The Eternal Image and Heir: Christ as the Perfect Reflection of God

Who is a most lively and perfect image of the invisible God, not only as he works God’s image in man, or because he appeared for God the Father, to the fathers in the old law; or because as man, he had in him the likeness of God in perfect holiness and righteousness; or because he did by his miracles, as it were, make God visible in his flesh; but as he was from everlasting the very essential natural image of God, most absolutely in his divine person, resembling infinitely the whole nature of his Father, and therefore is to be acknowledged as the begotten of God by an eternal generation; so the first begotten of every creature, as he was before them, so is he therefore the principal heir of all things, by whom, and in whose right, all the saints do inherit what they have or look for.

Byfield, N. (1869). An Exposition upon the Epistle to the Colossians: Being the Substance of near Seven Years’ Week-Day Sermons (p. 12). James Nichol; J. Nisbet & Co.; G. Herbert. (Public Domain)

Naturally the apostle passes from the redemptive work of Christ to his divine Person. Who, referring back to “the Son of his love” (ver. 13), as he was before his incarnation, still is, and ever will be. In this and the two following verses Christ is presented in his relation to God and the universe. Who is the image, the likeness, of the Divine nature and of the absolute moral excellence of the invisible God “whom no man has seen at any time or can see” (1 Tim. 6:16; John 5:37; 1 John 4:12). But the Son has declared and manifested him (John 1:18; 14:9; Heb. 1:3). “Christian antiquity has ever regarded the expression ‘image of God’ as denoting the eternal Son’s perfect equality with the Father in respect to his substance, power, and eternity” (ELLICOTT). Christ, the likeness of the invisible God, is seen in creation, in his incarnation, in the revelation of his being, nature, and will (John 1:1–4, 14; 14:9, 10).

Clark, G. W. (1903). Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I. and II. Thessalonians, I. and II. Timothy, Titus, and Philemon: Commentary (p. 266). American Baptist Publication Society. (Public Domain)