Colossians 1 (Part 3) :15-23

We're going to get into the word here today from Colossians. So go ahead and open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1. And we're continuing on with our study, this is part 3. This is our 3rd study in Colossians thus far, and I personally think this is one of the most important studies, particularly for what it says about Jesus. Last week we just covered two verses, just verses 13 and 14 of this chapter. In those verses, the Apostle Paul outlined what Jesus did for us in his redemptive work on the cross. You'll remember that there were 2 key words from that passage. We said that He delivered us and He transferred us. First, He delivered us from the domain or control of darkness. And second of all, He transferred us into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of His beloved Son. Now, as we get into this section today, the apostle is going to move on from what Jesus did, and he's going to talk about who Jesus is, and then he's going to kind of get back to a little bit of what Jesus did in relation to who he is. But we're going to focus on who He is. And I believe that the verses we're going to cover today give us a critical understanding of the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, I think these are some of the most important verses in all of the Bible concerning the person of Jesus, our savior. And when I'm talking to people about who Jesus is and I'm telling them we're talking about his deity. These are the ones I often go to, along with a couple of others, but these are the ones that I'll camp on because there's so much important revelation in these. So let’s go ahead and read verses 15 through 23, and then we'll pray. It says,

Stop there, please. Let's pray and ask the Lord to open our hearts. Father God, as always, when we get into your word, we know, we recognize that we need your spirit to bring clarification, to open our hearts of understanding, to fill us, Lord God, with the meaning. And then Lord, to give us the strength and the courage to apply your word to our lives. Teach us today. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' precious name, amen. You'll notice that Paul begins in this section, beginning here in verse 15, again, by making a very powerful and a very clarifying remark about who Jesus is. And he simply says, “He is the image of the invisible God.” In other words, Jesus is the God you can see. I want to put up on the screen for you. This is the definition of this word “image.” All right. Greek Word: εἰκών (eikōn) List of English words ● image (19) ● likeness (3) ● form (1) – New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible It is the Greek word icon. And it's obviously where we get our word. So he says, “Jesus, or He is the image of the invisible God...” And you'll notice that image is the word that is used most often. And this is from the New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. And then you could also translate the word, and they did likeness, and they also, one time, translated the word “form.” So Jesus is the representation of God to mortal eyes. Why is that important? Well, it's important because God is invisible. We're told that he cannot be seen. And so, therefore, Jesus is the likeness, the image of God, the representation that you and I can see. And how close is that representation? How close is that image? You know, kind of close? I mean, is it kind of like a father and son where you can kind of look at them and go, yeah, I can tell. I see the likeness there. You're, you look like your dad. I've had people say that to me about my dad a lot in years past. Sometimes I even see myself in the mirror and get frightened for a moment because I see my dad. Is that the kind of likeness we're talking about? Well, there was a time when Jesus was talking to his disciples and talking about the close connection that He has with his Father. And Philip spoke up. You remember what he said? Let me put this on the screen for you. It's from John chapter 14. Check out this passage.

“Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us." (Look at Jesus's response), Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? (And look at this). Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'show us the Father'?" Now again, I kind of look a little like my dad but I still can't say, ‘If you've seen me, you've seen my dad.’ I can say, ‘If you've seen me, you've seen a younger version of my father.’ That's as good as I—Jesus made it very clear when you've seen Me, you have seen my Father, right? To know Me is to know Him, to see Me, to hear Me is to hear Him and so forth. He's more than just a representation that is similar. He is the exact likeness. And the Greek word that is used, that we looked at there a moment ago, actually includes the idea of representative as well. It's not just representation, it's representative. Isn't that interesting? Because Adam was our first representative, right? Who came and failed miserably. And Jesus then came as God's own son to represent us, which of course He did chiefly on the cross. Now, all of these definitions that we're looking at here in the first statement that the apostle Paul gives us seem to point pretty decisively to the fact that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. And we might even look at the things we've looked at so far and go, okay, I think I'm, if somebody were a little uncomfortable with the idea of saying I believe Jesus is God in human flesh.

We might have just made them a little more comfortable with what we just read. But then there's the second part of this verse where it says that He, in verse 15, “...is the firstborn of all creation.” And at this point somebody might say, well, okay, all right, stop there. You almost had me convinced that Jesus is God. But then the Apostle Paul goes on to speak of him as the firstborn, firstborn of all creation. And that statement seems to speak of Jesus as God's first creation, and it kind of clumps him in with everything else and everyone else who's ever been created. And so, you had me going there for a minute Pastor, you had me thinking that maybe He is equal with God, but you know what? You just blew it. Because we just read the last part of this verse and it says, He's the firstborn. So, I don't believe it anymore. And do you know that some people hold to that very idea? They look at this very verse, this very verse. In fact, Arius was a heretical teacher, I believe he was in the 4th century, if I'm not mistaken, and it was this verse that he camped on to teach that Jesus was a created being because he saw this verse, he's the firstborn. And so a lot of people have believed it. Arianism is still being taught. It is still being embraced, but it's still just as wrong as it was back then. Let's talk about what does firstborn mean? Why did Paul refer to Jesus as the firstborn over all creation? Well, I think you probably know from studying the Old Testament, particularly that in ancient cultures, a firstborn son stood head and shoulders above all the others, and he would receive a double portion of his father's estate, and there was just a special place for the firstborn son in every family. Well, over the years, the term “firstborn” began to mean not so much the first in line of birth, but it began to speak of preeminence. It began to speak of importance. It began to be a word of quality. Do you understand? We find it used in the Bible where it's not spoken literally of a firstborn, but it's actually spoken of first in quality or first in rank. And I want to show you an example of this on the screen from Psalm chapter 89. Check this out. This is God speaking, He says,

and

"I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil have anointed him, and (look at this) I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." Now, did you notice that God calls David the firstborn and then He even uses that quality term, the highest of the kings. But in actual fact, David was not the firstborn king, was he? He was not the first, and he was certainly not the firstborn in his own family. In fact, he was the last born of the sons of Jesse. The term “firstborn” here is being used to speak of preeminence and the quality of David's Kingship in Israel, and that is how Paul is using it here in Colossians when he speaks of Jesus as preeminent over everything. He's saying that very thing. The other way we know that this passage isn't referring to Jesus as a created being, it's quite simply that if Paul were saying here by firstborn that Jesus is created, then this verse would stand in stark contrast and contradiction of the rest of the Word of God concerning the Son of God. And you might say, well, why is that important, Pastor Paul? Did you know that the first rule of biblical interpretation is let scripture interpret scripture? We're to look at scripture as a whole. We're not to look at isolated elements of scripture. In fact, no single verse of scripture should ever be used to create a doctrine or belief. It helps to corroborate a doctrine, but we look at those things elsewhere. And that's one of the reasons why when I'm teaching to you guys on a Sunday or a Wednesday, I talk about something, but then I talk about other verses that speak of that same thing, to give you that understanding of the consistency of God's revelation as it relates to basic truths and basic elements of connection. One thing we see consistently through the Word of God is that Jesus is God. And so again, firstborn cannot be—it doesn't mean that Jesus is created because God was not created. Let me show you a couple of quick passages that again, corroborate the idea of Jesus as God. John chapter 1:1, you guys know this:

"In the beginning was the Word (we know that the ‘Word’ is speaking of Jesus), and the Word was (not only) with God (but John tells us) and the word was God.” And he makes it very clear. The Word was God. And then you have that interesting conversation that happened later on in the book of John, where Jesus is speaking to the Jews, and you'll remember He made reference to Abraham and how Abraham had seen His day. In fact, He said Abraham saw my day, and he was glad. And the Jews were like, yeah, right. You've seen Abraham. You're not even 50 years old, and you've seen Abraham? And then Jesus said this, John 8:58 (ESV)

--- You notice that Jesus didn't say, before Abraham was, I became? That would have been correct if He were a created being. Understand that if Jesus is a created being, the statement He made to the Jews there in John chapter 8 was a bold lie. Because Jesus is using the divine name here, I Am. The same name that God used with Moses when He declared himself from the burning bush. Moses asked him, said, Lord, when I go to the Jews in Egypt, and they asked me who sent me. Who will I say sent me? And the Lord said, I am. Tell them, I am sent you. (Exodus 3:13-14) And here, Jesus uses that same divine name in the Greek, it's Ego Emi. It's where we get our word “ego.” But it's Ego Emi, I am. And believe me, the Jews knew that Jesus used the divine name because they turned around and looked for rocks right away to kill him because they believed He was guilty of blasphemy. They understood what he was doing, what he was saying. He was saying, I am God. That's one of the reasons we know that Paul isn't contradicting that here in Colossians chapter 1 because the rest of scripture makes it very clear who Jesus is. And so we know that firstborn means preeminent, right? Firstborn in quality. And then we have another powerful statement. And I know I don't need to continue to corroborate this, but there's this incredible statement in Isaiah chapter 43. Look at this on the screen. God is speaking to the Jews and He says,

This blows Arianism right out of the water because this whole idea that this Lord, Jesus who is Lord, is a created Lord. It can't work. In fact, this blows Mormon teaching out of the water. This blows the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society teaching out of the water. They can't stand up under Isaiah chapter 43 because the God who created all things and who has always been said, “Before me, no God was formed, nor will there be one after me.” And that's what precludes the idea of a created Lord. That kind of belief would become impossible. Let's go back to Colossians now. The apostle goes on in verse 16 to speak of Jesus saying, "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him (note that) and for him.” This is Paul's simple way of saying that Jesus is the creator. ---

--- Now, wait a minute, refresh my memory, back in Genesis 1:1, who created the heavens and the earth? Trying to remember. Let's put it up on the screen. Maybe we can all remember together. Oh, that’s right,

Yeah. And that's exactly what Paul is saying in Colossians chapter1, verse 16, "For by him all things were created…" and they weren't only created by Him, but they were created for Him, right? Very important. But Paul isn't done proclaiming the deity of Jesus. Look at verse 17: "And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Now he's made two statements here. The first one, "He is before all things," and what this means is —it's another way of saying that Jesus is eternally existent. And actually, this statement right here, if you understand it properly, contradicts the idea that Jesus was a created firstborn, because it is saying He is before all things, and that means all things that were created, He is before all creation, right? It's a way of saying He is eternally existent. He has always been. He is before all that has ever been, okay? That takes the whole created idea out of the picture again. And then the second thing Paul says is, "...in him all things hold together." And that is an incredible scientific statement actually that means that Jesus is the one who sustains the universe. He literally sustains the created universe. He made it. He sustains it. And it is the verb that is used here in the Greek that speaks of a continuous action. It means He is continuously sustaining. We're glad about that. We're glad He's continuously doing that sustaining the entire universe. And if He ceased to sustain it, the universe would literally fly apart at the atomic level. He holds it all together. Now that the apostle has established the deity of Jesus, he goes on to speak of His unique role in God's redemptive plan. And he begins in verse 18 by saying, "And he is the head of the body, the church." And this is a common picture that Paul likes to use when he talks about Jesus in relationship to the church. He speaks of it as we would speak of a human body. And you have a human body and your body is controlled by your head where your brain or your center of intellect and understanding is, and it is the same with the church. And one of the first things that we learn when we become a Christian is that everybody who comes to know Jesus and embraces Him as savior is formed into what is biblically known as the body of Christ. And just as a human body has a head, so also the church has a head. And that head is Jesus who controls his body. ---

Paul goes on to say here in verse 18 that, “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Now, when he says, “He is the beginning...” Remember the context is now His role in redemption. All right. And in relationship to the church. So He is the beginning of God's redemptive work and God's redemptive program. He is "...the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be (again) preeminent.” There's actually the word that defines firstborn that we talked about earlier. And when it says, “He was the firstborn from the dead…” it doesn't mean that Jesus was the first person to ever rise from the dead. There were people who were resurrected before Jesus was resurrected. Why now is Paul using firstborn here? Well, yeah, it still does mean preeminent, but it also refers to the firstborn of a different kind of a resurrection. Because everybody else who was resurrected prior to Jesus died again. They weren't raised to never die. Jesus was the first, and the first to receive a new resurrection body. He was the firstborn for us related to that. Verse 19 goes on, and it says, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” And you can see in this verse that Paul has been dealing with His deity, now he's talking about His humanity. Did you catch that? Now he's talking about His humanity. And he begins to speak of the fact that in His human form, all of the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in that single human form, or was inhabited by the person of Jesus. And by the way, you might be interested to know that when he speaks here of the word “dwell” in verse 19, it speaks in the Greek of a permanency. It's not a temporary dwelling. It's a permanent dwelling. The fullness of God. It was permanently dwelling and is permanently dwelling in the human person of Jesus Christ. This is crazy. You expect God to be God when we talk about God. But remember, Jesus is also a person from the human perspective. And now the permanency of God dwells also in His humanity. And speaking here of the merging of His human and His divine being. Incredible. And then, did you notice that Paul said, speaking of Jesus reconciling all things through his blood and all these references speak of, again, the human side of Jesus, the man who came to represent, he came to represent us as mankind. And He did that work of reconciliation, but there's one thing that I want to call your attention to here, one little aspect of Paul's wording, that if you're not paying attention, you can miss it, but it's very important that you not miss it because again, it speaks of who Jesus is as God in human flesh. I want you to look at verse 20 again with me in your Bible, very important that you see this: “...and through him to reconcile to himself all things…” Did you catch that? It doesn't say, and through him to reconcile to God. Now, that would have been grammatically correct, it would have been theologically correct to say, and through him to reconcile to God, but it doesn't. Paul took the time to say that through Christ, He reconciled to Himself all things. Why is that significant? Well, it's important because of the word “reconcile” and what it means. Can I put the definition up on the screen for you just so you can be refreshed? rec-on-cile Verb. past tense: reconciled Def. cause to coexist in harmony; To “reconcile” is a verb; the past tense, of course, is “reconciled” as it is used in this passage, but it means “to cause to coexist in harmony.” To reconcile—to coexist in harmony. And the Bible repeatedly tells us that there was the need for reconciliation between God and man because there was a gulf that was created between God and man because of sin. We were, as Paul said, alienated from God. We desperately needed to be reconciled. But here's what you need to understand about reconciliation. When we talk about a couple being reconciled, we'll say, he needs to be reconciled to her, she needs to be reconciled to him. But you need to understand something about reconciliation to God. We needed to be reconciled to God because we were the ones who violated the relationship. He did not need to be reconciled to us. Are you with me? Sin only went one way. In a marriage relationship, when there's a problem, it always goes two ways. It might be imbalanced a little bit, one way or another, but there's always two ways. The reconciliation needs to go two ways. But in the reconciliation that we needed to have with God, it was all on our end, and we needed to be reconciled to God because we were the sinners, and God was the offended. Are you with me? And what do we read here in verse 20? Again, look at it in your Bible: “...and through him to reconcile to himself…” Jesus reconciled us to Himself because He was the offended party, being God in human flesh. He didn't just do the reconciling or create a means by which we could be reconciled to God. He was the party we needed to be reconciled to, and that can only mean that He is God. Paul very carefully chose his wording here, and it cannot mean other. And he basically says it in a different way when he wrote to the Corinthians. Let me show you on the screen, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 18. It says, 2 Corinthians 5:1 8-19 (ESV) All this is from God, who through Christ reconciles us to himself…that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself… “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciles us to himself…(And look what he goes on to say) that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself…” In Christ, God reconciled the world to Himself. We see how God and Christ are used interchangeably in that work of reconciliation that was needed between God and man. Verse 21, look in your Bible. It says, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds (and that's why we needed to be reconciled), he has now reconciled in his body of flesh (we see how the means, it was accomplished) by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him…” This is one of the most amazing couple of verses because it says that we were once alienated. We see people all the time. We talk to people all the time who are alienated from family members, they're alienated. Something has happened, there's been issues, problems. You say, well, do you have parents? I haven't talked to my parents in ten years. Why not? Well, we had a falling out. We don't talk. Do you have any other siblings? Yeah, my brother lives over in the Boise area. Have you talked to your brother? No, we're alienated. Happens all the time, all the time. We were alienated from God, and if you've ever been alienated from someone, you know how hard that is, how difficult, how painful it is to be alienated. But we were alienated because of our sin. But after the reconciliation, or the act of reconciliation that Jesus accomplished, so that we might be reconciled to God, it says here, and this is such an incredible picture of God's mercy. It says that now we are presented before God as holy and blameless. And check this out, above reproach. That's our position now. We were once alienated, cut off. Now we are presented to the Father through the work of Jesus Christ, and all that breach has been healed. It's not just like we're talking. It's not like people who were alienated and now they finally got together after 20 years and had a nice sit-down over a cup of coffee and shook hands and said, all right, I'm not going to hate your guts anymore, but you go your way. I'll go mine. No, No, No. This thing has been healed to the point where He has done a work to make us holy and blameless in God's sight. It's like the reason for the alienation is gone. It's been wiped out. It's the most incredible thing in the world —presented without sin. It's hard to get over. Now, I need to share this final verse with you in both a careful and truthful way. Because Paul has been speaking here about the redemption that is such a blessing, but it's now ours and all the wonderful effects of what Christ did for us on the cross, reconciling us to Himself, making us holy, blameless, bridging the gap, the whole nine yards. And then Paul adds these words, and we must see them, Christians: “...if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.” I need to tell you, in all truthfulness, that Paul begins this verse with the word “if,” and I probably don't need to remind you that “if” is a word that is used before introducing something that is necessary for a given proposition to be in force. I will do this, if you do that. And we use that word all the time. Let me say that again, “if” is a word that is used when we're introducing something of necessity for a given proposition to be in force. And before all the things that Paul is speaking of here can be enforced, all the blessings, all the wonderful things before they can be enforced, there is a requirement, and that requirement is faith. Not just faith, but continuing in faith. That's what Paul is saying here, “...that your faith must be (look at the words he uses) stable…” If your faith is stable, if your faith, he says, “...is steadfast.” And if your faith is “...not shifting.” And what Paul is introducing here for us is the possibility that our faith can be other than those things. Our faith can be unstable. The possibility exists that our faith cannot be steadfast, and there is the possibility that our faith can be shifting. He says these are all yours if you remain in a stable, steadfast, and not shifting faith. Paul's talking about your faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Listen, Christians, we all waver in our faith about other things, okay. You can be a born-again Christian, know that you know that you're going to heaven, but you can be unstable in your faith about a new job, about a marriage relationship, about something that God wants you to do. You can be wavering. You can. That's not what Paul's talking about here. He's not talking about the day-to-day challenges that you and I have in our faith, just to walk in obedience or to do something or go somewhere or whatever. He's talking about a stable, steadfast, and non-shifting faith. In the finished work of Jesus on the cross. That's what he's referring to, ok.

And it's important that you and I see this in the Word because this is not the only place where it exists. So often people ask me if I think that a Christian can lose their salvation. I have to tell you, and I've told you this before, I absolutely hate that question, although I understand why people ask it. And my response is usually to say, in the true technical sense of losing something, no, I don't think you can lose your salvation. I mean, it's like, good grief, where did I put that? I mean, like you lose your cell phone or your keys or something like that. No, I don't think in that sense you can lose your salvation. But when people ask that question, what they're usually wondering, and sometimes if I press them a little further, they'll actually reveal this, but what they're usually asking is, Pastor Paul, do you believe it's possible for us to sin so much that God will ultimately withdraw the salvation that He gave us? That's what they're asking when they say, do you think somebody can lose their salvation? But do you understand, Christians, that idea, that question, Pastor Paul, do you believe somebody can sin so much that they could lose their salvation? That question carries with it a fundamental misunderstanding of how we are saved. Right? To even ask the question, it assumes that salvation is based on being good. When people ask that question, Pastor Paul, do you believe you can lose your salvation by sinning? They're misunderstanding what salvation is and how you get it. The premise is faulty from the very beginning. You see, even if you believe that you're saved by grace through faith, if you allow yourself to believe that sin can cause you to lose that salvation, then you don't believe in salvation by faith. You believe in salvation by works because to you, you're saved as a free gift, but you've got to keep yourself saved, right? Hey, that's salvation by works with another name or with another window dressing. It's just salvation by works. And honestly, I got to tell you something, I find it a very common belief — saved by faith, kept by works. Some churches go so far as to say you're saved by grace. It's a free gift from God. But if you sin, you've got to confess that sin. And if you were to die prior to confessing that sin, you would go to hell. That's the extreme form of saved by grace, kept by works. Can I just tell you, that's not what the Bible teaches. And I'm very happy to tell you that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says, we are saved by faith, and we are kept by faith. (Ephesians 2:8-9) That's what the Bible says. And that is why Paul says what he says in verse 23. He begins by telling you in these chapters and these verses about all the rich and wonderful blessings that are yours in Christ. He tells you that you've been reconciled to God. And then he says in verse 23, "...if indeed you continue in the faith ( if you continue in the faith)...” Right? And that is exactly why I believe Jesus posed this question that I'm going to show you from Luke chapter 18:

Jesus is not looking for good works so that you'll be saved. Good works are still important from the standpoint of your reward, but they can't save you. And so Jesus says, when the Son of Man comes, I wonder, will he find faith? That's what he's looking for. Faith in what? Faith in his finished work as a complete work. We are saved by faith. We are kept by faith. Our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Do you believe Jesus died for you? You're saved. Don't worry about it. Don't lose any sleep about losing it. You can't lose what you have embraced by faith because you messed up, because you sinned. People are terrorized by their sin because of this unbiblical idea that we're saved by grace and kept by works. Well, as I said before, saved by grace, kept by works is just plain saved by works. And you are not saved by works. The Bible says no one can boast. And you know what? If you keep yourself saved by your works, you can boast. You can say, Jesus saved me, but I kept myself there. I live a good life. Nope. Nope. Nope. Jesus takes away all boasting. It's gone. No boasting in heaven, not a single word of boasting. We stand before him and we say I am here because of Him and Him alone. I am saved by grace through faith. And He kept me as I put my faith in Him and continued to trust in the work that He did on the cross was for me. It was for me. It was finished. It was complete, and there was nothing I could add to it, and I am saved. What a wonderful salvation we have.