The Preeminence of Christ Colossians 1:15-23

Intro:

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of full-

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

Introduces theme of preeminence

Preeminent = to hold highest rank, be first, have first place

Nine things that show Christ is preeminent

He is the Image of Invisible God vs. 15a

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.

Created All Things

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

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

First One Resurrected

1 Corinthians 15:12–14 ESV

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

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.

Reconciles All Things

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,