The man in the mirror
I saw myself in a mirror today. Well, I didn’t see me, because I am me. But I did see me in a mirror. Well, I saw my reflection in a mirror. I saw my image in the mirror. My expressed image.
The funny thing is… everything I did, my reflection did. I touched my ear… my reflection touched “my” ear. I combed my hair… my image combed “my” hair, too. There was nothing I did, that my reflection didn’t do as well.
Jesus said when He was young:
“How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” Luk 2:49 Everything the Father did, Jesus was doing because He was (or I should say, He IS)
“the image of the invisible God” (
Col. 1:15) He was, in essence, the perfect reflection of God. The writer of Hebrews said that God speaks to us through His Son who is
“the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, (
Heb. 1:3). Jesus is the expressed image of God’s person? Person???
Well, lets not go off on a tangent here. The word “person” (hypostasis) means
1) a setting or placing under
a) thing put under, substructure, foundation
2) that which has foundation, is firm
a) that which has actual existence
1) a substance, real being
b) the substantial quality, nature, of a person or thing
c) the steadfastness of mind, firmness, courage, resolution
1) confidence, firm trust, assurance
So, yes, God has a “person” in the sense that He has “an actual existence, has substance and is a real Being.” And Jesus, according to the Bible, is the expressed image of God’s Person.
The Bible refers to Jesus as God manifest in the flesh in
1 Tim 3:16. Does this mean that God actually became flesh? Not necessarily. The man I saw in the mirror was me, yet, “he” was not flesh. He was the image of me- the image of my flesh. The word “manifest” (phaneroō) means
1) to make manifest or visible or known what has been hidden or unknown, to manifest, whether by words, or deeds, or in any other way
a) make actual and visible, realised
b) to make known by teaching
c) to become manifest, be made known
d) of a person
1) expose to view, make manifest, to show one's self, appear
e) to become known, to be plainly recognised, thoroughly understood
1) who and what one is
Jesus, who was visible, made “visible” the unseen God. He “exposed God to view”. He revealed God in the flesh to teach us "Who" and "What" God is. That’s why He said this:
Jhn 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip couldn’t quite grasp this. He asked Jesus
Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. The answer came rather quickly:
Jhn 14:9 Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou [then], Shew us the Father? If we want to see God, we need only look at Jesus. If we want to know what God is like, we should look to Jesus. Lets look at this closer:
Jhn 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. My mirror image didn’t comb my hair. I did. The image I saw “reflected” my actions. What I do, my image “does”. My image was in perfect sync with what I do, in the same way that Jesus was in perfect sync with the Father. Jesus said I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The word “in” means, among other things “in, by, with”. “I am IN the Father….” , “I am BY the Father….”, “I am WITH the Father….” All of these are correct. “I am THROUGH the Father…” would also be correct. Jesus would later say
Jhn 14:17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth WITH you, and shall be IN you. The Spirit of truth, the Holy Ghost, the same Spirit that came upon Jesus at His baptism would be “WITH” us, and “IN” us. And, by being “with” and “in” us, the Holy Spirit enables us to be as God intended: His very image.
In the beginning, God created man in His image. But sin entered the Garden and the heart of man. So, while God initially created man in His image, man fell and was ousted from the very Presence of God. Only through the redemption of sinless Blood could man ever be redeemed and brought back into a right relationship with God.
Col 3:10 And have put on the new [man], which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: The fact that we are to be “in God’s image” doesn’t put us on the same level with Jesus. Jesus, who was born of God without sin, the very expressed image of God’s Person, had no need for redemption for He was without sin. To redeem us, Jesus took on our sin, and gave His life for our sins. We were “born in sin, sharpened in iniquity“, and we are in need of redemption in order for us to become the reflection of God’s nature. Jesus had no need of redemption because He was born of God, without sin. He was as John describes Him in
John 1.
“In the beginning was the Word (God) and the Word was WITH God, and the Word was God.” That Word, which has always existed, was made Flesh, visibly, in the Person of Jesus Christ (vs. 14) and reflected the very image of the invisible God. Jesus is “the Man in God’s mirror”.
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