The Preeminence of Christ Colossians 1:15-23

Intro:

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of full-time ministry

Pentecost Sunday

In 1893, the famous World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago, and an astronomical number of people, especially in those pre-automobile days, some twenty-one million, visited the exhibits.

America, and particularly Chicago, which had risen phoenix-like from the great fire of 1873, was showing off to the rest of the world.

And the show was good.

Among the features of the Columbian Exposition was the “World Parliament of Religions,” in which representatives of the world’s religions met to share their best points and perhaps come up with a new world religion.

D. L. Moody saw this as a great chance for evangelism.

Moody commissioned evangelists and assigned them to “preaching posts” throughout the city.

He used churches and rented theaters.

He even rented a circus tent to preach the Word.

Moody’s friends wanted him to attack the “Parliament of Religions,” but he refused, saying, “I am going to make Jesus Christ so attractive that men will turn to him.”

D. L. Moody knew that preaching Christ preeminent—the peerless, supreme, all-sufficient Christ, clearly presented—would do the job.

And indeed it did. The “Chicago Campaign” of 1893 is considered to be the greatest evangelistic work of Moody’s celebrated life, and thousands came to Christ.

The best way for us to let our community know about Jesus is by telling them great he is

If you don’t know how to do that or even what that means we are going to look at that this morning

Read Colossians 1:15-17

Transition

of all the Bible’s teaching about Jesus Christ, none is more significant than Colossians 1:15–20

This dramatic and powerful passage removes any needless doubt or confusion over Jesus’ true identity.

It is vital to a proper understanding of the Christian faith

much of the heresy threatening the Colossian church centered on the Person of Christ.

The heretics, denying His humanity, viewed Christ as one of many lesser descending spirit beings that emanated from God.

They taught a form of philosophic dualism, postulating that spirit was good and matter was evil.

Hence, a good emanation like Christ could never take on a body composed of evil matter.

The idea that God Himself could become man was absurd to them.

Thus, they also denied His deity

We are going to look at multiple aspects

Christ the Creator vs. 15-17

The first way we see Christ Preeminent is that He is the creator of all things

Most scholars think that Colossians 1:15-20 came from a poem or a hymn in the early Church that described what Christians believed about Jesus.

This is entirely possible, but can’t be proven one way or another.

vs. 15a Image of Invisible God

Jesus is the image of the invisible God

No one has seen God, except for Abraham seeing the backside

In our sinful state we would not survive an encounter with God

He is too holy for us to be in his presence

Jesus is the image of his Father

The word translated image (the ancient Greek word eikon) expressed two ideas.

Likeness, as in the image on a coin or the reflection in a mirror.

Manifestation, with the sense that God is fully revealed in Jesus.

“God is invisible, which does not merely mean that He cannot be seen by our bodily eye, but that He is unknowable.

In the exalted Christ the unknowable God becomes known.”

vs. 15b Firstborn of Creation

Next we see that he is the firstborn of Creation

Firstborn (the ancient Greek word prototokos) can describe either priority in time or supremacy in rank.

As Paul used it here, he probably had both ideas in mind, with Jesus being before all created things and Jesus being of a supremely different order than all created things.

vs. 16 All things created through Him

There is no doubt that Jesus is the author of all creation. He Himself is not a created being.

When we behold the wonder and the glory of the world Jesus created, we worship and honor Him all the more.

Comets have vapor trails up to 10,000 miles long. If you could capture all that vapor, and put it in a bottle, the amount of vapor actually present in the bottle would take up less than 1 cubic inch of space.

If the sun were the size of a beachball and put on top of the Empire State Building, the nearest group of stars would be as far away as Australia is to the Empire State Building.

The earth travels around the sun about eight times the speed of a bullet fired from a gun.

There are more insects in one square mile of rural land than there are human beings on the entire earth.

A single human chromosome contains twenty billion bits of information. How much information is that? If written in ordinary books, in ordinary language, it would take about four thousand volumes.

vs. 17 Holds all things together

Christ the Beloved Son vs. 18-20

The second way that we see Jesus is preeminent is that he is the beloved son of God

God made this known on the mount of transfiguration

Luke 9:35 ESV

And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!”

Peter backed that up in his second epistle

2 Peter 1:17–18 ESV

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

vs. 18 Head of the church

The first area where we see that Christ is beloved is that God put him as the head of the church

Jesus is the groom and the church is his bride

He is the beginning

He was the first resurrected from the dead

This was all done that he would be preeminent, or supreme above everything else

vs. 19 Fullness of God Dwells

The second area where we see that Jesus is beloved is that the fullness of God is pleased to dwell in him

Plērōma (fulness) was a term used by the later Gnostics to refer to the divine powers and attributes, which they believed were divided among the various emanations.

That is likely the sense in which the Colossian errorists used the term.

Paul counters that false teaching by stating that all the fulness of deity is not spread out in small doses to a group of spirits, but fully dwells in Christ alone

Paul tells the Colossians they do not need angels to help them get saved. Rather in Christ, and Him alone, they are complete

All the fulness of Christ becomes available to believers.

All that we need is Jesus Christ.

We have all of God’s fullness in Him, and we are “filled full” (complete) in Him.

There is no need to add anything to the person or work of Jesus Christ.

To add anything is to take away from His glory.

vs. 20 Made Peace by His Blood

Again we notice where the peace was made.

We don’t make our own peace with God, but Jesus made peace for us through His work on the cross.

Philippians 2:9 ESV

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

Christ the Reconciler vs. 21-23

The word reconcile is one of the most significant and descriptive terms in all of Scripture.

It is one of five key words used in the New Testament to describe the richness of salvation in Christ, along with justification, redemption, forgiveness, and adoption.

In justification, the sinner stands before God guilty and condemned, but is declared righteous.

In redemption, the sinner stands before God as a slave, but is granted his freedom.

In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor, but the debt is paid and forgotten .

In reconciliation, the sinner stands before God as an enemy, but becomes His friend

The verb katallassō (to reconcile) means “to change” or “exchange.”

Its New Testament usage speaks of a change in a relationship

Romans 5:10 ESV

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

vs. 21 Past Alienation

The word Alien means estranged

The Gentiles were enemies, which means they were “actively hostile to God.”

The enmity of their minds led to wicked works.

Both in attitude and action, they were at war with God.

This explains why the unbeliever must repent—change his mind—before he can be saved.

vs. 22 Present Reconciliation

They did not reconcile themselves to God; it was God who took the initiative in His love and grace.

The Father sent the Son to die on a cross that sinners might be reconciled to God.

The purpose of this reconciliation is personal holiness. God does not make peace so that we can continue to be rebels!

He has reconciled us to Himself so that we may share His life and His holiness.

We are presented to God “holy and unblameable and unreproveable”

The word holy is closely related to the word saint.

Both of these words express the idea of “being set apart, being devoted to God.”

In the New Testament, saints are not dead people who during their lives performed miracles and never sinned.

New Testament saints were living people who had trusted Jesus Christ.

vs. 23 Future Glorification

“The hope of the Gospel” means that blessed hope of our Lord’s return

Titus 2:13 ESV

waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

There was a time when these Gentile Colossians were without hope

Ephesians 2:12 ESV

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

The reason? They were without God.

But when they were reconciled to God, they were given a wonderful hope of glory.

All of God’s children will one day be with Christ in heaven