20
(5) Christ, moreover, is also most definitely called `God', and with the most impressive adjuncts `over all' and
`blessed for ever'.
(6) The titles `God' and `Lord', with their correlatives, are used by the apostle, sometimes in apposition,
sometimes as interchangeable and he never seems at all conscious that an explanation is due, or that there is
any contradiction in his use of the terms.
We must now assemble other statements of the apostle that throw greater light upon the question of the Lord's
deity and relation to the Father, and then, we believe, we shall have given sufficient data to enable the earnest
student to go forward and compile a form of sound words on this most wonderful theme.
On three occasions the apostle uses terms in his epistles that are vital to a due appreciation of the Saviour's
Person and office.
(1) `He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature' (Col. 1:15,16).
(2) `He is the express Image of His (God's) person' (Heb. 1:3).
(3) `He was in the form of God' (Phil. 2:6).
God is invisible. This is a statement of revelation that lies behind most of the glorious truth concerning Christ,
and most of the misunderstandings that have become solidified into creed and dogma. To be visible is to be limited
and circumscribed. The Greek word aoratos, `invisible', is made up of a, a negative, and horatos `visible'. In its
turn this word is allied with horizo, `to set by boundaries', hence our `horizon', horos, `a bound or limit', aphorizo,
`To separate, as by boundaries'.
`Things which are seen are transient, but things which are unseen are age-lasting' (2 Cor. 4:18 author's
translation).
It was the evident purpose of God, that by an act of selflimitation He should step into the realm of the manifest,
hence as a result, in the first instance, the act and purpose of Creation.
`For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead' (Rom. 1:20).
Creation, however, provides only a partial means of manifesting God. `That which may be known of God is
manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them', but `that which may be known', by such means, was not His
Fatherhood, nor His personal Godhead (Theotes, as in Col. 2:9), but His eternal power and His abstract deity
(Theiotes Rom. 1:20). But God is not merely the Almighty, He is a God of love. Creation indeed prepared the way
for a fuller revelation of Himself, but, in its completeness, this is seen in the Person of the Lord Jesus.
`There is nothing more certainly taught in the Word than these great facts, that, not from eternity, but from
before creation, the Son had a visibility which the Father and the Holy Ghost did not possess; but they had their
visibility in Him, for "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"` (W Marshall).
No one less than Deity could be the dwelling place of `All the fulness', but God, in the absolute and
unconditional sense, could not possess all the fulness of the Godhead `bodily'. The enigma is gloriously and
completely solved in the Lord Jesus Christ, `The Image of the invisible God', or, as John reveals the same truth, He
Who was in the beginning -'the Word' and `God', Who made all things -'became flesh, and dwelt among us'. For
creative and mediatorial ends - prior to creation and in preparation for redemption - the Son became the Image of the
Invisible, the express Image of His person, the form of God.
Should any reader feel that some of these observations are not entirely in line with the creeds of Christendom,
the words of Principal Gore may not be without steadying weight: