Christ is the Radiance of the Glory of God

Hebrews 1:3: "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power."

We live in a current cultural climate of idol makers in which gods are manufactured by cleverness and creativity without much care.  We've made gods of our minds, our egos, our heros, our villains, our athletes, our humanitarian interests, and our political agendas.  But when we hold up our manmade gods to the scrutiny of honest analysis and critique we recoil with defensiveness and vociferousness, as in recognition that our straw religions have been found out and our propensity towards the corporeal has been weighed as nothing less than idolatrous sin.

Jesus Christ is the imprint of the nature of God, the Word of God incarnate, the creating and sustaining power of God Himself.  Any item, person, place, idea, or cause, no matter the virtue involved, is but a pale shadow compared to the great radiant glory of God that is Christ Jesus.  He alone is the great imprint of God to whom we worship and to whom we praise.  It is to His image and likeness that by the Holy Spirit and through faith we are to be conformed and transformed to reflect.

This is the beautiful truth of Christianity: that our Savior is God Himself and He will Himself form us into bearers of His image which, as it were, is who we were meant to be in the first place.  Praise be to God that He has overcome our deficient flesh so that we could bear His image by becoming an image of our deficient flesh while maintaining His perfect radiance!