Colossians 1:15 says, “[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” He’s the icon, the exact representation of the invisible God.
John 1:18 says, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” That is, He “has made Him known”; “He has revealed God to us.”
Have you seen a photographic negative? When you click the camera shutter, it prints an image on the film. It’s there but it’s invisible to the eye. Even when you take the film out of the camera in a darkroom, you can’t see it. It’s invisible, and has to be made visible. To make the invisible image visible, you use a chemical called a developer. And when you hold the resulting negative up to the light, you can see a perfect image.
For the invisible God, the developer is Jesus. So if you want to know what God is like, all you have to do is look at Jesus. He is the icon of God. He is the visible image—the visible copy, exact representation—of the invisible God. That’s why Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
And it’s wonderful to know we have all we need because we have Christ. We are complete in Him. We haven’t seen God at any time, but Jesus has brought Him forth. He has taken the invisible image and made Him visible.
So when we read of Jesus touching people, we’re seeing how God loves people. When we see Jesus healing people, we’re seeing a God who’s concerned about the maladies we face in our life. And we thank God that Jesus may be all we have and is all we need.
Jesus takes the invisible God and makes Him visible. Jesus is “the brightness of His [God’s] glory, and the express image of His person” (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus is the exact representation of His person.
It can be boiled down to this: All that God ever wanted to say, He said in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the express image of His person. He is the brightness of His glory. He is the image of the invisible God made visible.
All that God wanted to say—His final word, you might say—is Jesus Christ.
During the era known as the Jesus Movement, back in the ’60s and ’70s, a revival broke out on the West Coast. And there were many people falling in love with Jesus. They weren’t falling in love with churches or religion, but with the person of Jesus Christ.
They called us “Jesus freaks” and “Jesus people,” with our long hair, beards, and sandals. We were just following Jesus Christ, and He was enough.
But not everybody thought so. I remember one clergyman was quoted in the Orange County Register, saying, “Well, all they have is Jesus.”
And I thought, what a statement: “All they have is Jesus.” What he should have said is, “All they have is Jesus because all they need is Jesus.”
That’s what Paul was saying. All you need is Him. “You are complete in Him” (Colossians 2:10). That’s what happens when you accept the invisible God, by accepting the person, the work, and the sacrifice of the visible Jesus Christ. He is all you need.
