What awaits the Christian is the likeness (eikon, image) of Christ: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49). The destiny of believers in Christ is to be in his image, and this includes everything that was suggested in our being created in God’s image. We will rule in and with Jesus, whom the writer of Hebrews shows is the one who fulfilled Psalm 8: “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (2:9).
Again, all our hope rests on Jesus, the perfect bearer of the Imago Dei. Note well that Colossians 1:15 (“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation”) is followed by verses 16-18, which depict him as the Creator, Sustainer, and Goal of the universe! As He was the one who formed the universe, He can restore form to broken lives. And more, He who filled the earth with light, the seas with fish, the air with birds, and the land with its denizens specialises in giving his righteousness to sinful, vacuous humanity. He only has to say the word, and it is done.
Long ago Blaise Pascal (following Augustine) said that there is an abyss within fallen man that “can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, which is to say only by God himself.” Do you know this vacuum? Is there emptiness within you — some uncomfortable space — due to your sin? If so, all you have to do is come to him believing and say, “Here’s my cup, Lord/fill it up, Lord” — and he will.
Will you bring your emptiness to Christ? In that marvelous section in Colossians 1, verse 15 states that Christ is “the image of . . . God”; then verses 16-18 affirm that he is the Creator, Sustainer, and Goal of the universe; and finally, verse 19 includes that he is the Savior: “For in him all the full- ness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (vv. 19, 20).
So Paul could say to believers, “For in him the whole full- ness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (Colossians 2:9, 10).
Are you empty, in need of God’s forgiveness and righteousness? Then come to him. His fullness will become yours with a “mere” word!