| “EVERLASTING FATHER: “LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONS” John 1:1-18; Hebrews 1:1-12 Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA © Rev. Linda Jaymes, 12/13/2009 |
There is a story about a little girl who was drawing a picture one day at home. Her mother couldn’t help but notice how
engrossed she was in her work, and asked the little girl, “What are you drawing?” The mom was a bit surprised when the
youngster answered back, “It’s a picture of God.” Now the mother, not wanting to discourage her child but nonetheless
hoping to straighten out the girl’s theology, gently said, “Well darling, that’s a lovely idea but no one knows what God looks
like.” To which the little girl replied, “No, but they will when I get through!”
The truth is that we have no idea what God looks like any more than that little girl does. If we have our theology straight
we know that God is Spirit and can only be spiritually discerned. Yet recorded in the scriptures are the experiences and
descriptions of human encounters with this mysterious God who has revealed Himself, at least in part, at many times and in
various ways, so that anyone truly seeking to find God might have some idea of what He “looks” like. Or perhaps it would be
better to say, what God is like. These interactions between God and his prophets, priests, kings and sometimes rather humble
and insignificant servants have all helped to reveal pieces or aspects of God’s nature, his character, his purposes and his ways.
And what are some of those pieces? If we wanted to build a composite picture or mosaic of what God the Father looks
like based on his revelations from the time of Abraham up until Christ was born, what would that picture look like? If we
started at Genesis and went through the entire Old Testament we would find many pieces to include in our picture of God.
Given Abraham’s story, perhaps the first thing we would have to say is that God chooses us first. God seeks out
companionship, fellowship and friendship with us. God wants to be in relationship with us like a Father with a child. In that
relationship, God’s character is revealed as loving, caring, compassionate, merciful, forgiving, gentle, powerful, strong,
wrathful, angry, and at times, even sad.
In every Old Testament encounter with God, we can see a part of God’s character revealed each time. For example, God
revealed his sense of justice to the prophet Amos. God revealed his majestic holiness to the prophet Isaiah. God revealed the
nature of his forgiving love to the prophet Hosea. But even all those fragments of God’s character were not sufficient to give
the human race the whole truth of God or the “big picture” of his purposes in the world. Those pieces could not bring humans
to know God fully, or to be able to say that they had truly seen God. In fact, it was commonly understood by Old Testament
people that no one could see God and live.
But with the coming of Christ, all of that changed. The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us that in these last days,
in this time since the incarnation of God in Christ, God no longer reveals himself only in part. In the incarnation, God has fully
revealed Himself in and through his Son. It is as if God the Father has said to the Son, “I’m sending you because no one really
knows what the Father looks like.” And it is as if the Son has said to the Father, much like the little girl mentioned earlier, “I
know, but they will when I get through.”
“They” will know what God “looks” like, what God is like, because the saying “Like Father, like Son” has never been more
true than in the case of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Everlasting Father. Both the Apostle John and the writer to
the Hebrews make it very clear that it is this only Son of God, and He alone, who has the right and the power and the means to
make God the Father fully known. He has the right because He is the rightful heir of all things. He has the power because He is
fully God. And He has the means because He is the exact representation of God’s being, revealed in the flesh for all to see.
This may seem dreadfully complicated, and on one level, it is. Just exactly how the Son is the exact representation of the
Father could lead us into mind-boggling discussions on how to understand the three Persons of the Trinity and how the Son
could be fully human yet fully God. Some of the early church fathers, in fact, spent a great deal of time and effort trying to
find the theologically correct way of explaining all this within the limits of human language and understanding. Better minds
than ours wandered into heresy in their quest to understand these difficult issues, and it caused a considerable uproar in the
early church. After much debate, however, the Church arrived at the conclusion that Christ is of the same substance with the
Father, and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are co-eternal, consubstantial and co-equal. The Council of Nicea concluded that
Christ is one person in two natures, unmixed, unchanged, undivided and inseparable. And once that had been settled, the
Nicene Creed, which we affirmed this morning, was adopted by the Church as the statement which reflects this understanding.
Did you catch all that? Is it all perfectly clear now why we can say, “Like Father, Like Son?” Or are you even more
confused than when we started? Does it even matter that we can say that the Son is the exact representation of the Father? Is
it really so important for us to understand that the Son is not just another created being like the angels or humans, but is the
eternal God? Why do both the Apostle John and the writer to the Hebrews make such a big deal about the eternal nature of
both the Father and the Son? Why is John so careful to explain that the Son is not an afterthought, but has been with the Father
all along? Why do both writers emphasize that it is only through the Son that we can know what the Father is like?
I think the answer to all of those questions is that the message of God’s love and salvation hinges on the premise that Jesus
Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was with God in the beginning. After all, God needs an eternal Son to be an eternal
Father! Scripture tells us that it is through this Son that the universe was made, and He still sustains it by his powerful word.
It is not as if the Father does all the creating and the Son all the redeeming and the Holy Spirit all the sustaining. If the Son is
like the Father, if He is the exact representation of the Father, then He is also Creator and Sustainer, as well as Redeemer. And
because He is so like the Father and so close to the Father, He is the perfect one to communicate to the world what the Father
is like. Even the angels, who are messengers of God, cannot communicate God’s fullness. They are only servants, created
beings, not of the same substance as God. So if we want to know God the Father, the only way is to look to the Son, the exact
representation of his being.
The word which our NIV Bible translates as “representation” is the Greek word [χαράχτηρ] from which we get the
anglicized word, character. This Greek term refers to a seal which is dipped in hot wax and then used to affix wax impressions
to documents, both to verify signatures and to seal letters shut. The same word was also used to refer to the impression that
the seal made in the wax. Today we also refer to the seal as both the instrument and the impression. The same word is
probably used because the wax impression made by the character or seal is an exact representation of the seal itself. If you see
the seal, you know what the impression will look like. If you see the impression, you know what the seal looks like.
Obviously, the seal is not the impression. And so it is with God—the Father is not the Son, but if we look at the Son, we know
exactly what the Father looks like. We can begin to understand what it means that the Son is the exact representation of the
Father. Like Father, like Son. The character of the Father is the character of the Son. The nature of the Father is the nature of
the Son.
And still you may be saying, “So what?” You may find all of this rather tedious, especially as we get closer to Christmas
and life becomes more frantic with each passing day. But this is really the substance—the character—the nature of the
Christmas story and message, and it would be tragic for us to miss the importance of it, just as many in Israel did so long ago.
We criticize Israel for missing the meaning of the Messiah because they were so caught up in great expectations of a political
leader who would dazzle and destroy. Yet we are just as likely to get caught up in the glitz and glitter of our own great
expectations while missing the importance of the coming of the Messiah.
Perhaps we have been Christians for too long to fully appreciate what it means that God has come to us in the flesh.
Perhaps that is why we need to “rehearse” this faith of ours, season after season, so we will never forget why the Son came in
the first place. Otherwise we might fail to realize just how dark this world was before Christ came to light the way back to the
Father. We might be tempted to forget that there was a time when a great chasm of darkness separated the creation from the
Everlasting Father. It was a darkness caused by human sinfulness. Men and women and children could not see what the
Father really looked like.
Granted, there were bits and pieces of his seal stamped in the wonder and beauty of nature and in the lives of those He had
called to be his chosen people. But even those who tried desperately to put all of those partial impressions of the Father’s seal
together could not be sure they had them properly arranged. They could not be sure that their picture of the Father had been
assembled correctly, or that they even had all the pieces to make it complete. Only the Son, the exact representation of the
nature and character of the Father’s being could finish the picture. Only the Son could truthfully say, “I realize they don’t really
know what God looks like, but they will when I get through.” And that’s why the incarnation, the coming of God in the flesh
is so critical. The Son is the only One Who can show us what the Father looks like and light our way back to Him again.
Here we are some 2,000 Christmases after the Incarnation, and maybe the wonder is that it is still the Son who fills out
the picture of God the Father for us. It is still the Son who fleshes out the partial and fuzzy impressions that God had given
to his people through the ages. It is still the Son who perfectly assembles the mosaic of the Father and interprets the final
picture to us, so we can know what the Father looks like. And what does He look like? Well, like the Son, of course! We only
have to look to the Son, to see the love and grace and truth and glory of the Everlasting Father.
All that we can ever understand of the Father, and all that we could ever need from Him, is ours in and through his Son,
Jesus Christ. The perfect wisdom, mighty power, unspeakable love and incomparable holiness of the Father are fully
represented in his Son. We need not be in the dark anymore about the nature of the Father. We need not fear that the
Everlasting Father will disappoint us or hurt us as some of our earthly fathers have done. The Son has proved the Father’s
everlasting love for us because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. By the time the Son was “through” with his work
on the Cross, all who believed in Him knew exactly what the Father looked like. By the time the Son was “through” at the
empty tomb, a clear picture of the Father’s nature and intentions had been fully communicated for all the world to see. And
they are good intentions! They are intentions for abundant life. They are intentions for hope and healing. They are intentions
for salvation and sonship— because the Father is willing to adopt anyone who will receive the Son. The Son has given those
who believe in his name the right to become children of God. Jesus affirms, “Like Father, like Son,” even to the point of
sharing his inheritance with those born again into the family of God.
What began with a tiny helpless baby in that manger at Bethlehem is the amazing proof that God wants us to know what
He is like. The joy of this Christmas season is remembering anew that the Everlasting Father is no longer far off at a distance,
separated from us by the deep darkness of our sin. He is now “Emmanuel,” God with us, through the Son who is just like Him
and who has purchased our salvation by taking our sin upon his own body on the Cross. That‘s as clear a picture of the Father
and his redeeming love that we could ever know, a love for us shared by Father and Son alike. If we really want to know
what God is like, we only have to look to his Son. If we really want to see the Father, we must look first to the manger, then
to the Cross, and finally, to the empty tomb. And if by faith we receive the eternal Son who is just like his Everlasting Father,
then we realize that for us to look upon the glory of God is not to die, as those Old Testament folks believed, but to live: in
God’s abundance now and even forevermore.
Let us pray.
engrossed she was in her work, and asked the little girl, “What are you drawing?” The mom was a bit surprised when the
youngster answered back, “It’s a picture of God.” Now the mother, not wanting to discourage her child but nonetheless
hoping to straighten out the girl’s theology, gently said, “Well darling, that’s a lovely idea but no one knows what God looks
like.” To which the little girl replied, “No, but they will when I get through!”
The truth is that we have no idea what God looks like any more than that little girl does. If we have our theology straight
we know that God is Spirit and can only be spiritually discerned. Yet recorded in the scriptures are the experiences and
descriptions of human encounters with this mysterious God who has revealed Himself, at least in part, at many times and in
various ways, so that anyone truly seeking to find God might have some idea of what He “looks” like. Or perhaps it would be
better to say, what God is like. These interactions between God and his prophets, priests, kings and sometimes rather humble
and insignificant servants have all helped to reveal pieces or aspects of God’s nature, his character, his purposes and his ways.
And what are some of those pieces? If we wanted to build a composite picture or mosaic of what God the Father looks
like based on his revelations from the time of Abraham up until Christ was born, what would that picture look like? If we
started at Genesis and went through the entire Old Testament we would find many pieces to include in our picture of God.
Given Abraham’s story, perhaps the first thing we would have to say is that God chooses us first. God seeks out
companionship, fellowship and friendship with us. God wants to be in relationship with us like a Father with a child. In that
relationship, God’s character is revealed as loving, caring, compassionate, merciful, forgiving, gentle, powerful, strong,
wrathful, angry, and at times, even sad.
In every Old Testament encounter with God, we can see a part of God’s character revealed each time. For example, God
revealed his sense of justice to the prophet Amos. God revealed his majestic holiness to the prophet Isaiah. God revealed the
nature of his forgiving love to the prophet Hosea. But even all those fragments of God’s character were not sufficient to give
the human race the whole truth of God or the “big picture” of his purposes in the world. Those pieces could not bring humans
to know God fully, or to be able to say that they had truly seen God. In fact, it was commonly understood by Old Testament
people that no one could see God and live.
But with the coming of Christ, all of that changed. The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us that in these last days,
in this time since the incarnation of God in Christ, God no longer reveals himself only in part. In the incarnation, God has fully
revealed Himself in and through his Son. It is as if God the Father has said to the Son, “I’m sending you because no one really
knows what the Father looks like.” And it is as if the Son has said to the Father, much like the little girl mentioned earlier, “I
know, but they will when I get through.”
“They” will know what God “looks” like, what God is like, because the saying “Like Father, like Son” has never been more
true than in the case of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Everlasting Father. Both the Apostle John and the writer to
the Hebrews make it very clear that it is this only Son of God, and He alone, who has the right and the power and the means to
make God the Father fully known. He has the right because He is the rightful heir of all things. He has the power because He is
fully God. And He has the means because He is the exact representation of God’s being, revealed in the flesh for all to see.
This may seem dreadfully complicated, and on one level, it is. Just exactly how the Son is the exact representation of the
Father could lead us into mind-boggling discussions on how to understand the three Persons of the Trinity and how the Son
could be fully human yet fully God. Some of the early church fathers, in fact, spent a great deal of time and effort trying to
find the theologically correct way of explaining all this within the limits of human language and understanding. Better minds
than ours wandered into heresy in their quest to understand these difficult issues, and it caused a considerable uproar in the
early church. After much debate, however, the Church arrived at the conclusion that Christ is of the same substance with the
Father, and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are co-eternal, consubstantial and co-equal. The Council of Nicea concluded that
Christ is one person in two natures, unmixed, unchanged, undivided and inseparable. And once that had been settled, the
Nicene Creed, which we affirmed this morning, was adopted by the Church as the statement which reflects this understanding.
Did you catch all that? Is it all perfectly clear now why we can say, “Like Father, Like Son?” Or are you even more
confused than when we started? Does it even matter that we can say that the Son is the exact representation of the Father? Is
it really so important for us to understand that the Son is not just another created being like the angels or humans, but is the
eternal God? Why do both the Apostle John and the writer to the Hebrews make such a big deal about the eternal nature of
both the Father and the Son? Why is John so careful to explain that the Son is not an afterthought, but has been with the Father
all along? Why do both writers emphasize that it is only through the Son that we can know what the Father is like?
I think the answer to all of those questions is that the message of God’s love and salvation hinges on the premise that Jesus
Christ is the eternal Son of God. He was with God in the beginning. After all, God needs an eternal Son to be an eternal
Father! Scripture tells us that it is through this Son that the universe was made, and He still sustains it by his powerful word.
It is not as if the Father does all the creating and the Son all the redeeming and the Holy Spirit all the sustaining. If the Son is
like the Father, if He is the exact representation of the Father, then He is also Creator and Sustainer, as well as Redeemer. And
because He is so like the Father and so close to the Father, He is the perfect one to communicate to the world what the Father
is like. Even the angels, who are messengers of God, cannot communicate God’s fullness. They are only servants, created
beings, not of the same substance as God. So if we want to know God the Father, the only way is to look to the Son, the exact
representation of his being.
The word which our NIV Bible translates as “representation” is the Greek word [χαράχτηρ] from which we get the
anglicized word, character. This Greek term refers to a seal which is dipped in hot wax and then used to affix wax impressions
to documents, both to verify signatures and to seal letters shut. The same word was also used to refer to the impression that
the seal made in the wax. Today we also refer to the seal as both the instrument and the impression. The same word is
probably used because the wax impression made by the character or seal is an exact representation of the seal itself. If you see
the seal, you know what the impression will look like. If you see the impression, you know what the seal looks like.
Obviously, the seal is not the impression. And so it is with God—the Father is not the Son, but if we look at the Son, we know
exactly what the Father looks like. We can begin to understand what it means that the Son is the exact representation of the
Father. Like Father, like Son. The character of the Father is the character of the Son. The nature of the Father is the nature of
the Son.
And still you may be saying, “So what?” You may find all of this rather tedious, especially as we get closer to Christmas
and life becomes more frantic with each passing day. But this is really the substance—the character—the nature of the
Christmas story and message, and it would be tragic for us to miss the importance of it, just as many in Israel did so long ago.
We criticize Israel for missing the meaning of the Messiah because they were so caught up in great expectations of a political
leader who would dazzle and destroy. Yet we are just as likely to get caught up in the glitz and glitter of our own great
expectations while missing the importance of the coming of the Messiah.
Perhaps we have been Christians for too long to fully appreciate what it means that God has come to us in the flesh.
Perhaps that is why we need to “rehearse” this faith of ours, season after season, so we will never forget why the Son came in
the first place. Otherwise we might fail to realize just how dark this world was before Christ came to light the way back to the
Father. We might be tempted to forget that there was a time when a great chasm of darkness separated the creation from the
Everlasting Father. It was a darkness caused by human sinfulness. Men and women and children could not see what the
Father really looked like.
Granted, there were bits and pieces of his seal stamped in the wonder and beauty of nature and in the lives of those He had
called to be his chosen people. But even those who tried desperately to put all of those partial impressions of the Father’s seal
together could not be sure they had them properly arranged. They could not be sure that their picture of the Father had been
assembled correctly, or that they even had all the pieces to make it complete. Only the Son, the exact representation of the
nature and character of the Father’s being could finish the picture. Only the Son could truthfully say, “I realize they don’t really
know what God looks like, but they will when I get through.” And that’s why the incarnation, the coming of God in the flesh
is so critical. The Son is the only One Who can show us what the Father looks like and light our way back to Him again.
Here we are some 2,000 Christmases after the Incarnation, and maybe the wonder is that it is still the Son who fills out
the picture of God the Father for us. It is still the Son who fleshes out the partial and fuzzy impressions that God had given
to his people through the ages. It is still the Son who perfectly assembles the mosaic of the Father and interprets the final
picture to us, so we can know what the Father looks like. And what does He look like? Well, like the Son, of course! We only
have to look to the Son, to see the love and grace and truth and glory of the Everlasting Father.
All that we can ever understand of the Father, and all that we could ever need from Him, is ours in and through his Son,
Jesus Christ. The perfect wisdom, mighty power, unspeakable love and incomparable holiness of the Father are fully
represented in his Son. We need not be in the dark anymore about the nature of the Father. We need not fear that the
Everlasting Father will disappoint us or hurt us as some of our earthly fathers have done. The Son has proved the Father’s
everlasting love for us because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. By the time the Son was “through” with his work
on the Cross, all who believed in Him knew exactly what the Father looked like. By the time the Son was “through” at the
empty tomb, a clear picture of the Father’s nature and intentions had been fully communicated for all the world to see. And
they are good intentions! They are intentions for abundant life. They are intentions for hope and healing. They are intentions
for salvation and sonship— because the Father is willing to adopt anyone who will receive the Son. The Son has given those
who believe in his name the right to become children of God. Jesus affirms, “Like Father, like Son,” even to the point of
sharing his inheritance with those born again into the family of God.
What began with a tiny helpless baby in that manger at Bethlehem is the amazing proof that God wants us to know what
He is like. The joy of this Christmas season is remembering anew that the Everlasting Father is no longer far off at a distance,
separated from us by the deep darkness of our sin. He is now “Emmanuel,” God with us, through the Son who is just like Him
and who has purchased our salvation by taking our sin upon his own body on the Cross. That‘s as clear a picture of the Father
and his redeeming love that we could ever know, a love for us shared by Father and Son alike. If we really want to know
what God is like, we only have to look to his Son. If we really want to see the Father, we must look first to the manger, then
to the Cross, and finally, to the empty tomb. And if by faith we receive the eternal Son who is just like his Everlasting Father,
then we realize that for us to look upon the glory of God is not to die, as those Old Testament folks believed, but to live: in
God’s abundance now and even forevermore.
Let us pray.
