Has Made Him Known

John 1:1,17-18 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Colossians 1:15,19-20 – The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

1 John 4:12 – No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 9:5 – Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

2 Corinthians 4:4 – The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Colossians 2:9-10 – For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

Application:

• ·         “The one and only Son, who is Himself God” is an explicit declaration of Christ’s deity.
• ·         Christ is called the “image of God”. He is described as the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being”. This figure of the image suggests two truths: (1) God is invisible; and (2) Christ, who is the eternal Son of God and who became the God-man, reflects and reveals Him.
• ·         Since our love has its source in God’s love, His love reaches full expression when we love fellow Christians. Thus the God whom “no one has ever seen” is seen in those who love, because God lives in them.
• ·         Although believers are also called “sons” of God, Jesus is God’s Son in a unique sense.
• ·         Jesus was God in the fullest sense.
• ·         “Messiah, who is God” is a statement affirming the deity of Jesus the Messiah.
• ·         Christ, the incarnate Son, authentically displays God to us. He is the image of God in which humanity was originally created and into which redeemed humanity is being gloriously transformed until at last, when Christ comes again at the end of this age, we who believe will “be like Him”.
• ·         For Paul “fullness” meant the totality of God with all His powers and attributes.
• ·         The declaration that the very essence of deity was present in totality in Jesus’ human body was a direct refutation of Gnostic teaching.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV