My question:
2 Corinthians 4:4 (HCSB) – In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Without the incarnation could Jesus according to the Hebrew mind be the image of God?
ChatGPT response:
Short answer: no — not in the full, concrete sense Paul means in 2 Corinthians 4:4.
And the reason cuts straight through Hebrew categories of image, glory, and visibility.
Let’s walk it slowly.
1. What “image of God” means in a Hebrew frame
In Hebrew thought, image (צֶלֶם / tselem) is never abstract. An image is:
Visible Embodied Located Representational
That’s why idols exist at all: an “image” is what makes a god present in a place.
In Genesis 1:26–27, humanity is God’s tselem — not because humans are mentally like God, but because they are visible representatives placed within creation.
So from a Hebrew standpoint:
An image that cannot be seen, encountered, or located is not an image at all.
2. The problem before the incarnation
Israel already knew two things at once:
God has a form (Exod 24:9–11; Dan 7; Ezek 1)
God cannot be seen directly by humans and live (Exod 33:20)
That tension is everywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
God’s glory (כָּבוֹד / kavod) appears:
in fire
in cloud
in throne visions
in the tabernacle / temple
But never as a stable, fully accessible human image.
So pre-incarnation, the best Israel could say was:
Humanity is the image of God (corporately, vocation-wise)
Certain figures bear God’s presence (priests, kings, prophets)
God’s glory dwells somewhere
But no one could say:
“Here is the image of God himself — look at him.”
3. Why Paul’s statement depends on the incarnation
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Christ is:
“the image of God”
(εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ)
That Greek εἰκών (eikōn) maps cleanly onto Hebrew tselem: a visible, representational manifestation.
And here’s the key:
Paul is not saying Jesus is like God, or reflects God.
He is saying:
God has become visible without destroying the viewer.
That is only possible because of the incarnation.
Without incarnation:
God’s glory overwhelms
The image cannot be gazed upon
The light blinds rather than reveals (cf. Sinai)
With incarnation:
Glory is veiled but real God is seen in a human life The image becomes encounterable
That’s exactly why Paul pairs:
image of God
with the glory of Christ
and with light that can now be seen
4. Why the blinding language matters
Paul says the minds of unbelievers are blinded so they cannot see.
Seen from a Hebrew lens, that’s devastatingly precise:
The problem is not lack of information
The problem is failure to recognize God’s image when it finally stands in front of them
Which again presupposes incarnation.
You cannot “fail to see” an image that is not visible.
5. Could Jesus be the image of God without incarnation?
You could say (and Hebrews 1:3 does) that the Son is the exact imprint of God eternally.
But that’s ontological language, not humanly accessible language.
Paul’s claim in 2 Corinthians 4 is epistemological and revelatory:
God is now knowable by sight — not mystical sight, but lived, historical, embodied sight.
That only works if:
God takes on flesh
Glory dwells bodily
The image walks, eats, suffers, and dies
In other words:
Without the incarnation, Jesus could be the image of God in heaven — but not the image of God for us.
6. Bottom line (Hebrew logic)
From a Hebrew standpoint:
Image requires embodiment
Revelation requires visibility
Glory requires mediation
So yes — your instinct is right:
Without the incarnation, calling Jesus “the image of God” in Paul’s sense collapses.
The incarnation isn’t a bonus doctrine.
It is what finally resolves the ancient tension between:
a God who has form and a people who cannot see him
Makes me think of this…
1 Corinthians 15:45-49 (HCSB)
So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth
and made of dust;
the second man is from heaven.
Like the man made of dust,
so are those who are made of dust;
like the heavenly man,
so are those who are heavenly.
And just as we have borne
the image of the man made of dust,
we will also bear
the image of the heavenly man.
Godspeed, to the brethren!
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