The image of the invisible God

Paul recalls how the Colossian Christians had been saved when they responded to the gospel. They had received the grace of God, as Epaphras reported, and had entered into the enjoyment of salvation. Paul prays that they may develop in their experience of God, in practical holiness and the knowledge of God’s will. He reminds them that God’s grace gives them access to the firm hope of a spiritual inheritance, free from the powers of darkness, safely in the kingdom of the Son of His love.

All of this blessing is theirs because of the place which Christ occupies in the divine purpose, as well as in their own experience. Christ is the key to all Christian experience. He is supreme Lord over all creation and over the church. In Him the Father is visibly expressed, for the Son is divine, exactly as the Father is.

Christ is supreme over all creation because He is its Creator and all exists for His glory. Angels are included in this creation. He also maintains all creation. When Isaiah in chapter 6 saw the glory of Jehovah, it was, in fact, the glory of Christ which he saw, John 12. 41. Christ is also Lord over the church, the Firstborn, the supreme Lord, as raised from the dead. Our link with Him is as the crucified, risen and glorified Head of the church.

Christ is Head of the church, His body. This closeness helps us to take it in that we are ‘meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’, Col. 1. 12. We should not feel that we need an intermediary angel or priest as we come to Him. Coming near to us in truly human flesh, He went to the cross, and we are now ‘complete’ in Him, accepted because of our link with Him.

He lost none of His eternal glory in becoming man; rather, He raised His own redeemed to hitherto unimaginable privilege. Israel’s high priest went into the inner sanctuary once a year on behalf of his people. We are bidden to draw near through our divine Forerunner and glorious Lord, Heb. 6. 20; 10. 19.

‘Within the holiest of all, cleansed by His precious blood, Before Thy throne Thy children fall, and worship Thee, our God’. J. G. DECK.