“Christ is the image of the invisible God; through him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:15.14)
Since humankind had lost its reason and the demons' deceit was casting its shadow on every side and concealing knowledge of the true God, what was God to do? Remain silent before such a situation? Accept the fact that people had strayed away in this way and did not know God?... Was not God going to spare his creatures from having strayed so far from him and being subject to nothingness, especially if their straying were to become the cause of ruin and loss for them, whereas beings who share the image of God (Gn 1:26) ought not to perish? So what should God do about it? What should he do but renew his image in them so that they might know him once again?
But how could this come about except through the very presence of God's image (Col 1:15), our Saviour Jesus Christ? We ourselves could not bring this about since we are not the image but are created according to the image. It could not be brought about by angels either, since even they are only images. That is why the Word of God himself came, he who is the image of the Father, so that he might be in a position to restore this image in the depths of our being. Besides, this could not happen unless death and the degradation that follows it were annihilated. Therefore, he took a mortal body so that he could blot out death and restore the human creature made in God's image. Thus the very image of the Father, his most holy Son, came among us to restore those who were made in his likeness and to find them again after they were lost through the remission of their sins, as he himself said: “I came to seek and to save what was lost,” (Lk 19:10).
St. Philip Neri