Section 5
creating man in His own image was that He might be expressed. The Lord Jesus is God who became incarnated as a man for the purpose of declaring the invisible God. John 1:18 says that no one has ever seen God but that the Son has declared Him. God is unseen and invisible. No one except the Son of God has ever seen Him. Now, in His incarnation, the Son has declared Him. To declare God means to express God. The Lord Jesus is the very image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), which means that He is the very expression of the invisible God.
The best illustration of glorification is the blossoming of a flower. A carnation seed, for example, is sown into the earth. After it grows up out of the earth, it blossoms. This blossom ing is the glorification of the carnation seed. The carnation seed contains the life element and the life shape of the carnation flower. The style, color, and beauty of the flower are all contained in a little carnation seed, but no one can see this style, color, and beauty until the seed grows out of the earth and blossoms. The blossom is the glory of the seed. The blossoming is the glorifi cation of the seed, for it is by blossoming that the seed is glorified, that is, expressed.
When Jesus Christ came in the flesh, He was