I want to draw your attention to our text this morning first
before we read it, because the five verses in Colossians 115
through 20 have two sections. There's the early strophy and
then a second strophy, and verse 17 separates those two.
So take a look at verse 17. Verse 17 begins by saying, and
He is before all things, and that actually summarizes the two
verses previous. Now look at the second-half of
verse 17. And in Him all things hold
together. And that actually introduces the
remaining verses in Colossians 115 through 20.
This is such a beautiful confession of the Christian
faith of our hope in the Lord, of the reality of His Spirit in
the world. Instead of me reading it to you,
let's read it together. He is the image of the invisible
God, the first born of all creation.
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 and for Him. And He is before all things, and
in Him all things hold together, and He is the head of the Body,
the Church. He is the beginning, the first
born from the dead, that in everything He might be
preeminent. 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. For in Him the whole fullness of
the Deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in Him
who is the head of all and authority.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks, Father in heaven, may
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be
acceptable to you. O Christ our Rock, and our
Redeemer, whose name we pray. Amen.
Please be seated. I would say if we were honest
with ourselves as a group of folks, we love firsts.
We pay extra money to be first at Disney World.
We love to be first in pretty much everything, in our
achievements, in sports, in sales.
We even have an anthology of firsts called the Guinness Book
of World Records, and our passage stands glaringly before
each one of us today and asks, is Christ first?
Is Christ first in our thinking? Is he first in our speaking?
Is He first in our acting? And sometimes we might readily
say, well of course, and then there might come a time in life
when we need to forgive another person and we don't necessarily
put Christ first there to say, oh Lord, please help me.
I would say that these 5 verses and the extra verses from
Colossians chapter 2 are the most profoundly simple and
breathtakingly complex verses we could encounter.
I I would say that if you were to gather the whole of scripture
in just five verses, perhaps you would snip these out.
And that's why some people call these verses the Holy of Holies
of Colossians. So how can we talk about the
Infinite in 20 minutes? Let's jump in, shall we?
So take a look at verse 15. He is the image of the invisible
God, the first born of all creation.
The Holy Spirit opens up the curtain of the eternal counsel
of God and lets us behold the glory of the second Person of
the Godhead who stands at the center of all of God's covenant
purposes. And here we are invited to look
into the cosmos before Genesis 1, before light, before stars,
before time itself. Here we are told of the second
Person of the Godhead long before Genesis One.
In theology we call this time in Christ's eternal life, His pre
existence, and in these two clauses of verse 15 we see the 2
dimensions of His pre existence, His relation to the Father and
His relation to creation in relation to His Father.
He is not only the image of the invisible God, but as the second
person of the divine Trinity, He is the absolute image, the
eternal second Person, the perfect radiance of the Father's
glory. And before the first word of the
Bible is ever spoken, the Triune God exists in perfect love, and
the Son, the second person, reveals the fullness of that
glory. Hebrews 1/3 says it best.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of
His nature, upholding the universe by the word of His
power. Now the second phrase in verse
15 shifts from Christ's eternal relation within the Trinity to
the his relation with creation itself, and it says He's the
first born of all creation, but his first born.
That does not mean He had a beginning.
The beginningless beginner is begotten.
Begotten means born of, not created.
It refers to what we call an eternal procession of love.
The theological word for it is eternal generation.
And so when we think of Christ's pre existence, before he became
a man, we think of this eternal generation, this divine
relationship from eternity past without beginning, always pure,
completely unbroken and eternal. The second person of the Godhead
as the first born doesn't refer to his beginning, but his
status. First born means superior.
First born means sovereign, not a beginning.
He is the divine stamp of the invisible God, the sovereign one
over all creation. Psalm 89 speaks of this.
It says, I will make him the first born, the highest of the
kings of the earth. There was never a time that
Christ did not exist, and first born refers to His sovereignty,
His superiority. He is the source of everything.
There is no rule, there is no authority anywhere above Him,
His superiority. He is the source, His rule and
authority. This is what first born means.
He is superior over all of creation.
Let's continue with verse 16. For by Him all things were
created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, where the
Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were
created through Him and for Him. Now look at these prepositions
in this verse. There's one at the very
beginning in verse 16 for by Him, and then there are two at
the end. Look at the two at the end,
through and for. Combine these three very simple
English words. Unfold the majesty of Christ in
creation first by by Him by means agency.
The second person of the Godhead before He becomes a human being
is the agent of creation. Creation happened on behalf of
the will of the Divine Trinity, because of the second person of
the Godhead. He was the agent of creation
through through him that preposition, you know, moving
through, moving from one side to another, to change from one
state to another. It's the sphere of creation, the
sphere in which creation takes form.
The second person of the Godhead is the sphere of creation.
Through him, chaos becomes order, darkness becomes light,
mud becomes man, and work moves into rest.
And then that last preposition for him.
And now this is really interesting because the tense
changes here in this preposition, in this part, we go
to a present tense. And when we have present tense,
that means there's an ongoing action, something into the
future. It shifts here, meaning that the
future of creation is meant for Christ, for him.
Romans 11 says For from him and through him and to him are all
things. And it ends by saying to him be
glory, forever, Amen, creation, moving into the future by,
through, and for forever. Now look what's in between those
prepositions. All things.
That's pretty easy to understand, isn't it?
All things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authority.
All things, everything, everything, everything belongs
to that little boy in the animal feeding through that helpless
human being born in a barn, the alpha and Omega of creation.
Sometimes when I go through this passage, this is a great place
to stop and say, could we just pray, sing a hymn and leave?
Because what else is there to say other than thank you God,
Amen. But let's go on to verse 17,
shall we? And he sums up the point in
verse 17. And he is before all things.
Two decades after the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write
these words here, the Holy Spirit would inspire the apostle
John to write similar words that sound like this.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God before any covenant was made in history,
before Adam, before Noah, before Abraham, before Moses, before
David, the eternal second person of the God had lived in perfect
session with the Trinity. It's difficult for us, maybe not
for you, but for me, it's difficult for me to get out of
my head that Jesus was not a human being in eternity past,
while he was in heaven with the Trinity, in that glorious
celestial heavenly realm where angels were created, there was
the second person of the Godhead.
Adam was the first human being. And yes, Adam was created in the
image of God. He was formed with a head and
with a body, a design that would become powerful metaphors to
help you and me understand our Lord's relationship with His
church. Adam was called to rule, but he
failed. And in infinite love, God made a
covenant, a covenant of grace, whereby a human being would come
and do what Adam could not. But there's more.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see these glimpses of this
mysterious figure who would eventually become the human
Redeemer we so desperately needed.
And this figure would have a variety of descriptions.
He would be called the Angel of the Lord or the commander of the
Lord's army. The 4th man in the furnace.
A visitor with Abraham, One who stopped Isaac from being killed.
One who physically wrestled with a man named Jacob.
The voice from a burning Bush that was not being consumed.
A radiant man standing before Daniel.
These are just a few, these pre Incarnate glimpses of the second
person of the Godhead in his pre existence.
And these theophanies allowed humans to behold God without
perishing. For no one can see God and live.
And the third person of the Godhead had not been gifted to
humanity and upon God's covenant people yet.
Only the second person of the Trinity could reveal God in
these moments. But we needed a man who could
redeem us and then in the fullness of time it happened.
The pre existent 1. The eternal Son became a human
being, though he was in the very form of God.
Christ made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant
and being born in the likeness of man.
He is no longer called the Angel of the Lord.
He is no longer called the commander of the Lord's army.
But now he shall be given a name.
Emmanuel shall now be his name. God with you and me, and we know
him as Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.
This brings us to the second-half of verse 17 and
going on into 18. And in Him all things hold
together, and He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in
everything he may be pre eminent.
Holding all things together means consistency.
Jesus gives everything that we see, feel, touch here.
Everything, everything, all things.
Holding it together means consistency.
Anything that has consistency in the world is because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.
Why? We worship Him.
And the focus shifts very quickly now from Christ's pre
eminence over creation to his pre eminence over redemption
with swift precision. Right here, the metaphor of the
head and the body, made possible by Adam's design, are used to
describe Messiah's sovereignty over redemption.
Now He is the first born from the dead.
Now He has sovereignty over the dead.
Now he has superiority over the dead.
This is one of the clearest texts in the New Testament that
Christ's resurrection is the beginning of a new creation.
Oh yes, we're waiting from his pre existence to when he was a
man. We're waiting for when He comes
again and makes a new heaven and a new earth.
But remember, all things are created for Him, which includes
the future. He is creating things new now.
He is making a new creation. Now He has made you a new
creature. He is renewing His church.
And when we talk about the redeemed creation, what is the
most precious part of that? To the sun?
The church, and we see the word here that's used throughout the
Old Testament and the New Testament for the church.
The word is ecclesia. It means to be called out.
Abraham was called out, Israel was called out, you were called
out. You are part of the ecclesia.
You are part of the Lord's church.
You are the most precious thing to the sun.
And through his obedience and death and resurrection and
ascension, Jesus becomes a new kind of humanity, because he
rises first, born from the dead, and ascends to heaven to become
the first human being in all of history to be at the helm of the
universe. Isn't that a beautiful thought
that at the helm of the universe right now is the same pre
existent second person of the Godhead who took on flesh just
like you and me, and now that risen and ascended perfect
person is at the helm of the universe?
Hallelujah. Adam was made from dust, but
Christ came from heaven. Adam failed, but Christ
prevailed. Adam passed on death, but Christ
gives resurrection life to those that belong to him.
First Corinthian said the first man, Adam became a living being.
The last Adam became a life giving spirit.
But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and
then the spiritual. The first man was from the
earth, the man of dust. The second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust.
And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of
heaven. Just as we are born the image of
the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of
heaven, says First Corinthians verse 19.
Let's finish up verse 19. For in him all the fullness of
God was pleased to dwell. Echoes the familiar Christmas
verse. We hear this time when John 114
says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we hear
about how Jesus tabernacled among us because the temple and
the Tabernacle is the place on earth where God was present.
And when Jesus comes, all the fullness of the Trinity is
dwelling in Jesus. God with the same words are used
in Psalm 68. God was well pleased to dwell in
Zion. The Lord will dwell in the holy
place. Where's the holy place now?
Jesus? Jesus is the temple.
Jesus is the Tabernacle. God is pleased to dwell in him,
verse 20, and through him to reconcile himself to all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the
cross. And here is Jesus first born
from the dead, bringing reconciliation by giving himself
and redeeming his ecclesia, his Church, where he triumphs
victoriously over death and gives his people eternal life.
So the question is, is Christ preeminent in your life?
Is he first in your heart, in the way you think, in the way
you feel, in the way you act, in the way you worship, in the way
you conduct your business? Think about church ministry,
lead your family, interact with Co workers, love your husband or
your wife or your family or your friends or the way you forgive
others. Is Christ first, Is Christ
first. Holy Spirit, we bow before you
and we thank you for these majestic words.
We thank you that in Him the whole fullness of Deity dwells
bodily, and though we cannot comprehend it, nor will we until
we see you, you have been filled.
We have been filled in Him who is the head of all rule and
authority in this majestic and mysterious and income
uncomprehensible majesty and description of who you are.
Now you invite us to your table. We have heard your majesty and
your transcendence, and now we will see and taste your love and
presence. Ho, Spirit of the Lord, thank
you for caring for us so tenderly, so beautifully, and so
perfectly. In your name we pray.
Amen.