A word's different meanings in a sentence

The image of God is one thing, and that which is contemplated in the image is another.

I'm not sure but it seems the two "image" in the sentence have different meanings from each other. in my opinion one means 'visual appearance' and the other 'impression'. Am I understanding rightly?

No it doesn't.

'Image' very probably means the literal, physical picture of God in both cases. In other words:

A picture of God is one thing, and what you are thinking about while looking at the picture is something else.

The word "image" means the same thing both times. You're getting confused with the meaning of the sentence and conflating it with the meaning of words within the sentence. A paraphrase of the sentence in question might be "it is one thing to see the image of god, it is another to contemplate it." Notice how the word "image" was only used once in that sentence, yet it means nearly the same thing.

It's also not necessarily true. That sentence could be a lie or opinion; it has no bearing on the meaning of words in the English language. Such a topic is outside the scope of english.stackexchange.