The Glory of God: From Shadow to Reality

The theological description of Christ’s nature reaches its fullness when combining the terms found in Hebrews 1:3 and Colossians 1:15. While eikōn presents Christ as the visible image who reveals the invisible God to creation, and charaktēr identifies Him as the exact imprint of God's substance—verifying He possesses the very essence of the Father—the term apaugasma introduces the dynamic reality of radiance.

Just as rays of light are inseparable from the sun, Christ is the eternal effulgence of God's glory; He does not merely reflect the light like a mirror, but actively beams it forth from the source. Together, these terms affirm that Jesus shares the Father’s internal reality (charaktēr), eternally radiates His glory (apaugasma), and visibly manifests His person to us (eikōn).

This revelation brings a decisive shift from the provisional to the eternal, contrasting the insufficiency of the Old Covenant with the perfection of the New. The rituals and sanctuaries described in Hebrews 9 were merely a skia (shadow) of the good things to come, "copies" of the true things in heaven, but not the realities themselves (Hebrews 9:23–24; 10:1). 

Consequently, the old covenant order is set aside; the fading glory of the law is annulled and overtaken by the superior, permanent glory found in Christ (Hebrews 7:18; 2 Corinthians 3:10–11). For the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has now shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the prosōpō (face) of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). 

No longer hidden behind a veil, this unveiled glory transforms us: as we behold Him, we are being metamorphoumetha (transformed) into that same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).