Above All: A Study in Colossians
Colossians 1:15-23
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
4-23-2022
Lift Jesus High
In 1893, Chicago hosted the International Columbian Exhibition that millions were expected to attend. One of the exhibits was the “Parliament of Religions.” This would be a space where religious experts from all the different religions would come together and share their ideas.
D.L. Moody decided not to be a part of that exhibit but held camp meetings in tents in Jackson Park that drew 150,000 people a week!
When asked if he planned to speak against the Pavilion of Religions he said, “No. I plan to make Jesus so attractive that men would be drawn to Him!”
Epaphras, the founder and pastor of the church in Colossae, had come to visit Paul in Rome and tell him of the dangerous false teaching that was present in their midst.
This false teaching was a mix of Jewish legalism, Gnosticism, local folk religion, and Christianity.
They taught that God couldn’t have created the world because they saw matter as evil and God cannot create evil. Therefore, God could not have come in human form because the body is evil. Jesus, instead of being God was simply one of many iterations of God.
Instead of Paul hammering the false teachers and the heretical teaching like in Galatians, Paul takes another tactic.
He asserts the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the head of all creation and the Church.
He lifts Jesus name high!
Review
Two weeks ago, we studied Paul’s pray for these believers:
“We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father…” (Col 1:9-12)
Remember that we can do a DUET in prayer with God for others:
We can pray that they
Do more good deeds for God
Understand God more and more
Experience the strengthening power of God
Thanking Him daily for their salvation
Turn with me to Colossians 1:15.
Prayer
A Hymn?
These verses that we will study today are a hymn. There is a lot of debate whether it is a hymn that Paul wrote himself, a hymn that Paul found and edited, or a hymn that the Colossians knew well and he incorporated it into his letter.
After reading way more about this than I should, I think it’s most probably that Paul composed this hymn to showcase the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ.
Jesus is King of Creation
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Jesus is God (v. 15)
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Paul ended the last section with these words:
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:13-14)
The mention of “The Son” and His saving work, sends Paul into doxology, a song of praise to Jesus Christ.
We know that God is invisible. He cannot be seen by human eyes. He is Spirit (John 4:24) and no one has ever seen God at any time (I John 4:12). Paul breaks out into praise in his letter to Timothy and writes:
“…who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” (I Timothy 6:16)
Friday night, I was walking Luna at the lake and out of the bushes a large bear appeared. We both froze when the bear stood up on its hind legs. Then it started dancing, doing the Macarena! I assumed that it was a dance off so I started doing the robot. Well, this made the bear mad and he roared loudly. So Luna and I started doing the Macarena with him. What a sight! A human, a dog, and a bear all dancing by the lake. It was so cute I could hardly bare it.
Now, many of you actually sat up and payed more attention when I was telling that story. But we talk about the astounding fact that the invisible God became a human and we’ve heard it so many times that we yawn.
Let’s focus in one two words, “image” and “firstborn.”
He begins by asserting that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God.”
This goes all the back to Genesis where God is said to make mankind in “His own image.” (Gen 1:27)
?The word image is where we get our English word “icon.” This doesn’t mean that Jesus is a replica of God or that He is similar to Him.
On a computer screen, there are “icons.” If I want to type, I click on the icon labeled “Pages” and that tells the computer to access what we can’t actually see, the Pages program in the circuit board.
The writer of Hebrews says it this way:
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…” (Hebrews 1:3).
“Exact representation” is a word picture of a die being cast upon a coin.
God is incomprehensible to the human mind.
John wrote:
“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:18)
He is the living manifestation of God in human form. Jesus is the exclusive revelation of God. In preaching terms, Jesus is the exegesis of God.
Jesus told His disciples:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip responded, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? (John 14:6-10)
Jesus is God incarnate. As we use to say in student ministry, “He’s God in a Bod.”
There is an art studio in Pontiac that is run by a Chinese artist. As you walk in, there are beautiful dresses hung on the walls. They are nice but that’s not the point. Once the lights go out, and the blacklight is turned on, you can see the most intricate patterns and details that you cannot see with the lights on.
The Holy Spirit has to turn the lights on to your spiritual eyes to see God in Jesus.
But He is not only the image of the invisible God, He’s also the first born over all creation.
Many years ago, Twila Paris wrote a worship song that had these lyrics:
You are Lord of creation / And Lord of my life
Lord of the land and the sea
You were Lord of the heavens / Before there was time
Lord of all lords You will be
The term firstborn can mean the first in birth order but that is not how Paul uses it here. If that were the case, Cain is the “first born.”
Firstborn means a person of superior rank or a legal heir.
David writes in Psalm 89 concerning the Messiah:
“And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth. I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail. I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure.” (Psalm 89:27-29)
Jesus has primacy, preeminence, and priority over all creation.
In the 4th century, a theologian named Auris used this verse to make a case that Jesus was not God and that He was “the oldest and most beloved Creature that God had created.”
A council was convened in Nicea and the creed that came out of that refuted the heresy of Arianism:
“Jesus was eternal begotten by the Father, begotten, not made, one Being with the Father.”
You may wonder what a 4th century heretic has to do with today but if you have ever had a knock on the door by Jehovah’s Witnesses you know that this false teaching is still alive and well today, 1,500 years after Arias died. They believe that Jesus was once Michael the Arch-Angel, a created being.
Jesus is Lord over creation because:
B. Jesus is Creator and the Authority of Creation (v.16)
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
Throughout these verses, we will see the words “all” and “every” again and again.
In Jesus all things were created. Paul then gives us a list that shows the totality of His reign.
Things in heaven and earth.
Things visible and invisible.
Thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities. These can be on earth and also the heaven beings that have authority to rule.
Jesus is the agent of creation and all things have been created through Him and for Him. The term “for him” is better translated “moving towards him.”
The Bible teaches that the world and all that we know was not the result of a Big Bang or a cosmic accident. The Bible teaches that God created everything, through and for the Son, “ex nihilo,” out of nothing.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” (Gen 1:1)
Alpacas and ants. Galaxies and giraffes. Mountains and molehills. Planets and people.
Let’s say I took a crystal music box and dropped it off the Empire State Building. What if I told you that when it hit the ground, it exploded into 100 perfect replicas of the music box? You wouldn’t believe me because order doesn’t come from disorder. All we would have left is the music box shattered in a thousand pieces.
Paul breaks out in praise in the letter to the Romans:
“For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Rom 11:36)
C. Jesus is the Priority and Agent of Creation (17a)
He is before all things…
Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity. He has always been and always will be.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1-3)
He retains the supreme rank because He existed before all things.
But it’s important to understand that Jesus became a human only at the incarnation. When He created everything, He did it from outside creation.
In Revelation, John quotes Jesus as saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Rev 22:13)
D. Jesus is the Sustainer and Aim of Creation (17b).
and in him all things hold together.
My favorite era to study is the Revolutionary War and the Founding Fathers. It’s as if God put all those extraordinary men on the planet at the same time in the same place to accomplish something amazing - the founding of a brand new nation based on Judeo-Christian principles.
But the majority of the the Founders weren't Christians in the sense that we think of today. Many of them were deists. They believed that God created the world like spinning a top and then He left it to itself.
But that simply isn’t the case. All things find cohesion and consistency in Jesus.
"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrew 1:3)
Hold together means to prevent something from falling into completely chaos.
Without Jesus, electrons would not continue to circle the nucleus of an atom, gravity would cease to work, and planets would spiral out of their orbit.
Laminin is the protein that holds cells together. Romans 1 says that we can know God through what He has made. Want to see a picture?
Abraham Kuyper wrote these famous words,
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, “Mine!”
Friday was Earth Day and many people take this too far and worship the creation instead of the creation. But we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water. We are responsible to caretake the creation.
What should knowing that Jesus is king over creation lead us to do? Worship!
David worshipped in Psalm 95:
“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” (Psalm 95:3-7)
The heavenly choir sings this song:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Rev 4:11)
Worship Songs:
This is my Father’s World
God of Wonders
We Bow Down
Jesus is the King of the Church (18-20)
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
A. Because Jesus is the Lord (source) of the Church (18a)
And he is the head of the body, the church
Paul now transitions from physical creation to spiritual creation.
This metaphor is only seen in Colossians and Ephesians. Jesus is the ground and purpose of the existence of the Church.
The word church in Greek is always a people, never a place. Paul wouldn’t understand the language of “going to church.” He would cock his head and say, “You are the church!”
Jesus returned to heaven but He now has a body that lives out His purposes here on earth called the Church.
And what is that purpose?
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-29)
Jesus is the head of the church and the church is a global, multi-cultural living revolution made up of almost two billion people.
The Pope is not the Head of the church. I am not the head of the church. Jesus is the head and the body always follows the head.
Someone said to me the other day, “I want to come to your church.” I knew what they meant but I don’t have a church. This church belongs to Jesus!
If the church was of human origin, we would have burned the whole thing to the ground in the first thirteen minutes.
But 2,000 years later, over 2 billion people will gather this morning to worship the risen King Jesus.
Does the American church have issues? Good grief, yes. But the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
There are some people that say that they love Jesus but they can’t stand the church. That like inviting me to your house for dinner and then say, “Maxine can stay home. Not a big a fan of hers.” The church is His Bride and you can’t have one without the other.
He’s the King of the Church also
B. Because of his Resurrection (sovereign) (18b)
He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Jesus was not the first to raised from the dead. Elijah raised the widow’s son (I King 17:22). Jesus raised Jarius’ daughter (Mark 5:42), the son of a widow at Nain (Luke 7:15), and his friend Lazarus (John 11).
But Jesus was the most important one. To be raised from the dead. And those other people actually had to die twice!
Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead. This means He is the first in rank, the first of many, and that a new creation has dawned.
Jesus had defeated death, our ultimate enemy and turned death from a black hole of hopelessness to a door of destiny.
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Cor 15:55-57)
I’m so thankful for that! I’ve either officiated or attended multiple funerals in the last few months.
We grieve yes. We grieve deeply for those we’ve lost. But, we do not grieve as those who have no hope. Those who have placed their faith in Christ, on the day their physical body dies, will be more alive than you and I have ever been.
Because of His resurrection, Jesus has the supremacy. He is first place in the church, in our lives, in our hearts.
Worship Songs:
The Church’s Strong Foundation
King of Kings
C. Because of His Deity - Reveals the Father to us (19)
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him
In the Old Testament, God’s presence dwelt in the Tabernacle and the Temple.
But John wrote:
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14)
Matthew tells us His name shall be Immanuel, which means God with us! (See Matthew 1:23)
Paul writes on chapter later:
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.” (Col 2:9)
Jesus was not a iteration or emanation of God. He is the fullness of God. This means He is the totality of Divine powers and attributes.
The Colossian believers didn’t have to try to learn the secret knowledge of the Gnostics to experience fullness. Jesus is enough.
D. Because of His Saving Work - Reconciles to the Father (20)
“…and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
When the Bible talks of reconciliation, it is always one way. God sent Jesus on a rescue mission and His cross was the bridge that reconnects us with God.
He says the same thing to the church at Corinth:
“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” (2 Cor 5:18-19)
But notice that it wasn’t just humans that will be reconciled. All things will be reconciled, including creation.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. (Rom 8:20-21)
There will be a new heaven and a new earth. A earth without earthquakes, hurricanes, or wildfires.
And how was this reconciliation accomplished?
Jesus lived a perfect life under the law. He was the only human ever to do that. He represented us before the Father.
He took the test in our place, made 100%, and his grade was applied to our paper.
And through Jesus sacrificial death on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.
Leviticus 17 says that only blood can make atonement for the soul.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
In 1833, George Wilson was convicted of robbing a US Mail carrier and sentenced to death.
President Andrew Jackson, in response to his friends’ pleas, issued a pardon for George.
But to everyone’s surprise, George refused the pardon.
This case ending up going all the way to the Supreme Court where the decision read, in part:
“A pardon is a deed, to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered; and if it is rejected, we have discovered no power in this court to force it upon him.”
Wilson was eventually hanged for his crimes.
God has issued a pardon in Christ to you for your cosmic treason.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36)
Will you accepted it today?
Ending Song: In Christ Alone
