The Foundations of Full of Eyes – III
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
“No one has ever seen God; the only God who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
– John 1:18
God’s glory (what He’s like and who He is) is communicated through creation (Ps. 19:1-6, Rom. 1:19-20), through the praises of His people (Ps. 96:1-13), and through His own historic works (Exodus 9:14-16), however, God’s supreme self-communication comes in the person of His Son: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the perfect image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), the exact imprint of His nature, and the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3). Christ is the infallible and climactic communication of God to creation, such that to see Jesus is to see God (John 1:18, 14:9).
In the previous post we saw from Exodus 33:18-19 that the Glory of God is the fullness of God communicated outwardly (His nature and name). What we now add to this is the recognition that the person of Jesus Christ is the perfect communication of that fullness. Jesus is the living “exegesis” of God (John 1:18). He is the flawless, 33 year long, embodied declaration of YHWH’s nature and name with the cross as its climax and the resurrection as its exclamation point.
If we would know God, we look at Jesus Christ – crucified and risen.
Therefore, if God created all things for His glory, and if His glory is the communication of Himself, and if Jesus Christ is the perfect communication of God to creation – then the Person of Jesus Christ is zenith of reality’s purpose.
Jesus is supreme in the achieving of God’s end in creation because through Him, God perfectly makes Himself known.
“For in him the fullness 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.”
– Colossians 1:19-20
Not only does Jesus perfectly communicate God to all creation, he also reconciles all of creation back to God. When Adam and Eve chose to exchange the glory of their Creator for the glory of created things, they – and the entire world with them – were plunged into futility and cut off from God (Rom. 1:21-22).
Jesus Christ alone solves this problem. The only reason humanity has any hope, indeed, the only reason the world was not vaporized by the wrath of God as soon as Adam and Eve fell, is that the Incarnate Son of God would bear the sins of His people in His own body on the cross. With His death, Jesus satisfied the wrath of God against sin. With His resurrection He became the only source of salvation to all of humanity. And with His return, He will unite all things in Himself and rule reality to the glory of His Father.
Jesus is supreme in achieving God’s end for creation because through Him creation is reconciled to God.
The recognition that God’s Glory is the purpose of reality (Foundation II) and that Jesus Christ is supreme in the accomplishment of the purpose will affect the art of Full of Eyes in at least these 5 ways:
- Operating from the assumption that all things exist for the glory of God, and that God is glorified when He is rightly known, and that Christ is the perfect revelation of God, we will strive in all of our art to glorify the Son that the Son might glorify God (John 17:1).
- We rejoice to affirm that to the One True God is revealed in Jesus Christ. To know Jesus from scripture is to know God and is the essence of eternal life (John 1:3). Any “god” that opposes the biblical Christ is no god at all. Therefore our art will be blatantly Christocentric.
- We will strive to obey Peter’s call in 1 Peter 4:11 by creating our art in the strength that God supplies so that He might be glorified through Christ.
- We will strive to create our art as an act of abiding fellowship with the Son of God (John 15:5) so that through it fruit might be born to the glory of God.
- We will strive to align our art to the ethos of scripture in which The Triune God is everywhere presented as the unquestioned and supreme ruler of all things. We will rejoice to present God as all-sovereign and un-thwartable in all His purposes.
