An Exact Imprint: Thinking about the Deity of Christ

I've had occasion of late to reflect a bit on the identity of Christ as truly Man and truly God. It's enough to humble and inspire awe in the soul.

The phrase that has captured me is that of Hebrews 1:3--Christ is the "exact imprint" of God's nature. The words exact imprint translate a Greek word meaning: "the exact expression (the image) of any person or thing, marked likeness, precise reproduction in every respect, i.e facsimile" (Strong). Nearly all the translations include either the word exact or express before the word imprint or image.

To be the exact imprint of something demands absolute equality with that thing; one cannot exactly reproduce or represent something without sharing in the very nature and existence of that thing. If the imprint is in any way less than the original, it is not exact; it is only very like, not just like.

Jesus is just like God, being that He is God the Son. I've never forgotten the impact of John Piper's reflections on this from his book, The Pleasures of God. I hope you'll read them and worship:

So the Son in whom the Father delights is the image of God and the radiance of the glory of God. He bears the very stamp of God’s nature and is the very form of God. He is equal with God and, as John says, is God.

For all eternity, before creation, the only reality that has always existed is God. This is a great mystery, because it is so hard for us to think of God having absolutely no beginning, and just being there forever and ever and ever, without anything or anyone making him be there – just absolute reality that everyone of us has to reckon with whether we like it or not. But this ever-living God has not been “alone.” He has not been a solitary center of consciousness. There has always been another, who has been one with God in essence and glory, and yet distinct in personhood so that they have had a personal relationship for all eternity.

The Bible teaches that this eternal God has always had a perfect image of himself (Colossians 1:15), a perfect radiance of his essence (Hebrews 1:3), a perfect stamp or imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:3), a perfect form or expression of his glory (Philippians 2:6).

We are on the brink of the ineffable here, but perhaps we may dare to say this much: as long as God has been God (eternally) he has been conscious of himself; and the image that he has of himself is so perfect and so complete and so full as to be the living, personal reproduction (or begetting) of himself. And this living, personal image or radiance or form of God is God, namely God the Son. And therefore God the Son is coeternal with God the Father and equal in essence and glory.

"Veiled in flesh the godhead see,
Hail the incarnate deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel"

O come let us adore Him.
Amen.