Sunday, September 09, 2018

The image of the invisible God

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Col 1:15-17). 

This passage came up in a debate with a Jehovah's Witness. I was asked to comment on the following statement:

His argument (i.e. the Christian apologist) was that since Jesus is the image of the invisible God, He must be God since only a divine being can be a divine copy of God. The Jehovah's Witness responded that by definition no copy will be exact. And so Jesus didn't have to be divine to be a copy. And so there is no real argument from being a copy.

1. "The image of the invisible God" doesn't all by itself imply deity, although I'll return to that phrase momentarily. 

2. In the larger context, this passage presents the Son as the uncreated Creator in Gen 1. Indeed, it's even stronger than Gen 1 because:

i) It makes creation ex nihilo explicit, whereas that's implicit in Gen 1.

ii) It makes the Creator the maker of the invisible as well as visible realm. Angels as well as physical beings. 

So the Creator God of Col 1:15-17 is even more absolute than the initial revelation of Yahweh in Gen 1. 

3. In addition, 1:19 & 2:9 accentuate the deity and Incarnation of the Son.

4. To be the image of the invisible God involves a contrast between the discarnate Father and the incarnate Son.

5. A copy and a representation aren't interchangeable concepts. While every copy is representational, not every representation is a copy. For instance:

i) Humans exhibit bilateral symmetry, so the left side mirrors the right side and vice versa. However, the left side is not a copy of the right side, or vice versa. It's not an original/copy relation.

ii) Identical twins mirror each other, but one twin is not a copy of his brother. It's not an original/copy relation.

iii) Da Vinci painted two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks. Both are originals. 

iv) A bank account number can appear in a different font. So they don't exactly resemble each other. Yet each representation is exactly the name account number. The abstract content is the same. 

6. There's a like-reveals-like principle. The more that B is like A, the more B reveals what A is really like. To be the definitive "image" of the Father, the Son must be maximally similiar while remaining distinct from the Father. But that's far above a creature.   

6 comments:

  1. So based upon 6, one can make an argument of Jesus' deity from divine copying in the way the Christian apologist tried ("...the Son must be maximally similar while remaiming distinct from the Father. But that's far above a creature")?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Except that I wouldn't say the Son is a "copy" of the Father, but a representation.

      Delete
  2. Who says "by definition" a copy can't be exact? That might be true of the old Xerox copiers, where a given copy was slightly degraded from the original. But who says that quirky 20th century product is relevant to the issue?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Additionally...

    Verse 16 says, ".......all things were created through him and FOR HIM."

    That all things were created "FOR" Him suggests divinity since everywhere else in Scripture things exist and were created is "for" God. That's their telos, their end and purpose of being. Also, like John 1:1ff., since everything that was created was created through Him, therefore he wasn't created and isn't a creature. If I recall, the Unitarian NWT at one time translated the verse as saying "all other things", but then "corrected" to say "all [other] things". Possibly due to ridicule of the translation they were forced to admit that "other" isn't in the original text, and that's why they put it in brackets. In verse 15 He's "firstborn of all creation" not the "first created of all creation".

    Verse 17 says, "...and in him all things hold together". That's reminiscent of Heb. 1:3 that states, "...he upholds the universe by the word of his power." The doctrine of conservation of creation affirms the Divine prerogative that God sustains the existence of the created omniverse. That same verse in Hebrews states of Christ that He is the "exact/express imprint/representation of his nature/person". All the while having so high a Christology that it's appropriate to say that the author of Hebrews believed in Christ's divinity. Strongly suggesting that both Hebrews and Colossians were both either written by Paul or by the Pauline community.

    It should also be remembered that this is the same book that warns against the idolatrous worship of angels (Col. 2:18) and other inferior intermediaries.

    Also, Col. 3:16-17 parallels Eph. 5:19-20. If written by the same author, as I believe, then the high Christology of the latter could plausibly be superimposed on the former. In the latter, the "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" are sung to Christ as Lord ["singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart"]. Those are acts of worship.

    Colossians 1:27 talks about "Christ in you the hope of glory". That implies a worship and devotion to Christ that belongs only to God, and a possible allusion to Christ's omnipresence as God.

    ReplyDelete