Jesus Is the Visible Image of the Invisible God—therefore, Whoever Has Seen the Son Has Seen the Father

What matters most to me is focusing on the person of Jesus. The Epistle to the Colossians is an epistle that, like no other, focuses on the deity of Jesus Christ, His Lordship, His Power, and His equality with the Father. It gives us a revelation of the glory of Jesus like no other epistle in the New Testament.

Although it is a very short epistle, it contains revelations about the person and the complete glory of Jesus. And it seems that the apostle Paul was writing this epistle in part because in Colossae, where these believers were—and that is why the epistle is in fact called the Epistle to the Colossians—a kind of erroneous doctrine was spreading, a heresy that has in fact been called the Colossian heresy, which tended to diminish the stature of Jesus Christ and then include other gods, while also making the observance of certain feast days a condition for salvation; it spoke of demigods who were part of creation, and of a host of other rituals and things that took the believers’ focus away from the person of Jesus Christ and from the fact that He is the foundation of all salvation, that without Him absolutely nothing can be done, and that with Him we are entirely complete.

So the apostle Paul writes this letter, displaying the Glory of Jesus and His great Power and Lordship. That is why, after speaking of all these benefits that the children of God have in Jesus Christ, and saying that he prays for them to obtain all these qualities that we mentioned earlier, he then focuses directly on the person of Jesus in verse 15 of Colossians chapter 1 and says here: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

I am going to read it again. It says that “Jesus is the image of the invisible God” and that He also “is the firstborn of all creation.” The word translated into Spanish from the original Greek is the word “icon,” from which the word icon comes, meaning the projection, the photograph of the invisible God. When the Jews, Greeks, and Romans stamped, for example, the image of Caesar on a coin, that image of Caesar represented Caesar because they did not have photographs or photocopiers, but at least they rendered an image of Caesar that was as accurate as possible.

That image imprinted there on that coin was the most faithful representation possible. Today we have photographs and a host of things that represent images much better. If Paul were writing this letter today, he would say that Jesus is the exact projection of the God who cannot be seen. In other words, Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God; therefore, whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father.

Do you remember that He said that very thing to Philip when Philip said to Him, “Show us the Father, and that is enough for us”? And the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask Me to show you the Father? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” Whoever has seen Jesus in His person, in His perfect character, His perfect Power, His Glory, His perfect Word, and His incomparable teachings has, in reality, already seen the Father. Jesus, in His physical form here on Earth, did not represent the Father, because the Father is invisible, but His person, His very essence, was the essence of the Father.

So when Paul says that He is the image of the invisible God, he is saying precisely this: whoever has seen Jesus in all the characteristics and in all the dimensions in which the Word presents Him has seen the Father. Jesus is the very image, the very projection, the very reproduction, the very photocopy of the Father. It is a precious teaching that encourages us to have faith in Him, to believe in Him, to ask Him for everything we need, and to trust that He is powerful enough to provide for us according to our needs and, above all, to give us eternal salvation. God bless you, and we will continue our meditation later.