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Culto às Imagens e relíquias (devoção)

 Jesus é a imagem por excelência de Deus

Bíblia (NT-2Corinthians 4:4)

4 those unbelievers whose minds the god of this world has blinded, so that the enlightenment of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, cannot shine upon them.

Xavier Léon-Dufour - Vocabulário de Teologia Biblica, Ed. Herder, 1965

No one in this world has seen or can see God the Father: he makes himself known in his images (Jn 1:18). Before the plenary revelation he makes of himself through the image par excellence of his Son, Jesus Christ,, he began in the Old Covenant to make his revelatory glory shine before men. The wisdom of God, "pure emanation of his glory" and "image of his excellence" (Wis 7:25ff.), already reveals certain aspects of God; and man, created with the power to dominate nature and gratified with immortality, already constitutes a living image of God. However, the prohibition of images in the worship of Israel expressed, as it were, the seriousness of this title given to man and prepared, in a negative way, for the coming of the man-God, the only image in which the Father is fully revealed.
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IV. CHRIST, IMAGE OF GOD
This expression is found only in Paul's epistles. However, the idea is not absent from the Gospel according to Saint John. Between Christ and the one who sends him, between the only Son who reveals his Father and the invisible God (Jn 1:18), there is such a union (Jn 5:19; 7:16; 8:28ff; 12:49) that it implies something more than a mere delegation: Christ's mission surpasses that of the prophets, having an affinity with that of the word and of divine wisdom; it presupposes that Christ is a reflection of God''s glory (Jn 17:5, 24); It assumes a similarity between Christ and his Father, which is clearly expressed in this statement, in which we find, if not the word, at least the theme of the image: "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9).
Saint Paul, although he uses the doctrine of Genesis with regard to man (1 Cor 11:7), also knows when the time comes to make use of the rabbinic and Philonian interpretations of the double Adam, which he applies here to Christ himself (1 Cor 15:49) and later to the new man (Col 3:10). But finally, in the light of wisdom, the perfect image, he recognizes Christ as the image of God (2 Cor 3:18-4:4). From then on, Paul, without abandoning these different sources of inspiration, strives to narrow the mystery of Christ even more closely: Christ is the image by sonship in Rom 8:29. And according to Col 3:10, as image, he directs the creation of the new man. Taking advantage of this convergence of ancient elements and new data, the notion of the image of God, as Paul applies it to Christ, especially in Col 1:15, becomes very complex and very rich: likeness, but a spiritual and perfect likeness, by a sonship prior to creation; representation, in its strongest sense, of the invisible Father; cosmic sovereignty of the Lord, who leaves his imprint on the visible and invisible worlds; image of God according to immortality: firstborn among the dead; one and only image that guarantees the unity of all beings and the unity of the divine plan; the beginning of creation and the beginning of restoration through a new creation.
All these elements constitute forces of attraction for man who, an imperfect and sinful image, needs this perfect image, namely, of Christ, to discover and fulfill his original destiny: under the action of the Lord, the Christian is transformed from glory to glory into this image of the Son, the firstborn of a multitude of brothers (2 Cor 3:18 Rom 8:29).

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