Try this: Unplug your computer monitor and then try to read your email by looking inside your computer.  Can’t be done, can it?  Even if you designed and built it, you couldn’t do it.  If you could somehow actually see all the little electronic particles zooming around in the chips and circuitry, it would still be impossible to understand what your computer was “trying to tell you.”  And yet we know the whole purpose of a computer is to communicate something to us. (Well, they also provide a handy excuse when your flight is delayed…)  That’s why they made monitors.  The monitor translates all the invisible electronic frenzy into light we can see and sound we can hear in language we can understand.

The same problem exists between us and Almighty God.  You can’t see God.  Even if you could see Him, you could never understand what you were seeing.  And yet, we know God wants to communicate with us.  He has done it through circumstances that show us He is there, has the power to orchestrate what happens, and that He cares enough to do so.  He has also communicated with us in written form, inspiring dozens of writers to put His principles and laws in language we humans can understand.  Both of those types of communication have limitations, however.

So God created a “monitor.”  He sent His Son, Jesus, to be the visible, audible and understandable translation of Who He is, a human being with Whom we could interact.  How do I know?

Jesus said so:

“Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9)

Paul affirmed this:

” He is the image of the invisible God, …” (Colossians 1:15a)

But He is more than a passive monitor.  When you see your monitor, you say you are seeing your computer.  Your monitor, in that sense is your computer.  Jesus, in an even greater sense is Almighty God, not simply a picture of Him.  He is God.  The rest of what Paul wrote in the previous quote says this:

” He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17)

Chew on that, the next time you hear someone say, “Jesus!”

Quotes:  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.