Derived Image

Some years ago W. Ian Thomas preached a series of messages titled Rediscovering Christ. In one of the messages he brought to light the fact that the Lord Jesus expressed through us is a derived image: He is the origin and we express Him.

"Now what we need to understand and we are only going just to introduce this vital truth: that the glory of God that was seen in the face of Jesus Christ was derived--from His Father living in the Son by virtue of the fact that He was prepared for your sake and mine for thirty-three years to enjoy that relationship of mutual inter-availability that allowed the Father to be God in a man. In the first chapter of that epistle to the Colossians this is what it says. In the King James-- I'm going to read it to you from the Amplified--but in the King James it says that the Lord Jesus was the image of an invisible God. Which sounds like a contradiction in terms: how could he, God, coequal in Deity with the Father and the Holy Spirit be the image of an invisible God? Well, only because, as we have already seen, Philippians, in chapter 2, He was prepared, though God, He considering it not robbery to claim total equality with God in that form, He emptied Himself, humbled Himself, and made Himself nothing and was born a human being so that it is now written of Him (verse 14), through whose shed blood we have forgiveness of our sins: 'He is the exact likeness of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible] . . . the Firstborn. . . .'

"The word 'image' there as used in the first chapter of the epistle to the Colossians has a very specific meaning. The original word is icon, i-c-o-n. And it's only ever used in this particular connotation, this sense: image by derivation. As opposed to another word that is used for image, but that is image by imitation, the image that I might produce if I fancied myself as a portrait artist and asked you to sit there while I painted your face--I mean, a picture of your face. And when I finished I gaze at it and I'm pretty satisfied with my technique and my skill and I say to you, having posed very courteously for me as long as I needed, I say, 'Well, good-bye. I'll finish it off and when I touch it up I'll let you have a look at the end product.' Image by imitation. If there was ever any likeness on my canvas that I painted with my paints and my brush, who's to be congratulated? You? Well, of course not. I'm to be congratulated. It was my skill, my ability, my artistry that produced your face on that canvas. You're not to be congratulated. You sat there like a sack of flour. You never lifted a finger to make a single contribution. That is image by imitation. That's what is produced exclusively when you try to do your best for Jesus. Image by imitation. When you try with the energy of your own illimitable personality to reproduce Christ in kind all you produce is a rather shabby imitation of the real thing. And even if there's some measure of resemblance you're the only person to be congratulated. But, 'icon,' image by derivation, quite different.

"Did you look in the mirror this morning? I'm sure you did and you gazed with wonder, love, and praise--after you'd done a little decorating . . . and repair. And then you went out into the world to tell lies about what you really looked like. That's why we look in the mirror. I said when you looked into the mirror this morning, whose fault was it? Don't blame the mirror. When you looked in the mirror this morning you got exactly what you deserved! Because all the mirror could do was give you back what you gave it. That is image by derivation. Where the object of the image must at one and the same time be both the object and the origin of the image. That's image by derivation.

"And this is the truth that runs all the way through the word of God: that the Creator in the creature is indispensable to his humanity because He has got to be in man, not only the object that others see in man but the origin in man of the object that others see. God in a man has got to be the object of the image and the origin of the image. God Himself in man, the origin of His own image, source of His own activity, dynamic of His own demands, cause of His own effect. That's image by derivation.

"Now if you don't believe me go home tonight and stand in front of the mirror. Keep absolutely dead still. Keep the rest of the family quiet so that they don't disturb the mirror and, taking the mirror completely by surprise, suddenly jump on one side and see if you can leave any of the image behind. Without your presence as the origin of the image there would be no image of you as the object. In other words, your presence is indispensable to the image. And God tells us from beginning to end that His presence in us, Who in us is the One whom people see has got to be in us the origin of that image of which He's the object. Image by derivation. That's why Christianity is Christ. It's not a religion. It isn't a set of rules and regulations. It isn't a concept. It isn't you or I doing our best for Jesus. Apart from the Lord Jesus, Himself in us, the Christian life is a sheer, absolute and utter, impossibility because His presence in us as the origin of the image is as indispensable as was the Father's presence in the Son, in Him the origin of His own image.

"In the first book of Genesis, the Bible tells us that God made two great lights and set them in the firmament of the heaven, a greater light called the sun to rule the day and a lesser light called the moon to rule the night. Beautiful picture of that office of our Lord Jesus, the greater light, the sun. The Sun of Righteousness who would arise one day with healing in His wings, Malachi chapter one. That's the greater light, Jesus. And He will rule the day but the day hasn't dawned yet. The day will not dawn till Jesus comes. You and I are living in the night, a godless night of fallen men and a permissive society but God set a lesser light in the heavens to rule the night when the sun, the greater light, was no longer visible. Beautiful picture of the church.

"But how can the moon rule the night in the absence of the greater light? The moon is absolutely lifeless--lifeless and lightless. How can God expect a moon to shed light on a darkened world in the absence of the sun, the greater light? Only by virtue of its heavenly position. And by virtue of that heavenly position of it's relationship to the greater light. And if you will remember in that second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians we too have been risen with Christ and He has set us together with Him in heavenly places.

"So, only when the moon, having nothing of itself to offer to a darkened world is prepared in that heavenly position to be so related to the greater light that it can receive from the greater light and reflect what it gets and be to the world that is in such desperate need in its darkness a light that will penetrate the gloom and banish the night. Only by virtue of its heavenly position, courteously standing on one side in true repentance and in heart saying, 'I don't have any light to offer to the world. I can't but he can. The greater light, the sun. And if only I'm willing to be that which will reflect what he is and is prepared to give to me to offer to others can I discharge my office.'

"But what happens when the moon, becoming self-opinionated, suddenly assumes that it can replace the greater light and do its job for it so that the moon, in all its enthusiasm, in trying to bring light to the world, gets between the world and the greater light? What happens when the moon gets between the sun and the world? Total eclipse.

"No matter how enthusiastically the moon, that is lightless and lifeless, no matter with what enthusiasm it tries on behalf of the sun to bring light to the world and gets between it, the greater light and the earth, total eclipse. All it does is advertise its own bankruptcy. That's what happens when an individual Christian thinks that 'I can flex my muscles, stick out my chin and do something for Jesus' when He says, 'Without Me you can do nothing.' That's what happens to a Christian organization that, an evangelistic crusade, a missionary society, a denominational group, when they think that they're God's last hope on earth: they advertise their own bankruptcy.

"So what happens when the earth gets between the moon and the sun? It isn't what's called total eclipse, it's called lunar eclipse. The world eclipses the church. The moment the world gets between the church and Jesus Christ all the lesser light, the moon, can do is share the world's night and cast its own shadow.

"You go out sometimes with the kids and look into the sky and there's a tiny sliver of silver and you say to the kids, 'Look at that. Isn't that sweet? A baby new moon.' Yeah, it's a baby new moon. Why is it a baby new moon? Well, for the same reason of course that born again and redeemed Christians remain baby Christians, still on the bottle. It's only a baby new moon because it's only offering a fraction of itself to the greater light. And you may claim that I'm redeemed, I'm a child of God but if you only offer to the Lord Jesus, who has the right to monopolize the totality of your being, just a fraction of your life that's all you'll be, a baby new moon.

"Did you know sometimes you can go out and you say to the kids, 'Look, kids, it's almost light as day. You can read a newspaper.' And they gaze up into the heavens and there there's a great big silver ball: full moon. Full moon. Full moon. Because the lesser light you see in its heart is saying to the greater light, the sun, 'All that I am is available to all that you are so that I can reflect to the uttermost to a darkened world the light that alone you possess.' Full moon.

"That's what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. When you and I in true repentance recognize that we have no more to offer to a darkened world, suffering in its sin condition, than the moon can offer in the night to a world in darkness. That's repentance. When you and I are prepared to say, 'I cannot. God never said I could. But He can and always said He would. And I want, Lord Jesus, You to know that all that I am is available to all that You are so to the very uttermost You can reflect the glory that must have its origin in You but reflected through me to the world in its abysmal darkness so that some little child, lost in the night, can find his way home. Men groping in the dark will at last discover the way, the truth, and the life.' Full moon.

"How is it with you? Maybe you've never been lifted to those heavenly places because you've never put your trust in Jesus and been redeemed. It could be that if you have you look back over the years in which, in self effort, all you've done is advertise your own bankruptcy and you're weary and tired and fit to quit. It could be that the lusts of the eye and the pride of life and money and popularity and a thousand other things in this world has come between you and Christ. It's lunar eclipse and you've been blotted out as an effective member of His body on earth through whom Jesus longs to continue to do, continue to teach, the things that He began to do and teach. Baby new moon? Practicing Christianity as a religion only in the odd moments of your life when you've got nothing better to do? Baby new moon? Or with joy in your heart can you say, 'If never before, as God enables me from this week on it's going to be full moon: all that I am, Lord Jesus, available to all that You are. I can't have more. I need never, ever, enjoy less.' And there will be those who are profoundly thankful into eternity because you passed their way because through you they found their way home. Let's pray.

"Thank You again, dear Lord, that in this amazing Book you make everything so clear. Bring us to that place of true repentance where we're prepared to adopt that disposition toward You that You relentlessly adopted toward Your Father: 'Without My Father I can do nothing.' That glorious, emancipating, truth that launches us into a future as big as God, beyond our wildest dreams or expectations. Thank You. And for some of us, as from this week life will never, ever, be the same again. And others in our presence will reflect in the final glory of the One Who in us is the origin of His own image. Thank You, dear Lord. In Your own precious name. Amen."