Opening illustration: An African proverb says, "When elephants fight, grass gets trampled." Elephants do not throw their weight around for nothing. The average African elephant weighs 16,534 lbs. The largest elephant on record weighed about 24,000 pounds and was 13 feet tall! Wild elephants eat all types of vegetation, from grass and fruit to leaves and bark— about 220 to 440 pounds each day. They also drink about 30 gallons of water each day.
Building a church is hard enough without bigger than life characters causing a stampede. Often, there are conflicts, disagreements and misunderstandings. The church at Corinth had been nurtured by two of the world’s greatest evangelists: Paul and Apollos. Their individual followers were displeased with each other, disrespected each other, and distant from each other. This strained the fellowship in the church, neglected the work of the gospel, hurt the name of the church in the community, and destroyed any hope of possible reconciliation.
Let us turn to Colossians 1 and catch up with Paul as he addresses these issues ~
Introduction: During this time in Colossus, Paul and other Christians face a mighty challenge from the Gnostics who were also called the intellectual ones. These men were dissatisfied with what they considered the rude simplicity of Christianity and wished to turn it into a philosophy and try to align it with the contemporary philosophies. All their philosophies and doctrines were refuted by Paul and the apostles during the early church. The Gnostics went by some logical consequences ~
• They saw that the creating God is not the true God. He seemed to be ignorant and hostile to the true God.
• They never saw Jesus as someone unique but considered Him as just one of the intermediaries between God and man.
• They stated that the spirit is good and matter is evil therefore God can have nothing to do with matter as He was a spirit.
• They emphasized on man to pursue to find his way God which apparently is an endless ladder and is not God’s way.
• The Gnostics claimed that salvation was intellectual knowledge and was not for everyone, which Paul refutes and says that salvation is the redemption and the forgiveness of sins and was a free gift for the entire humanity (past, present and future).
Let us get into seeing how Christ’s role is adequate for our reconciliation.
What is the total adequacy of Christ?
1. What Christ is in Himself? (v. 15)
The Gnostics said that Jesus was merely one of the many intermediaries and only a partial revelation of God ~
• Paul says that He is the image of the invisible God. Paul uses the Greek word eikon which is translated as image, representation which can become a manifestation. Paul is conveying a message that Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God in a form that man can see and understand.
• The Greeks were haunted by the thought of the logos, the word and the reason of God. Now this very word eikon is used again and again by philo of the logos of God. He calls the invisible and divine logos, which only the mind can perceive, the image (eikon) of God. Apparently Jesus is the logos of God.
• God created man in this image of Himself.
• In verse 19 Paul says that Jesus is the fullness and complete picture of God. Jesus is not merely a sketch of God, not a summary or a lifeless portrait of God, but a full, complete and final revelation of God. Nothing more is needed or necessary.
2. What Christ is to creation? (v. 16)
The Gnostics believed that creation was carried out by one of the inferior gods being ignorant of their hostility to the one and true God. Paul stated 4 things related to Christ’s relation to creation ~
• Christ is the firstborn of creation. In English it seems He is the first person to be created ~ the production of God’s creation. But in Hebrew and greek the word firstborn (prototokos) has only very indirectly a time significance at all. Firstborn is a common title of honor. For instance, Israel is the firstborn son of God (Exodus 4: 22) implying that Israel is chosen, honored and the favorite child of God. Secondly it is the title of the Messiah (Psalm 89: 27). Clearly firsborn is not used in the time sense at all but in the sense of special honor.
• It was by Christ all things were created in heaven and earth ~ things seen and unseen. The Jews and the Gnostics had a highly developed system of angels and lower creation … but Paul lays it down that the agent of God in creation is no inferior but Jesus Christ Himself.
• The Son is not only the agent of creation; He is also the goal and the end of creation. That is to say that creation was created to be His and for His glory. The world was created in order that it might ultimately belong to Jesus Christ.
• Paul uses the phrase, “In Him all things were created …” This implies that the Son is the agent of creation in the beginning, and the goal of creation in the end and between the beginning and the end, during time as we know it; it is the Son Who, as it were, holds the world together. The scientific laws apparently are divine laws first. Every scientific law is an expression of God.
3. What Christ is to the church? (v. 18)
• He is the head of the body of Christ; that is the church is the organism through which Christ acts and which shares all the experiences of Christ. The body moves at the bidding of the head and is powerless and dead without the head. Without Christ the church cannot think the truth; without Him the church cannot act correctly; without Him the body of Christ cannot decide its direction. The idea of privilege and warning are articulated here.
• He is the beginning of the Church. The Greek word ache’ here means in double sense. The sense of time as the first alphabet or the beginning of the series of numbers. It also means first in the sense of originating power; means and source from which something came; the moving power which set something in operation..
• He is the firstborn from among the dead. Paul here returns to the center of all thinking of the early church ~ resurrection. Christ is not someone who came, accomplished something and died and bears a gravestone somewhere. Apparently He is the one who died for a worldly cause and rose from the grave with power, might and dominion over the world.
• The result of all this is that He has the supremacy in all things. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is His title to supreme Lordship. By His resurrection He has shown that He has conquered every enemy and every opposing power, and that there is nothing in life and in death which can bind or hold Him. The final triumph of His resurrection has given Him the right to be Lord of all.
4. What Christ is to all things? (v. 17, 19, 20)
• The object of His coming was reconciliation. He came to heal the breach and to bridge the chasm between God and man. Let us not forget it is our reconciliation to God and the step taken was His.
• The medium of reconciliation was the blood on the cross. The dynamic of reconciliation is the death of Jesus Christ. Paul means what he says in Romans 8: 32! The cross is the medium of reconciliation because the cross is the final proof of the love of God; and a love like that demands and answering love. If the cross will not waken love and wonder in men’s hearts, nothing will.
• We must note that Paul defines the scope of reconciliation. He says, that is Christ God was reconciling all things to Himself. The Greek word is a neuter (panta). Now the point of this is that the reconciliation of God extends not only to all persons, but to all creation, animate and inanimate. God’s love does something powerful and marvelous to the created universe.
• How is it that any reconciliation was necessary for heavenly things and heavenly beings? After Satan and 1/3 of the angels had rebelled against God and driven out of the heavenlies … but the everlasting fire is for Satan, his angels and all those who rebel against God.
Conclusion: [Aim & Obligation of Reconciliation] (vs. 21 – 23)
• Aim of reconciliation is holiness.
• Reconciliation has other obligations to stand fast in the faith and never to lose or abandon the hope of the gospel.
• Reconciliation demands loyalty.
