Chapter IX – The Purpose of Christ – The Image of God

[Christ] is the Image of the invisible God...

hos (WHO) estin (IS-BEING) eikon (IMAGE) tou (OF-THE) theou (PLACER) tou (THE) aoratou (INVISIBLE)

What is the purpose of Christ? For what end was He created? What effectual impact does His existence hold for all creation? And, most importantly, how does His existence relate vitally to His God?

In asking these questions, we enter the most complex and intimate issue – one which Christ delights to share with us, yet one that Christendom has complicated for thousands of years, now (no surprise there.) Scholars great and small have inspected every line of His word, and yet these fundamental issues are so little agreed upon! How can this be?

It is not for lack of trying that mankind has failed to grasp the answer. It is false doctrine which has imposed upon the consciences of many, blinding them to the story God is telling. The story is so far removed from Christendom, that upon hearing and believing it, the chances are that you will never wish to return to organized religion.

Before we begin: much study of God’s story was conveyed in my series, “God's Timeline.” I highly recommend reading this before pressing on this study, for, when speaking of the purpose of God, it is helpful to know how the purpose will come about. The study mentioned surveys hundreds of verses, specially ones with the words aion and aionios. If the study itself is too long for you, I specially recommend chapters 17-25, in which the phrase “the purpose of the eons” (Eph. 3:11) is carefully meditated on. I will be borrowing the proofs from this study.

The above is not a footnote – it is a sincere request. Though it is long, “God’s Timeline” is well worth the read, for the observations made are preparatory material for the most intimate revelations of Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. God does not reveal “His grand purpose” in Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. When Paul mentions “the purpose of the eons” in Ephesians 3:11, it is assumed that the reader already knows this purpose.

Indeed, the purpose is conveyed for us earlier in Paul’s epistles. In his thirteen letters, there are only five occurrences of the noun “purpose” in relation to the Divine program. It is mentioned twice in Romans (8:28 and 9:11), twice in Ephesians (1:11 and 3:11) and once in 2 Timothy 1:9. In addition, there are two usages of the verb form in Romans 3:25 and Ephesians 1:9.

There are two dimensions to the purpose of God – His purpose with all creation (Rom. 8:20-21,) and His purpose with believers, on which His purpose with all creation is fulfilled (Rom. 8:28-32.) Both of these aspects of His purpose are found in Christ.

To summarize “The Purpose of the Eons” portion of “God’s Timeline,” God wants a home. He is building a home which reflects His true character (hence His obsession with “temples.”) By crafting creation, He crafts a living home. When this home is completed, He will be “All in all” (1 Cor. 15:28.) This is as simply as I can convey this truth. Yet whether you grasp this truth or not, I implore you, dear reader, to take a break from this reading and enjoy “God’s Timeline.” This study is founded upon former teachings. When we say “purpose,” we are not using a filler word, but one colored by Paul’s earliest revelations.

Namely, before reading this portion of the study, it is recommended that you have a competent understanding of your personal salvation (Rom. 3:21-8:30,) including the effects of the cross (2 Cor. 5:14-21,) your expectation (Rom. 8:29-30, 1 Cor. 15:36-57, 1 Thess. 4:13-18,) God’s plan (Rom. 5:18-19, 1 Cor. 15:22-28,) and the eonian calendar. The following pages relate the purpose of Christ to these points, specially in regards to the origin of all things, so to lack knowledge of them will only confuse, and potentially frustrate you. It is our wish to enlighten, not to anger our readers. Taking this time will be good, and bring you to a closer relationship with our Father.

*   *   *

The purpose of Christ (both Head and body) is to reveal God to every creature. This is accomplished by many modes, all of which are centered in Christ. At every junction, creation is prepared to reveal some facet of God’s character. The most prominent revelation, of course, is the cross of Christ, for this event reveals the heart of the One God, Who gave His Son, a willing and obedient sacrifice, into death for the sake of all.

“Sin and suffering and death came through the single offense of one man because all humanity was generated by him; so salvation comes through the solitary sacrifice of our Saviour since all were created in Him.” So begins A.E. Knoch in his study, Substitution or Inclusion? This statement may be recalled at any point in this writing, for it underlies all of our argumentation. Christ is the Antitype of every type. He is the Fulfillment of all foreshadowing. Salvation acquaints one with God (Rom. 1:16-8:39,) clarifies His goals (Rom. 9:1-11:36,) and reveals His disposition (Rom. 12:1-15:7.) All of this is accomplished in Christ, for our welfare.

Yet the preparation for the sacrifice is just as important. It is only legal because Christ has all created in Him to begin the plot. He assumes sin’s flesh, appearing as its slave, and becomes obedient unto death – even the death of the cross. Yet Adam was first found in Him. It is on these grounds that He displaces Adam. His work does not substitute Himself for the sinner, but includes all sinners in His death, entombment, and rousing, so that His work impacts all, even as Adam’s had done (Rom. 6:6-7.)

This proceeds into the cross’ effects – the reconciliation of all creation. As we read in Colossians 1:19-20–

In [Christ] the entire complement delights to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross), through Him, whether those on the earth or those in the heavens.

Together, the creation of all in the Son, with the reconciliation of all in the Son, paint a complete picture of the love of God, under the backdrop of Love’s opposite.

The questions from objectors serve a means to unfold the teaching. First, what does it mean for all to be “reconciled to God?” Does this truly include every person? If so, how and why is this the case? How does Christ’s bloodshed accomplish this goal?

To answer these questions, we must look at this passage in its entirety. The “reconciliation of all,” as proposed in Col. 1:20, is the conclusion to a longer passage – not its beginning. By considering the start of the passage, the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter will be answered. We will indeed see Christ’s role in creation, and thus how His cross reconciles all, as Paul says.

Colossians 1:15-20

[Christ] 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, and He is before all, and all has its cohesion in Him.

And He is the Head of the body, the ecclesia, Who is Sovereign; Firstborn from among the dead, that in all He may be becoming first, for in Him the entire complement delights to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross,) through Him, whether those on earth or those in the heavens.

The Invisible God

In order to discuss the Christ and His purpose in greater detail, we must rewind and establish the problem on which Christ’s purpose becomes apparent. To do this, let us simultaneously dwell on truths which can be grasped concerning the time prior to creation’s inception. These are:

1.    God – alone

2.    All in God

3.    The Creation of God’s Son

4.    All in Christ

5.    God chooses us in Christ

6.    The Pre-eonian gifts to the ecclesia

The above truths may be ideally presented consecutively. We will elaborate on each of these points as we march through the passage. We wish especially to stress points 3 and 4 as we dwell on Colossians 1:15-20, given the passage’s exposition on these topics, but we will begin with point 1.

Prior to creation, God was alone. There was no universe – no individual with which He had companionship. There is, admittedly, no verse which explicitly makes this claim. The simplest inductive reasoning admits this truth. We may infer it from two passages. First, Romans 11:36–

Out of Him, and through Him, and for Him is all.

And 1 Cor. 8:6–

For us there is one God, the Father, out of Whom all is.

The fact of all being out of God precludes the idea that anything has come into existence apart from God. If we subtract “all” from the equation – whether visible or invisible, living or dead, any object – we are left with God, alone.

This is, understandably, an ungratifying state of affairs for One Who calls Himself “love.” Love is reciprocal. Love needs a response to be satisfied, nurtured, and strengthened. It is, truly, the most depressing state of affairs for Deity, and serves as the primary reason for which God creates all.

“All” have a beginning. God is the only One Who has no beginning. Many ask, “If God created all, who created God?” This question is founded on the premise that God, too, is created, and assumes that there is some higher truth that God is hiding from us, that was not revealed in His word. The question is a “red herring,” and has no bearing on the truth of scripture. God is imperceptible; time answers to Him, not vice versa. He created the very idea of a “Beginning” – something so fundamentally opposite of Himself. This makes it nigh impossible to apprehend who God is, being contrastively limited creatures, with beginnings and ends.

There is no other like this. Christ most certainly is not like this, for Christ is visible. As we have already studied, He began inherently in the form of God (Phil. 2:6.) This emphasizes that deep fact that there is one God alone (Deut. 4:35, 32:39, 2 Sam. 7:22, 1 Chr. 17:20, Is. 44:6, 8, 1 Cor. 8:4-6.) All authority Christ is given stems from His Father. Christ, nor any other god is above or beside El in scope and ability.

By considering the comprehensive statement of all out of God, we may begin to appreciate the goal of the universe, for God to be All in all (1 Cor. 15:28.) God has suffered more loneliness than our lives have ever begun to fathom. This is not our fault, of course, but we are the remedy to such a malady. We can thus further appreciate the “why” of the reconciliation of all, and see how the beginning of creation necessitates God’s goal with us – namely, to educate us as to His character and justness, thus establishing peace in us toward Him, reconciling us into maturity.

Yet the infiniteness of God is only one of the problems in view. It is important that we are finite first, to recognize His ability relationally. Yet Jesus Himself declares another startling fact of God – that He is spirit (John 4:24.)

Right – this One is invisible. He cannot be seen by any. If God were said to have an “essence,” spirit is the answer. This invisibility creates the greatest chasm between Himself and a visible creation. We are supposed to apprehend this great heart of the Father – yet we cannot even wrap our arms around Him, physically hear Him, or lay our eyes upon Him.

It has been supposed by some that this “invisibility” is due to human disability only. Yet the issue far transcends our personal senses. If we seek to compose an image for Him, fashioned in human appearance, then we impose limitations on Him. How much of this is projection from the celestial deities which have dominated the human race since Babel (Deut. 32:8-9?)

Paul conveyed God’s solution to the matter in Philippians 2:6 – that Christ appears to creation in the form of God, in God’s outward appearance. Indeed, we see God’s outward appearance many times throughout the Old Testament plot – so often, in fact, that many have had to create new ideas for an “image” with which God must have portrayed Himself during Christ’s alleged non-existence. Yet these fall prey to the aforementioned problem – they thus change the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of a corruptible human being and flying creatures and quadrupeds and reptiles (Rom. 1:23.)

It must be rationally inferred, then, that God portrays Himself with an Image – Christ.

There is no other image which accomplishes such a task. Unless we see Christ, we have not seen the Father (John 14:6.) Keep in mind that Christ makes appearance – He does not dictate the story in view. Christ is visible, whereas God is explicitly invisible (Col. 1:15.) The distinction drawn between the two could not be plainer. The imperceptible Deity is not confined to Christ, but Christ is confined to Deity. The Father is greater than Christ (John 10:29.) Christ’s life is a gift of the Father (John 5:26.) Christ only lived because the Father made it so (John 6:57.)

We have often been criticized for making Christ a “Co-Creator,” as if we claim Christ is cooperating with God to create all. Let it be known that none could rationally read the prior few paragraphs and still believe that we claim such a thing. Christ came out of the Father. It is never written that the Father came out of Christ, nor is there any way to infer this. Christ is the Son, and these roles are never reversed. Since all is out of God, and Christ is certainly a part of all, we must by proxy acknowledge that all is not out of Christ.

Christ’s subordinate place beneath the Father should shun all doubts from the thoughtful. Emotionally-minded objectors have continued to slander us on this, yet we persist in stating the facts logically: if One is invisible and imperceptible, completely in control of the Other, then the two are not “co-anything,” though it would not be pillaging to treat Christ as such for the eonian purpose of revelation (Phil. 2:6.) Christ assumes the roles the Father adapts for Him, for select times and purposes – as we have seen with the various forms Christ has assumed. This fact is further stated plainly in Hebrews 1:3 – Christ is the “Carving of God’s Assumption.” The exact language of Holy Writ summarizes this dynamic, then, to perfection.

How greatly this disavows the notion of a “triune” deity! At every avenue, the trinitarian must deviate from divine revelation to nudge Christ into His Father’s position. If we discard the information we receive concerning their dynamic, then we discard the word of Love, provoking Him instead of adoring Him. We have already seen that Christ portrays God, as an ambassador portrays the power(s) he speaks for. To demean the God to that of creation, as if He is not able in all, again only obscures Holy Writ.

The Image

The term “image” in Greek is eikon, and its element is “SIMULATE.” Christ is the “Simulation” of the invisible God. Today, we often consider this word in a scientific and/or technological sense, and such a figure is useful in grasping the meaning of the term.

An image is an exact representation of the Original. Where the Socinian philosophy failed to properly define the word “form,” by adding the words “role,” “rank,” or “station,” here such terms hold merit. Christ, being the living Image of the invisible God, represents the invisible God to perfection.

When sharing this great news with his girlfriend for the first time, my brother, Tim, told me (Stephen) his preferred way of explaining this truth. A few weeks ago, I went to visit him. To demonstrate the truth of Christ, Tim pulled out his phone and showed his girlfriend a recent photo of me. “This is my brother,” he said, and handed her his phone for her to see.

Unless you are Andy Samberg, you should have no trouble recognizing that I am, indeed, not a phone, but a human being. Yet the image of me accurately represented who Tim’s girlfriend would eventually meet. It is no great shame for my brother to say, “This is my brother,” when I am clearly absent from the room. Yet it is the source of the greatest confusion among the theologians, who are not yet ready to relinquish their primary assumptions concerning the Son of God.

This is not solely a brother-oriented example, but a scripturally rooted one. One of the greatest examples of “image” is found in one of Christ’s many bouts with the Pharisees. Jesus picked up a denarius, and asked, “Whose is this image and the inscription?” The Jews replied, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then said, “Be paying, then, Caesar’s to Caesar, and God’s to God.” (Matt. 22:21.) The term image tells us all we need to know. Caesar was not literally inside the coin. It served as a simulation for Caesar, exemplifying the Jews’ subjection to his rulership. Though the coin itself was only of partial likeness, the image still symbolized all the majesty of Caesar.

In like manner, though Christ is only of partial likeness to God (seeing as God does not have flesh and is not a man,) His Image still symbolizes His Majesty. In stark contrast to Caesar, Christ is not a lifeless image, but representative of a life-giving Spirit (so much so that He is called a vivifying Spirit by Paul, under a figure of metonymy.) He is the ideal representation of the Original from whence He came.

It is true, of course, that Christ being called the “Image” of the invisible God does not immediately suppose that Christ existed prior to His physical birth. This is why we began with Philippians – a passage which needs no other in order to assert such truth of our Lord. Though it does not “prove” our point immediately, we begin here because the chiastic structure of Col. 1:15-20 calls for it. Yet by verse 16, we will read that “all is created in Him,” and later in verse 17, that “all is created through Him and for Him.” We will see that the scope of Christ as “Image” is not limited to the present, or His ascension, but for the duration of creation’s existence.

It is evident that the relationship between these Two is so close, that for the purposes of the former, older revelations, there is no express difference between them. When the Israelites saw Christ, they “saw” the Father. There is nothing Christ ever did which was not conceived by the Father for Christ’s journey. Apart from Christ, there is no revelation of the Father (John 8:19.) We cannot say that any other Channel has been employed for any action of God on our visible plane of existence, except through the spirit of His Christ.

For Christ to be the Image is to debar any other “idol” or “image” which is said to convey God. As logically demonstrated when we studied Philippians, it is impossible for any other “image” to convey God, lest we ask, “Where is this alternative ‘Image,’ and where can I worship it as a Just Representative of God?” The truth is that no such alternative exists. To get technical, this is a form of “Sethian Gnosticism.” To quote our brother Richard Golko, in his presentation of the falsehood of the Trinity, Session 31: When Jesus Became God, Gnostic Influences:

“[Sethian gnostics] believed the One eternal transcendent [unknowable] God who was the Perfect Invisible Virgin Spirit produced Forethought named Barbelo who existed in three forms. Forethought produced Christ, the divine Self-Originator, who produced four Luminaries who produced twelve other celestial divine beings.”

(One must ask – where do people come up with this stuff, in a creative sense? I mean, my goodness, yeah??)

The core thought of this belief establishes some other intermediary between God and His Christ – something other than His attested Image, creating a barrier between Him and His own Son. It is no mistake that this barrier is named “Forethought,” as if “Forethought” – that is, the “forethought” of God – is to be credited as the “channel” through whom all is (as opposed to the Christ – 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:16.)

In fact, it is with examples like this that we can see why God abhors any other image! The law forbade any false image of God – for none represent Him like the Image He already had at the time (Gen. 1:27.) The desire to see God is not inherently evil or wrong; it is a desire instilled by God into us, for us to inevitably find satisfaction in the Image He has crafted for Himself. Any appearance which is not His Christ will not properly honor Him. They will undoubtedly misrepresent and mischaracterize the God and His thoughts. Paul exemplifies this fear in its most extreme form – that some bring to us “another Jesus,” one which is foreign to Paul’s message, designed by the adversary, who is dressed as a false beacon of light (1 Cor. 11:3, 12-15.) While another image may highlight one or two attributes of the living God, none but Christ reflect Him entirely.

The fact of Christ as the “Image” greatly clears any misconception that He is some “third” of a god. Christ represents God’s self-insert. He is God’s “Idol.” By looking upon God’s “Idol,” we look at Christ and may call Him “God” for the duration of the story. Christ is characterized this way numerous times in the text (Matt. 4:10, Luke 1:68, John 1:18, Heb. 1:3-4, 8, etc.)

We will certainly repeat ourselves when we consider Hebrews 1, but for now, the fact that Christ simulates God should be enough to cast reasonable doubt on both the Trinitarian view that Christ is God (for how can He be the One He’s “simulating?”) and the Socinian view that Christ did not exist until His inception in Miriam’s womb (for God did not lack an Image prior to Christ’s birth, indicating a change of form, not lack of life.) It is imperative that we cling to a pattern of sound words (2 Tim. 1:13,) that we thus recognize that the Image of God is not God, and the Form of God is not God, and the Word of God is not God, and the Son of God is not God. By blurring these lines, and shifting the goalposts so that these phrases cannot represent He Whom God says they represent (Col. 1:15, Phil. 2:6, Rev. 19:13, Matt. 16:18,) we make a mockery of His chosen verbiage and words.

The goal here is not to consider each and every aspect in which Christ is representative of God, at every point in history (such a study might as well be composed as a commentary on the whole Bible.) As we already said, this article is not explicitly meant to prove that Christ being the “Image” of God automatically means that He existed before His birth. We are merely showing that it is indeed sensible in light of Philippians 2:5-11, and this knowledge should be deferred to with every subsequent clause in Col. 1:15-20. When we inspect Christ “as the Image of God” in relation to both creation and reconciliation, His purpose will become crystal clear, and will thus reinforce the already-proven goal of the universe, both in regards to the purpose of all creation, and the purpose of the ecclesia which is Christ’s body.

- GerudoKing