What does it mean that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15)?

The "image of the invisible God." Adam was made "in our image after our likeness" (Gen. 26); the "image" he still remains (Gen. 9:6). "Likeness" means "being like;" "image" signifies "representing." Thus a coin, say of the year 1846, bears the queen's image — it "represents" her; but it is by no means like her — her "likeness." The Lord is never, and can never be called, the "likeness" of God, for He is God: He was sent "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), but He is repeatedly called the "image" of God.

"The firstborn of every creature" — not in point of time, but of pre-eminence. Solomon was far down in the family of David, but "I will make him my firstborn," etc. If the Creator deigns to be born at all, whenever He is born He must be "the firstborn." "For by (or, "in the power of") Him were all things created." The word "by" is different here from the end of the verse; there, it signifies the actual agent through whom the work was done, here, the originator of the work. In His power too "all things subsist" or hold together.

Further, the apostle writes that the Son of the Father's love "is the Image of the invisible God." As John says, "No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18).

An "image" denotes a visible representation of the invisible or absent. The Son, in the eternal light of His Person in the Godhead, is the Image of the invisible God. He did not acquire this competency of representation by creation, as Adam did, who "out of the dust of the ground" was created in the image and glory of God (Gen. 1:27; 1 Cor. 11:7). Man, though made a little lower than the angels, was the appointed representative of his Maker in the world. But the Son is the Creator, and being God, He, as the Image of God, sets Him forth with an infinite fullness inseparable from His personal glory as the Son, which was His before He became flesh.

Who is He then of whom we are speaking? He is, says the apostle, first of all, the Image of the Invisible God, the perfect and exact Expression of One who is nowhere seen as He is seen in Him. The invisible God has become visible to us, of course to faith; but we have the full revelation of God in Him, who, in order that He may reveal God, has come down into that which is His own creation, has taken His place in it, of necessity, thus, at the Head of it also. If He who is the Image of the Invisible God takes His place in creation, it must be as the First-born of it all, the Beginning, as He says Himself in the epistle to Laodicea, "the Beginning of the creation of God."

The object evidently is not so much to dwell upon the work of Christ as to bring out His personal glory. Christ is never said to be the likeness of the invisible God, because it might imply that He was not really God. This would be fatally false; for He is God (and without it God's glory and redemption are vain), but yet He is the image of the invisible God, because He is the only Person of the Godhead that has declared Him (see John 1:18). The Holy Ghost does not manifest God. He does manifest His power, but not Himself; but Christ is "the image of the invisible God." He has presented God in full perfection; He is the truth objectively. He who has seen Him has seen the Father. He was always the Word, the One who made God manifest. The word "image," as has been remarked, is continually used in Scripture for representation. Such is the first thought. Christ is the image of the invisible God.

The next glory is that He is the first-born of all creation. This seems obviously contrasted with His being the image of the invisible God. Christ as truly became a man as He was and is God. He was made flesh. He is never, nor could be, said to be made God. He partook of flesh and blood in time, but from everlasting He is God. Having shown that He was the image of the invisible God, the Apostle then speaks of Him as the first-born of all creation. How could this be? Adam was the prototype; we might have thought he was first. But here, as elsewhere (Ps. 89:28), the title of first-born is taken in the sense of dignity rather than of mere priority in time.

The Lord Jesus is the image of the invisible God. It is in the Son of His love that we see what God is (compare John 1:18; and also 1 John 1:2). This is the first character of His personal glory, the essential centre of all the rest. Now, in consequence of this proper character of His Person, He takes by right the position of representing God in the creation. Adam was created in some sort in the image of God, and placed as centre in a creation that was subjected to him. But, after all, he was only a figure of the Christ, of Him who was to come. The Son, in His very Person, in His nature (and for us as in the bosom of the Father), is He who makes God known, because He presents Him in His own Person and in a full revelation of His being and of His character before men and in the whole universe; for all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Him. Nevertheless He is a man. He is thus seen of angels. We have seen Him with our eyes or by faith. Thus He is the image of the invisible God. The perfect character and living representation of the invisible God have been seen in Him. Wondrous truth for us with regard to the Person of our Saviour!

The first statement concerns His absolute deity--"Who is the image of the invisible God." He is the image of God in all His fullness and perfection. As the image of God, the invisible God, He therefore is God. "He is the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance" (Heb. 1:3). He has made known God to man; in Him we see what God is. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared Him" (John 1:18). Were He not the essential image of God in His own person, one with God in eternity and glory, He could not be the representative image of God by incarnation.

"Firstborn of all Creation"--not as the Authorized Version has it "the firstborn of every creature." It is here where the false teaching originates, which claims that our Lord was after all only a creature, called into existence by God, and not very God. This passage teaches no such thing. The title "Firstborn" denotes His priority to creation, for He is creation's head; the headship of all creation belongs to Him. When He who is the image of the invisible God takes His place in creation, as He did in incarnation, it can only be as the Firstborn, as the beginning of the creation of God, the head of all. He, who became man, under whose feet as the second Man all things will be put in subjection (Ps. 8; Heb. 2), is the Lord from Heaven, the Creator of all things.

Vv. 15-17. Already the Apostle has brought before us the Son in relation to the Father, as the One under whose sway believers have been brought; now he sets before us the glories of the Son in relation to God. He is the image of the invisible God. In His essential Deity God is invisible; but in His moral being God has been perfectly made known in the Son become flesh. "The Only Begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he has declared Him". None but a Divine Person is adequate to fully reveal a Divine Person. Not until the Son came into the world could the Father's heart be declared.

Scripture speaks of "image" and "likeness"; the difference is that likeness is being like another — having the same traits and features; "image" gives the thought of representing another, whether like or not. God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness". Adam was like God, in that he was made sinless; he was also in the image of God, in that he represented God as being the centre of a system over which he was to have dominion. Man is still said to be in the "image of God" (1 Cor. 11:7), though, as fallen, he is very unlike God. The Son is never said to be in the likeness of the invisible God, for He is God, and to say that He is like God might imply that He is not really God. Nevertheless, the Son is "the image of the invisible God", and One who in His own Person, perfectly represents God in His character and moral attributes, before the whole universe.

While upon earth, the Lord Jesus said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" He was the perfect and full revelation of the Father. Where the Son now is, in the presence of God, He is the image of the Invisible God. It is not exactly what He was, but what He is that is emphasised. God still dwells in light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen, nor can see; but that invisible God is seen in One who perfectly represents Him. Man was made in the image of God; but only the Son could be the image of the invisible God. Adam represented God in the lower creation, but the Son fully sets forth His thoughts, desires, counsels and activities. All that can be known of God is to be found in the Son as the image of the invisible God; and it is as occupied with the Son in the glory that belongs to Him — as our minds are set on the things above where Christ sits at God's right hand — that we learn of God and find joy in Himself and His things. I do not think that we shall ever learn, not even in heaven, anything of God except in the Son.

Having become Man, having stepped into the creation, the One who brought it into being must take the first place in it; therefore is He the "Firstborn of all creation." (Firstborn has to do with precedence. Normally this belonged to the son who was born first, but the birthright could be lost. Esau sold his birthright to Jacob, and Reuben lost his birthright to Joseph — 1 Chr. 5:1-2; Heb. 12:16). What other place could the Son, the Creator, have but the first place when coming into His creation? First, He is brought before us as the source of all, "Because by Him were created all things." The word translated by is sometimes translated in, and here draws our attention to the great truth that creation proceeds from Him. Secondly, "All things have been created by Him." Now He is viewed as the active agent in creation. Thirdly, all things have been created "For Him." All things have been brought into existence to serve His will and pleasure. There are three outstanding presentations of the creation where the Son is viewed as creator: in John 1, where The Word makes all, "Without Him was not anything made that was made;" In Hebrews 1, where, by the Son, God makes the worlds, the physical universe; here, all comes from the Son, "For by Him were all things created, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth." All the great spheres of government and dominion, both heavenly and earthly, are specially in view in this Scripture. The reason is evident later in the chapter; what he creates He reconciles; that is where there is need for reconciliation, on the ground of redemption. There is coming a time when the whole universe shall be for God's pleasure; what was lost through sin will be brought back by the Son. Not a single seat of authority in the wide universe will be in alien hands; all will be in the hands of Christ.

There had been a creation where the first Adam, created in the image of God, was set over the works of God's hands. Satan gained the mastery over the first man, and the image was defaced by sin, and the creature subjected to vanity and corruption. The Colossians had been under the authority of the darkness by which Satan held sway in a corrupted creation; but though the rights of the Creator had been invaded, and His image defaced in His creature, all is made good in Him who, by the very glory of His person, could be and is the image of the invisible God. The Creator Himself has stepped into the ranks of creation by being born into it as a man. Consequently He takes the highest place of dignity in it, for "excellency of dignity and excellency of power" are the portion of the firstborn. (Comp. Gen. 49:3; Ps. 89:27.) It was always in the mind of God to display Himself to intelligent creatures whom He had made; but in supreme Godhead glory He dwelt in light that no creature, however exalted, could approach. An image in moral likeness to Himself was the only means of this display, and in Genesis 1:26 we have the first intimation that man was the being in whom this image was to be seen. Adam was but the figure of Him who was to come. Here is the marvellous fact that the Creator has taken His place in the creation He made. In Him the holy intelligences in the heavens see their Creator. His wonderful works they had seen in creation, and they shouted for joy as it sprang into being; but Himself they can only see in a man, in Him who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. The creation too which He made is characterised and exists in the power of His own person as creator. There are things on earth and things in the heavens, visible and invisible. In the mind of God, both in earth and heaven, thrones and dominions and principalities and powers were to have their place. Their source was in the wondrous person of the Son who became man, nor was one to exist independently of Him. All were created by Him and for Him, and all subsist in the power of His person. He made it then that He might take His place in it, and this He has done by being born into it as a man, that He might display God in the varied glories that attach to His person. What a glorious Person, and what a glorious state of things on earth and in heaven, will subsist when He who is the image of the invisible God fills it with the glory of which He is the fulness and display.

The word “image” is sometimes, in human language, used to signify the likeness in one for another; as one would say, ‘such an one is the very image of his father’ — meaning that he is an exact likeness; but this is not the way it is used in general, in scripture. There it is used, rather in speaking of that which is set to represent another, without having any reference to its being like or unlike, in features, or otherwise, to the person represented. As we read of Christ being “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). And man being “the image and glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7), etc.; the word image being here used, as fully representing another, as the image of Jupiter, of Caesar, etc. Now “likeness” is different from this: its meaning is simple and readily understood, as describing a person being like another, that is, having the same traits of character and features, etc.