They argued that God was unclear and hard to reach and that the rituals and special knowledge brought you nearer... Paul argues that knowing God is a simple matter of taking a proper look at Jesus.
The more you look at Him, the more you will see!!!!
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* Normal angels would never allow people to worship them - see Rev22:8-9
# The false teachers had philosophical frameworks and ideas that they called secret knowledge that only the enlightened could understand - if you didn't have this secret knowledge you couldn't know God.
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
