The Image Of God

by McCormick, F. | Category: The Image Of God | Jan 1954

God has spoken He has spoken in creation, and "the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen being through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity" (Romans 1.20). Men might have known God as Creator, who is blessed for ever," if the book of creation had been

read aright. For "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge... Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world " (Psalm 19.1-4).

Alas, with senseless darkened hearts and vain reasonings men "exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator." Men's hearts are still unchanged. Men still refuse to have God in their knowledge, and prefer to have their own speculative theories with their vain reasonings, as they propound the theories of evolution, rather than accept the truth of Scripture, and the visible evidence of creation itself. By this means God is well nigh ousted in men's thoughts, from His creation altogether. What folly! The wisdom, knowledge, understanding and power necessary to originate and sustain the vast universe, are altogether beyond the highest conceptions of men. The best informed, and greatest intellects, confess that they can but touch the fringe of the wonders of the universe in their investigations.

In creation there are revealed attributes of the Godhead, and from creation men should learn that a living, loving, beneficent God exists. He "giveth to all life, and breath and all things " and " we are also His offspring" (See Acts 14. 17).; and we ought not to think that He who made us has less powers and capabilities than we ourselves, as though God were a blindly acting impersonal force. No, God is a personal Being, with infinitely greater powers and attributes than the creature that He has made. Thus He is able to reveal Himself and speak to men and this He has done not only in creation, but of old time has" spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers

portions and in divers manners" (Hebrews 1.1). These prophets sought and searched diligently to know "what time, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them" (1 Peter 1.10, 11). These revelations were fragmentary, yet they predicted in type, shadow, and promise, the advent of the perfect revelation of God in the coming Christ. Concerning these scriptures the Lord Jesus said, "These are they which bear witness of Me " (John 5.39). Now, God "hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son"(Hebrews 1.2). It is important to note the exact language of Scripture when reference is made to the Son of God, for errors abound on every side relative to His eternal Sonship. The Scriptures are simple and plain on this vital matter, as will be seen in the following quotations selected out of many.

"God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh "(Romans

8.3). It is obvious that He was the Son when sent, and that He became in the likeness of sinful flesh as He appeared among men

"When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law" (Galatians 4.4).

The Son of God was with God His Father until the appointed time, then He was sent forth. "Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world" (John 10.36), and He says, "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go unto the Father" (John 16.28).

The language here denotes a change of place in which He dwelt. He was with the Father. Where was the Father? In heaven; and the Son said, "I am come down from heaven" (John 6.38, 41).

Coming into the world, being born of a woman, involved the laying aside for a time that glory which He had with the Father before the world was, (see John 17.5), which glory belonged to Him as the Son of God prior to creation. He was eternally the Son of God, but by incarnation became the Son of Man.

"Herein was the love of God manifested in us ("in our case," R.V.M.), that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him " (1 John 4.9). "He was manifested to take away sins" (1 John 3.5). "To this end was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3.8).

It is obvious that the love of God did not come into existence when His only begotten Son came into the world. That love existed in God from all eternity; "Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world"; "Before times eternal" (Ephesians 1.4; 2 Timothy 1.9), but it was manifested in our case, by the coming of the only begotten Son into the world to take away sins. Likewise, the Son of God existed eternally. He says to His Father, "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John 17.24). He who was eternally "the Son of His love" (Colossians 1.13) was manifested. He did not become the only begotten Son by His manifestation, He was that before He was sent into the world! Words could scarcely be plainer, yet these references are but a very few from the vast number which could be referred to in the Scriptures on this important subject. The simple language of Scripture is inwrought with the truth of the eternal Sonship of Christ, and bereft of that truth the Scriptures are meaningless, the gospel a misnomer, and Christ is made to be untrustworthy, for He has declared it.

We are not prepared to accept "another Jesus" or "a different gospel, which ye did not accept" (2 Corinthians 11.4).

The writer to the Hebrews, in chapter 1., brings before us the excelling glories of the Son of God in contrast to that of angels, and shews that He hath inherited a more excellent name than they, by reason of His peculiar relationship to the Father, which is that of Son. To none of the angels had God said at any time, "Thou art My Son." It is obvious, therefore, that the Sonship here referred to belongs only to One who actually stands in that unique relationship, and to no other. Only to Him are the words addressed, "Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet." The eternal Son incarnate, "when He had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."

He was the only One who could accomplish that great work and occupy the throne of Deity. That work has been done perfectly by the God-man, and eternal justice is satisfied. If one sin had remained unatoned for, He could never have sat down at the right hand of the Eternal Majesty, for "righteousness and judgement are the foundation of His throne " (Psalm 97.2).

The perfection of His Person gives value and glory to the work He has done. It is this the writer to the Hebrews is seeking to emphasize, and profound and important statements are made as to His Sonship, Heirship, Creatorship, Kingship and His preeminence as Firstborn over all created things and beings. Of Him, who is the Son, it is written, "Who being the effulgence of His glory, and the very image of His substance." Thus God describes His eternal, unchangeable Being.

Throughout eternal ages the Son was ever the outshining of God's glory, not by reason of His relationship to creation as its Creator, but by virtue of His relationship to the Father, as Son, even before creation came into existence. No one but the Son, co-equal with the Father, could sustain and radiate that transcending glory of Deity. "Who being," to use the words of another, denotes "Who and what He is," in contrast to what He became. These words do not refer to a series of acts, but to a state of being, His eternal mode of being before the incarnation, and to no part of His manifestation in His earthly life; a proceeding splendour, identical with an inherent splendour. As the sunbeam is the same in essence and nature as the Sun, so the Son, the effulgence of God's glory, is the same in nature and essence as the eternal Father."

"The very image of His substance" brings before us also the fact that God's eternal Son has ever been the exact image of the eternal Father. "who is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1.15).

The Son never became the image of God, He always was, and ever will remain the uncreated image of the Father, co-eternal, co-equal, of the same character and exact likeness, because He ever was of the same essence and nature. Though the idea of the word image in Hebrews 1.3 is that of a die reproducing an exact impress, we must not assume that there is the slightest thought of what we may see done in reproducing a likeness or image in substances which differ. The image of her majesty the Queen may be reproduced in copper, silver, or gold on the coin of the realm. The word "substance" here implies the essential nature of Deity of which the Son is eternally the character, exact image or impress. In the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of the same essence and nature. There are not three Persons with different natures. There is One Triune God existing in the perfection of their substantial, identical nature in perfect unity, each able to know and comprehend the fulness and infinity which exists in the other.

There are not three Gods, but One, the blessed, both happy and to be praised, God of eternity. The Son found infinite delight in the Father, and the Father in the Son, in whom the Father ever saw His own perfect image. "Then I was by Him, as a Master Workman: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him" (Proverbs 8.30). It is clear from the foregoing that Christ did not become a partaker of the divine substance by His incarnation. "Who being," "who is," not "who became" is the language of Scripture.

McCormick, F. | Jan 1954
The Image Of God