Hebrews 1:3, “He is the radiance of the glory of God And the exact imprint of His nature…”
In the evenings I’ve been preparing to preach this coming Sunday on John 1:14, about the Word being made flesh. One of the points I’m hoping to emphasize is the revelatory nature of the incarnation. I emphasize this because John himself makes its central, going so far in John 1:18 as to call The Son’s incarnation the “exegesis” of the invisible God.
A thought must be “clothed” in speech or print before it can be received, and in a similar way, the Light of God made known in the Son–the glory of the One True God–was “clothed” in humanity SO THAT we might perceive it. With the incarnation, God the Son is robed in human nature for the sake of revealing, not concealing the Beauty of the Father. As the hymn says: “veiled in flesh the Godhead see…”
And as I mused on these things, I thought of Hebrews 1:3 where the Son is called the radiance of the glory of God. If we are to perceive the beauty of who God is, it will be by perceiving the “radiance” Of that beauty (just as you see the sun by seeing the radiance of the sun). And when the life giving light of God’s glory enters with un-distilled potency into this world, the radiance of that glory looks like the human life, death, and resurrection of the man Jesus Christ.
When we turn our eyes to the sun, we see the sun by perceiving it’s radiance as blazing light on our irises. When we turn our eyes to God, we see God by perceiving His radiance as the risen man who obeyed His Father and loved His Bride even to the infinite desolation of wrath-absorbing death on the cross.
