The Image of God
Who is thu image of the invisible God. — COLOSSIANS i. 15.
IT AM an old man, srfid have never seen God,” said a grey-haired Indian to Sir John Franklin, when that distinguished traveller was pursuing one of his earlier expeditions into those arctic regions where he first won his fame, and afterwards found his grave. From that fact the old man argued that there is no God; since, if there were any such being, he must have seen him sometime, and met him somewhere, in the course of his long life and wide wanderings. Stupid savage! He would not believe in God because he had never seen him. Yet he believed in the wind, which he had never seen, as it howled along the dreary waste, or whirled the snow-flakes, or roared through the pineforest, or swept his light canoe over foaming billows, or roused the sea to burst its wintry chains, and float away from silent shores their fields and glittering bergs of ice. We believe in many things we never saw, on the evidence of other senses than that of sight. We believe in music; in invisible voices, that roll their waves of sound upon the ear, and by means of which our spirits, shut up within gross material forms, telegraph their thoughts and hold intercourse, one with another. We believe in invisible odours — the fragrance of rose or lily, and the sweet-scented breath of a thousand other flowers. Nay, we believe in the existence of what we neither hear, nor see, nor taste, nor smell, nor touch. Though ignorant of what they are, and where they are, we believe in the life that animates our mortal bodies, and in the immortal spirits that inhabit them. Thus, with such knowledge and education as we have, there is no danger of our falling into the mistake of Franklin’s savage, or doing anything so foolish and absurd as to doubt the being of God because his person is invisible. Still, though that circumstance may not lead us to deny his existence, alas! how often does it tempt us, the best of us, to forget it! And as to the ungodly, God is not in all their thoughts.” They break in pieces thy people, 0 Lord, and afflict thine heritage. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, the Lord shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear shall he not hear? He that formed the eye shall he not see? Let me, therefore, embrace the opportunity which the text presents, of dwelling for a little on that feature of the Divine Being, of which the apostle speaks, in setting Christ before us as the visible of an invisible God.
I. I would warn you against allowing God to be out of mind because he is out of sight.
This is a fault to which we are all prone, a danger to which our very constitution exposes us. Hence the necessity of striving, making an earnest effort to “walk by faith, not by sight.” How difficult an acquirement! for we are to a great degree the creatures of sense. The sight of some companion of our boyhood, from whom many years and wide seas have parted us, how that recalls old days, and rekindles affections that had been slumbering in their ashes! We light on a letter written by a kind hand long mouldering in the dust, how that opens up wounds which time seemed to have healed, and renews forgotten griefs! I have known a man far advanced in life, and standing, ripe for heaven, on the edge of another world, so moved by the picture of an early love, that, as he gazed on it, fountains long sealed burst open; and over the youthful and beautiful image of her whom the grave had long held for years in its cold embraces, he bowed his grey head, and wept and sobbed like a woman. And what effect mere sight has on other passions may be seen in the rout of yon battle-field, where the column that has stood the volleying shot, and faced the flashes of death so long as he came invisible in a shower of bullets, wavers, staggers, reels, breaks, scatters like a flock of sheep. The charge is made. They cannot stand seen death — this line that, with knit brows, and rapid rush, and terrible cheers, hurls itself on their ranks, their gleaming bayonets a horrid hedge of steel.
And is it not just because we are chiefly affected by the visible, that the grave comes to be the land of forgetfulness? The dead, being out of sight, are jostled out of mind; thrust off like withered leaves from beech or oaken hedge by the green growth of spring; buried in our hearts as in their tombs. It may be that they are now and then recalled, yet widows forget their husbands, and wear their weeds sometimes longer than their griefs; parents forget their children, the living pushing out the dead; and churches forget their ministers; and nations forget the patriots whom they have entombed in marble and honoured with statues. Memory grows treacherous. “Our fathers, where are they? the prophets, do they live for ever?” When some great man dies in church or state, he falls like a mass loosened from the mountain crag, which, bounding into the quiet lake, produces a great commotion, echoing among the silent hills, and surging its waves up along the troubled shore; but how soon all is quiet again! He goes down, like a stately ship, with colours flying and sails all set; and for a time society is widely affected. The event produces a great impression; the public mind is agitated to its lowest depths; and, as he sinks into the grave, he draws men’s thoughts after him as that ship sucks in all that floats nigh the whirlpool which she forms in her descent. But it is with him as with her. Once buried beneath its waters, how soon the sea is still again, and returns to its former calmness!
The grave closes over the mighty dead; and new events and new persons, though they may be much inferior, engross the public attention, just as the interest of men comes to be fixed more on the little boat that floats its living crew on the placid waters, than on the gallant ship that, with all her guns and brave men, lies buried in the depths below.
And so it is in religious things, in those matters which affect our eternal well-being. What is out of sight is very apt to be out of mind. Let this teach you to take all the more heed to live by faith in the invisible. Consider how, with all their glare and show, things seen are paltry, passing, the least of things; and that grandeur and endurance belong to the unseen. The soul is unseen; precious jewel of immortality, it lies concealed within its fragile fleshly casket. Hell and heaven are unseen; the first sinks beneath our sight, the second rises high above it. The eternal world is unseen; a veil impenetrable hangs before its mysteries, hiding them from the keenest eye. Death is unseen; he strikes his blow in the dark. The devil is unseen — stealing on us often unsuspected, and always invisible. And as is our deadliest foe, so is our best and trustiest, our heavenly Friend. Jesus is an invisible Saviour; Jehovah is an invisible God.
“No man hath seen God at any time;” yet why should that be turned into a temptation to sin? I think it should rather minister to constant watchfulness and holy care. How solemn the thought, that an invisible being is ever at our side, and, watching us, recording with rapid pen each deed and word, every desire that rises, though it be to burst like an air-bell, every thought that passes, though on an eagle’s wing. We cannot shake off the presence of God; and when doors are shut, and curtains drawn, and all is still, and darkest night fills our chamber, and we are left alone to the companionship of our thoughts, it might keep them pure and holy to say, as if we saw two shining eyes looking on us out of the darkness, “Thou, God, seest me.” The world called him mad who imagined that he saw God’s eye looking on him out of every star of the sky, and every flower of the earth, and every leaf of the forest, from the ground he trod upon, from the walls of his lonely chamber, and out of the gloomy depths of night. Mad! It was a blessed and holy fancy. May God help you to feel yourselves at all times more in his presence than you are at any time in that of your fellow-men! How promptly then would every bad thought be banished; what unholy deeds be crushed in the desire, nipped in the bud, strangled in the birth; what crimes remain uncommitted; how feeble would the strongest temptations prove; what a purity, nobility, loftiness, holiness, heavenliness, would be imparted to your whole bearing and conversation! There would be a dignity in the humblest Christian’s mien and looks, such as rank never wore, and courtly training never bred; and we should guard our hearts with such a door as stands at the threshold of heaven, this written above it in the blood of Calvary, Here “there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth.”
II. The visible revelations of the Invisible, which are recorded in Old Testament history, were most probably manifestations of the Son of God.
Out of a number of cases where God is said to have been seen, let me select a few.
To-morrow Esau and Jacob are to meet. There was a quarrel of long standing between them, which had all the bitterness of a domestic feud. Jacob had foully deceived and deeply injured his brother. He had not seen Esau for many years, and, dreading his vengeance, he now heard of his approach at the head of four hundred men, with fear and trembling. Greatly alarmed, he cried, God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, the mother with the children. Pattern to us when temptation threatens, or dark misfortunes lower, Jacob, having done all that man’s wisdom could devise, or his power could do in the circumstances, flies for help to God. He will prepare for to-morrow’s trial by a night of prayer. Sending off his wives and children across Jabbok’s stream, to place them as far as possible out of danger, and leave these innocent ones to forget it in sleep’s sweet oblivion, he seeks himself a solitary spot. With deepest silence all around him, and the bright stars above his head, he is on his knees alone with God. Suddenly, as if he had approached with the stealth of a creeping savage, or had sprung from out the ground, some one grasps him. Folded in his arms,
Jacob cannot cast him off. Now it becomes a struggle for the mastery. Locked together, they wrestle in the dark; they bend; they try each to throw the other; and, in some mysterious commingling of bodily and spiritual wrestling, the night passes, and the conflict lasts till break of day. Let me go, said the other, whose eye had caught the gleam of morning, for the day breaketh. Jacob but held him faster. He had found out the other wrestler; danger gave him boldness; faith gave him confidence; and, clinging to God with the grasp of a drowning man, he replied, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And when he had prevailed, and got the blessing, “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Again, Joshua and the host are lying before Jericho, about to commence the siege. To enjoy an hour of quiet devotion, undisturbed by the din and distraction of the camp, or, perhaps, like a wary general, under cover of the night, to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, and find where he might attack their defences with most success, Joshua goes forth alone. And as, advancing with bold yet cautious steps, he turns some corner of the road, some angle of the wall, he starts, finding himself face to face with an armed man. His bravery is not ruffled. He thinks not of retreat; but drawing, advancing, and, perhaps, pointing his sword to the breast of the unknown, he challenges with the question, Art thou for us or for our adversaries? He was promptly answered. Nor could the sword of the other, gleaming in the moonbeam and descending to cleave his helmet and fell him to the ground, have brought Joshua more suddenly to his knees than that answer. Nay; was the reply, but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. Captain of the host of the Lord! No man; no, nor angel this! God himself commands in the battle. The order, first issued from amidst the flames of the burning bush, and now repeated, Put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground, reveals God’s own presence. Joshua worships; and rises — with what heart, and hopes, and holy confidence! And yet not higher than believers may venture to cherish in their daily fight with the devil, the world, and the flth. The Captain of your salvation mingles in that conflict; he is on your side: and, as Joshua might have said on his return to the host, you can say, Our God shall fight for us.
Again, as God assumed a visible form to foretell the fall of Jericho, he did the same to foretell the rise of Samson — suiting his appearance, as he still does his grace, to the varied circumstances of his people. He, who met Joshua as a mailed warrior, presents himself to Manoah’s wife under a peaceful aspect; yet mingling strangely — as they were united in our Lord — the characters of the human and divine, his form belonged to earth, but his face shone with a heavenly glory. A man of God came unto me, she said to her husband, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible. His tidings were strange
THE IMAGE OF GOL>. 1G9
enough to rouse a woman’s curiosity, yet awe struck her dumb, nor left her a word to say or a question to ask; “I asked him not whence he was, neither told he me his name.” Some days thereafter she sits alone in the field; and, as she is ruminating, perhaps, on an event that had deeply impressed her mind, suddenly the same form appears. She hastens homeward; tells her husband; returns with him; and Manoah, less timid than the woman, solves the mystery by bluntly asking, What is thy name? Why askest thou thus after my name, was the significant reply, seeing it is secret? That answer revealed at once, to his great surprise and awe, that he stood in the august presence of God; nor could any doubt of that remain, when this Being of incommunicable name, calling fire from the rock to consume their sacrifice, leaped upon the altar, and ascended to heaven in its flames. The first to recover speech, so soon as his tongue was unbound, Manoah turns to his wife, and, pale with terror, exclaims — “We shall surely die, because we have seen God”
From many cases of the same character, let me select another, where, as I have seen, a dull leaden cloud suddenly changed by a flood of sunbeams into living gold, the divine glory shines with such bright effulgence, that the scene wears an aspect of heaven more than of earth. Within the holy temple Isaiah beholds one sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. His train fills the house. Not white-robed priests, but shining seraphim are his attendants. Incense that never dropped from earthly trees, but such as you might fancy that angel hands gathered from the trees that dip their branches in the river of life, diffuses celestial odours; voices, such as they hear in heaven, and shepherds heard in the skies of Bethlehem, fill the courts with praise, singing, in anticipation of gospel days, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. Nature herself acknowledges the presence of God — the earth trembles, the door-posts shake, the fire of the altar burns dim through a cloud of smoke, and Isaiah, overpowered by the awful glory of the scene, falls prostrate to the ground, crying — Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips: and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Hosts. By such visible manifestations of himself, a gracious God, from time to time, thus comforted and encouraged his people in the days of old.
But on turning to another page of the Bible, what do we find? We find it averred that “no man hath seen God at any time.” How are we to reconcile that positive statement with these plain facts? There is but one way of doing so — namely, by regarding those appearances as manifestations of him “who is the image of the invisible God.” That it was Christ who appeared to Abraham, Christ who wrestled with Jacob, Christ who led Israel out of Egypt, arid, by the hands of Moses and Aaron, conducted the people to the promised land; that it was he, who, before he came in the flesh, appeared in these early ages of the church as her guardian and her God, is a conclusion which Scripture warrants. Paul distinctly charges the host in the desert with having tempted Christ. Neither, says he, let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
This idea is in perfect harmony with other passages in the history of redemption. We know for certain that the fruit of our Lord’s incarnation was anticipated. The benefits of his death were enjoyed before he died; the legacies of the will were paid before the demise of the testator; for the saints, who lived in the days that preceded his advent, were received to glory, if I may so speak, upon his bond, his promise to pay. And if the fruit of his incarnation was thus anticipated, why not the fact of it? Viewed in this light, how do these Old Testament stories acquire a deeper and more enduring interest to us! In the guide of Abraham’s pilgrimage, I see the guide of my own. Jacob’s success in wrestling imparts vigour to my prayers. To think that the same arm which rolled back the gates of the sea, and stopped the wheels of the sun, for us hung in feeble infancy around a mother’s neck; that the same voice which spake in Sinai’s rolling thunders, for us wailed feebly on Mary’s bosom, and cried on the cross, I thirst; that the same august being who delivered the law amid the majesty of heaven, for us died to fulfil it amid the deepest ignominies of earth; that he before whom Moses did exceedingly fear and quake, and Joshua fell, and the holy prophet fainted, was that very same Jesus, whose gentle manners won the confidence of childhood, and whose kind eye beamed forgiveness on a poor, frail, fallen woman, as she stooped to wash his feet with tears, and wipe them with the hairs of her head, these things should exalt Jesus higher in our esteem, and endear him more and more to our hearts. What a combination of grandest majesty, and most gentle mercy, shines in this visible “Image of the invisible God!” Surely he is worthy of your acceptance, and reverence, and love!
In turning your attention now to the person and work of him who is “the image of the invisible God,” let me introduce the subject by remarking,
III. That the greatness of the worker corresponds to the greatness of the work.
It is not always so in the providence of Him who saves by many or by few. Sometimes God accomplishes the mightiest ends by the feeblest instruments. He hath made the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and out of the mouth of babes and sucklings ordained strength.
For example, many of the lovely islands of the Pacific are formed entirely of coral; while others are protected from the violence of the waves by a circular rampart of the same material. Founded in the depths of ocean, this coral wall rises to the surface, where it indicates its presence by a long white line of breakers. The giant rollers that come in from the sea, and threaten with their foaming crests to sweep that island from its base, spend their strength, and dash their waters into snowy foam against this protection-wall. And thus, as within a charmed circle, while all without is a tumbling ocean, the narrow strip of water that lies between this bulwark and the shore is calm as peace, reflecting as a liquid mirror the boats that sleep upon its surface, and the stately palms that fringe the beach. These stupendous breakwaters, that so greatly surpass in stability and strength any which our art and science have erected, are the work of what? That God who employed the hornet to drive the Amorite out of Canaan, has constructed them by means as insignificant. They are the masonry of an insect; an insect so small, that the human eye can hardly detect it, and so feeble that an infant’s finger could crush it. They are built by the coral worm. And I have been told by those who have seen these emerald isles, set within their silver border, like gems on the ocean’s bosom, that the contrast is most surprising, between the greatness of the work and the littleness of the worker.
Turning from the Book of Nature, let me now take an illustration from the Book of Revelation. Look upon this picture of desolation wrought on the land of Israel.” A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burueth:
the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of moun tains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark; and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great.”
In answer to the cry of innocent blood, and to crush a horrible rebellion, we covered the sea with sails, and, summoning our soldiers from distant colonies with great preparations, and after gigantic efforts, we poured them from crowded ships on the shores of a revolted land. But whence did God bring that mighty army, described by the prophet in such vivid colours? Came they from heaven? Were its portals flung open, that troops of embattled angels might rush forth to avenge his cause? Or did He summon the Assyrian, the Egyptian, the Persian, the Greek, the Roman, to pour their armed hosts on a doomed, devoted, guilty land? No. The earth quaked, but not beneath the tread of armies. The sun, moon, and stars, were darkened, but not by a cloud of angel wings. God summoned only the locust from its native marshes, and bade the brood of worms carry desolation into the land. It was summer yesterday. The fields waved with corn, the orchards were white with almond blossoms, the clustering vines embraced the hills, and the forests were clad in a broad mantle of living green. The locust comes — and it is winter. The flowers are gone, and fields are bare, and leafless trees, as if imploring pity, lift their naked arms to heaven; and, bearing on it the wail of famine, the wind, that yesterday breathed perfumes, and danced in joy over the corn, and played and sung among the leaves, now sweeps in howling blast over utter devastation. The locust has executed its commission. It has done God’s work; and in that work of divine judgment we see again a remarkable contrast between the greatness of the action and the littleness of the agent.
In his providence and the government of his people, how often has God produced great effects by most in adequate means? He seems to do it for the very purpose of showing that, whatever be the instrument, the work, of goodness or of judgment, is his own. He is a jealous God, and will not give his glory unto another. In Moses, for example, we see one sprung of the enslaved race. Nor does he crouch before their tyrant with awe in his look, and in his hand a humble petition; but stands erect in Pharaoh’s hall, and, stamping his foot, demands that his brethren be free. In David we see a beardless lad, attired in a shepherd’s peaceful garb, who carries some rustic provision to his brothers in the camp, and gazes around him with the keen curiosity of a peasant on all the circumstance, and pomp, and pride of war. Next day, where is he? What a change! Amid beating hearts, a breathless suspense, eyes dim with anxiety, that gentle boy, his mother’s love, his old father’s care, is doing brave battle with a giant in the presence of two great armies, and plucking the laurels from Goliah’s brow.
Not, perhaps, in outward aspect, but in fact and truth, how marked the contrast between these scenes and that which salvation presents! Redemption is a great work, a most glorious work; one, amid God’s other works and through all past ages, without a parallel. Do not despise it, or reject it, no, nor neglect it; for how shall you escape if you neglect this great salvation? It is of all God’s works the greatest; it is his “strange” work. That cross on Calvary, which mercy raised for you, cost more love, and labour, and wisdom, and skill, than all yon starry universe. With the earth its emerald floor, its roof the sapphire firmament, the sun and stars its pendent lamps, its incense a thousand fragrant odours, its music of many sounds and instruments the song of groves, the murmur of the streams, the voices of winged winds, the pealing thunder, and the everlasting roar of ocean, Nature’s is a glorious temple! Yet that is a nobler temple, which, with blood-redeemed saints for its living stones, and God and the Lamb for its uncreated lights, stands aloft on the Rock of Ages — the admiration of angels and the glory of the universe. Earth wears on her bosom no blossoms so white, and pure, and sweet of fragrance, as the flowers of the garland on a Saviour’s brow! Is
Magdalene, is Manasseh, is Saul, are a thousand and a thousand others in glory yonder, a wonder to angels, and an astonishment to themselves? But great as is the work begun on earth and consummated in heaven, how much greater is the worker? Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? He comes; hell flies his presence. He appears; all the angels of God worship him. He speaks; the tempestuous sea is calm. He commands; the grave gives up its dead. He stands on this sin-smitten world, “in praises, doing wonders;” the visible image of an invisible God. Angels celebrate his advent and attend his departure — hovering alike over the manger of Bethlehem and the crest of Olivet; and when he has left the grave to ascend the throne, hark to the cry at the gate of heaven, Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. Within, they ask, Who is this King of Glory? The gate rolls open, and, greeted with shout and song, the procession enters, as his escort answer, The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of Glory. With such honours and gladness may he be received into our hearts! Holy Spirit, throw open their gates! Jesus ascend their throne! that, holding Thee whom heaven holds, we may have a heaven within us; and, washed in thy blood and renewed by thy Spirit, may present in ourselves — what sin has forfeited but grace restores — a visible image of the in visible God.