God is not a god of our imaginations. He is not the creation of overactive or delusional minds. No, He is real, definitive, and knowable. And, “in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2). Therefore, to know God we must know His Son, Jesus Christ. God’s Word explains who Jesus Christ is with remarkable clarity, with the apostle Paul writing one of the most concise and detailed accounts of Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15). Jesus Christ is the precise profile of God the Father. In Jesus, every facet of God’s infinite and majestic nature is perfectly and fully manifested. Jesus is not a created being, nor does He only have some of God’s qualities. God does not merely indwelt Jesus, nor is He a facsimile copy of God. These realities qualify Jesus testimony recorded in John 10:30; “I and the Father are one.” Jesus directly corrected Philip on His identity in John 14:9; “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
No other earthly person or religious organisation, including the Church, is capable of accurately displaying the full nature of God like Jesus. Jesus has no deficiencies, He cannot be improved upon, nor can He advance further in His deity. Jesus boldly confessed to a group of Jews; “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Jesus is the human form of God in every way possible; eternal, holy, and perpetual in His very essence. He cannot be added to, He never tires, and He never changes.
As Paul continues to define Jesus expressions of deity, we see that He is “the firstborn of all creation.” In the original Greek language which Paul wrote, the word firstborn carries the idea of chef one, or supreme one. This stretches our understanding with biblical clarity; Jesus is the highest-ranking deity over all things which exist. In every dimension of reality, in every sphere of the universe, and in every chapter of time eternal; the supremely Holy One who reigns unchallenged and unconjurable, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul, in his ministerial charge to young Timothy, perfectly brought together a fusion of trinitarian truth concerning Jesus and God the Father. “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honour and eternal dominion. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:15-16).
As if that is not enough, He “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). Death has no power over Jesus, no grave could hold Him, no power of hell is able to intervene His flow of life or His rulership over all that exists. Jesus testifying to a group of Pharisees said; “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:17-18).
It is precisely this mighty Jesus who loves you and I; who indwells us by His Spirit and shall bring to completion the work He has begun within us (Php 1:6). I encourage you to openly confess Jesus as your God. Not a god of your imagination, but the sovereign God of eternity.
