Christ As the Image of God’s Person

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 at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

·      the express image

·         χαρακτήρ[1] (charaktēr), ῆρος (ēros), ὁ (ho): the exact representation, or reproduction

·         From an older word denoting “the tool for engraving,” χαρακτήρ came to be used of the “mark,” “impress” made, with special reference to any distinguishing peculiarity, and hence = “an exact reproduction.”[2]

·         In the secular Greek it referred generally

·    To the impression on a coin (esp. the image on the coin),

·    The impression of a seal, indeed,

·    Ultimately to coins, stamps, or seals themselves[3].

·         Philo in particular applies χαρακτήρ to mankind, which according to Gen 1:26f. received God’s → “εἰκών” or image as the basic imprint at its creation; i.e., in the logos mankind is imprinted by God.[4]

·         This is another instance where this is only occurrence of the word in the NT.

 

·      of His person,[5]

·         Speaks of substance, nature, or essence - (Heb 1:3+)

…who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,…

·         Lit., “a standing under, support” (hupo, “under,” histemi, “to stand”), hence, an “assurance,” is so rendered in Heb. 11:1, rv, for kjv, “substance.”

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

·         It here may signify a title-deed, as giving a guarantee, or reality. ^[6]

·         More often it speaks of the fact of trust, confidence, or being sure; the intangible substance of a quality.

·         2 Corinthians 9:4

⁴ lest if some Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we (not to mention you!) should be ashamed of this confident boasting.

·         2 Corinthians 11:17  

¹⁷ What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.

·         Hebrews 3:14

¹⁴ For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,

·         The Scripture has some things to say about mages…In the OT there at least two kinds^[7] (Not counting man being in the image of God, of course, for that is entirely another matter)

 

Images Of Foreign Gods

·         Of course, the making and worshipping of images is forbidden by Pentateuchal law

·         Exodus 20:4–5

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; ⁵ you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,

·         Likewise they were condemned by the prophets

·         Jeremiah 10:3–5

³ For the customs of the peoples are futile;
For one cuts a tree from the forest,
The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.
⁴ They decorate it with silver and gold;
They fasten it with nails and hammers
So that it will not topple.
⁵ They are upright, like a palm tree,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot go by themselves.
Do not be afraid of them,
For they cannot do evil,
Nor can they do any good.”

·         Hosea 11:2

² As they called them,
So they went from them;
They sacrificed to the Baals,
And burned incense to carved images.

·         Even so, throughout pre-exilic times Idolatry was common

·         Judges 6:25

²⁵ Now it came to pass the same night that the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s young bull, the second bull of seven years old, and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the wooden image that is beside it;

·         1 Kings 11:5–8

⁵ For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁶ Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David. ⁷ Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon. ⁸ And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. (300)

·         1 Kings 16:31–33

³¹ And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. ³² Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. ³³ And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

·         even at times within the Temple itself

·         2 Kings 21:3-7

³ For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; he raised up altars for Baal, and made a wooden image, as Ahab king of Israel had done; and he worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. ⁴ He also built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My name.” ⁵ And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. ⁶ Also he made his son pass through the fire, practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. ⁷ He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;

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[1]   James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

[2]   James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930). 683.

[3]   BAGD s.v.; G. Kelber, TDNT IX, 418f.

[4]   Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990-). 456.

[5]   Op. Cit., Swanson, Dictionary.

^[6]   W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger and William White, Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1996). 43.

^[7]    D. R. W. Wood and I. Howard Marshall, New Bible Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996). 499.