Image is Everything

The other day, I was looking through photographs of my dad when he was young and thinking about how much my nephew resembles him. He looks so much like my dad, that I would say he is the "spitting image" of his grandpa. His facial expressions, his mannerisms, even his hairline are almost exactly like my dad's. He also has a knack for fixing darn near everything, just like my dad did. This in turn made me think about how God the Son is like God the Father.

Jesus is not just a descendant of God, like my nephew is a descendant of my dad; He is "the exact representation of His person" (Heb 1:3). The Aramaic word for this is memre, and the philosophical and theological concept of this in ancient times was that the coming Messiah would be God, and embody all His attributes. Jesus, as predicted in Isaiah 7:14, is "Immanuel", God with us. The title "Immanuel", actually means "physically in the presence of", rather than something like God being on our side.

The Apostle Paul tried to explain this concept in Colossians 1. Jesus created all things (vs 16), He guides the course of history (vs 16), and He holds all things together (vs 17). He has the power to forgive sins (which only God can do) (vs 20-21), and He dwells in us (vs 27). Jesus is the sovereign of the universe.

Not only is Jesus the very image of God, Jesus is also conforming us to His image (Rom 8:29). When Jesus said to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Mt 22:21), He was speaking of a stamped image. A copy of Caesar's image was stamped on the coin, and therefore the image of God is stamped on us (Gen 1:26).

God's image in us is distorted by sin (Eph 4:17-18), but we are recreated in the image of Christ (Eph 4:24). Not only that, He works in us to mold us into His likeness day by day (Is 64:8), and we are to mirror Him to others around us. (Mt 5:16). We are encouraged to strive to be like Him (I Jn 2:28-29), and eventually we will be like Him (I Jn 3:2).

Wouldn't it be nice to have the people we run in to say that we are the "spitting image" of Jesus?