EXPRESS IMAGE

EXPRESS IMAGE!

Heb 1:3

3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

           I have a friend, a young mother named Marti, whose daughter is a carbon copy! It’s amazing! The other day I saw a side-by-side picture of her own second grade picture alongside that of her daughter. Absolutely uncanny! This is what express image is all about.

           Only once does “express image” appear in our Authorized text. Both words, express and image, are translated from the same Greek word and is used back-to-back in our English language. The word is charakter which means “a graving tool; an exact copy.”

           Philip asked Jesus to reveal God the Father to him and Jesus responded with this: John 14:8-9 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, 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?

           Jesus is the express image of the Father. He is God the spirit manifested in flesh. So very much theology can be shortened to just this: Jesus is God!

           We too are to be like Jesus! 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” The word “like” is the Greek homoios and means “similar in appearance or character.”

           If someone asked you to show them Jesus today, could you simply stand there and smile?

Dear Lord, let me be so full of you that others can clearly see the resemblance. AMEN