Colossians 1:15-20

Introduction and Recap

THE ALL-SUFFICIENT CHRIST

Read: Colossians 2:6–7 “So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to walk in him, being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.”

This verse represents Paul’s purpose in writing to the Colossian Church. He began His letter to them be thanking God for the evidences of their faith.

After thanking God, Paul then moves on to praying specifically for the church by asking God for 3 things:

That they would be filled with knowledge (but not just any knowledge) of God’s Will, full of wisdom and spiritual understanding - settled belief/understanding of His desired plan for us, to KNOW Christ’s saving work, and to bring His glory to bear on the Earth. This wisdom is only found in His Word and is only applied to us by the Holy Spirit

That they would walk righteously and pleasing to God. This living is only possible inside of God’s Will and Plan (he sets the standard) and righteous living is only possible through Christ (because he fulfilled the righteous requirements) and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That they would endure and wait joyfully because of the strength that He provided to them. The same strength that raised Christ was given to the Colossians’, and us, that we may endure, that we may stand strong, that we may stay rooted, no matter what comes our way.

And then BECAUSE of all of this, Paul reminds the Colossians that they should Give Thanks to God for what He has done in RESCUING them from the Kingdom of darkness and transferring them into the Kingdom of the Son who has redeemed them (and us) and forgiven their sins (and ours).

In light of this redemption and transfer, and before Paul moves on into reminding the Colossians of their reconciliation and encouraging them to “walk in Him 2:6_, he pauses to place Christ in His proper context as Superior to All Creation and Head of the New Creation.

Read: Colossians 1:15-20

Christ is Superior and Sufficient

“Seeing Christ as he is will keep us from heresy, for it will steel us against a scaled-down Christ which has captured so many lost hearts. And it will cause us to begin to love him with a real love.” -Kent Hughes

Paul desires for the Colossians (and readers throughout history) to see Christ as He really is. Because, as the preceding quote sums up so well, IF we see Him for who He is, we are much more likely to LOVE him (through surrender) the way we should! To help us see what Paul is saying, we will break this section down into 2 parts and consider Christ as Superior, and Sufficient, (recognizing that He has already been presented as Savior, looking at the implications for our own lives for each of these titles throughout.

The Colossians can trust that they have been rescued and transferred BECAUSE of who Christ IS. They do not need a HIGHER POWER or NEW TEACHING.

1. Christ is Superior

Colossians 1:15–18 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.”

HE is the image of God

Image is eikōn in the Greek, referring to a depiction that represents something. So, He is the depiction of God, the representation of God.

We see in Genesis 5:1–4 “This is the document containing the family records of Adam. On the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God; he created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and called them mankind. Adam was 130 years old when he fathered a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Adam lived 800 years after he fathered Seth, and he fathered other sons and daughters.” So Adam is the first “son” of God made in the image/likeness of God, and all sons after are “made” in their father’s image/likeness.

But as Adam is flawed, we see that Christ is not, especially in 1 Corinthians 15:45–49 “So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. Like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

Or Romans 6:12-21, which you can read as well for further study.

So, while Christ is in God’s image, it must mean more than just being in the image of God as we all are, so we look to Hebrews 1:3 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory”, an “exact expression of his nature” so in His likeness, we also see God’s very character on display. And as we will soon see, He has been the image bearer before creation, he remains it now, and will be the image bearer throughout eternity. A SUPERIOR, PERFECT, IMAGE BEARER

HE is the firstborn over all creation

Not only is he an image bearer, he is also the “firstborn” of all creation. Now knowing that Christ was not the 1st person born, nor is He created, we have to dig a little deeper here. Psalm 89 in it’s entirety would be a good place to spend a couple of sermons (or certainly in your Bible Study this week) but for times sake, we just look at Psalm 89:27 “I will also make him my firstborn, greatest of the kings of the earth.” Here the Psalmist is referring to David (and prophesying Christ) as the “greatest and firstborn”, but if you remember, David isn’t even the firstborn in his own home. So “firstborn” in the OT context would mean “of greatest importance” or the “heir”, regardless of birth order.

He is not only the “greatest” of all creation, but as the image of God and NOT created, we can also see that He is the CREATOR, whether “by Him” or “in Him/for Him”.

John 1:1–4 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

As the source of creation, Jesus is above it all, meaning nothing any false teaching could bring forward is going to bother him. As the creator He is over ALL THINGS on heaven, earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities.

ALL THINGS, meaning that thing you are worried about right now, too.

ALL THINGS, meaning the fear you may be feeling over the world today.

ALL THINGS, meaning the “rulers and authorities” over us.

ALL THINGS, meaning the spiritual battles we fight with ourselves (and others)

ALL THINGS, meaning the violence and darkness that permeates the world around us.

HE IS SUPERIOR TO IT ALL. The Colossian church could standfirm (or endure as we saw last week) in the faith and truth BECAUSE Christ was and still is the source of all things. We worship Him because of this. But we also should worship because of ALL THINGS as well:

ALL THINGS, meaning that sunrise you see at the ocean or on top of a mountain.

ALL THINGS, meaning the beauty of the sunset over the cornfields in this area.

ALL THINGS, meaning the melody or instrumentation of a song that hits just right

ALL THINGS, meaning the love we have with spouses, with friends, within the church.

His superiority over creation gives us confidence that He is enough for us, that he can deliver us as He has promised.

HE is before all things and BY HIM all things hold together

Paul, here, is reiterating Christ ultimate superiority in creation, but he also adds in that all things are “held together” by Christ, which in the original language was a pointing forward to eternity. Essentially Paul is saying that Christ is sustaining all things and that all creation “old and new” is moving towards Him. We have already seen this in Hebrews 1:3 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

“For those who have been redeemed by Christ, the universe has no ultimate terrors; they know that their Redeemer is also creator, ruler, and goal of all.” - FF.Bruce

HE is the head of the church, HE is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead

It is His resurrection that is in view here. Through His resurrection, he begins to usher in a new creation, as we move towards all things being healed one day. This new creation is now expressed through the Church.

Where the old creation was marked by the fallen Adam, the new creation is marked by the risen King.

Where the old creation was bound by the Weight of the Law, the new creation is released from the bondage of that weight through Christ.

And Christ, in all His superiority and glory, has chosen the church as His bride. The church (collected believers) is now the vehicle for the glory of God to be manifested to the world. The church is the new Temple, and the body of believers the new Israel.

As the HEAD, he is the firstborn, he is the exalted King, he is the supreme ruler, he is the ultimate authority. This is the Christ whom we have trusted our lives too. There is no other power worthy or able.

2. Christ is Sufficient

Colossians 1:19–20 “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

HE is the fullness of God

As we saw a little earlier, as Christ is before Creation (both literally and in superiority) and as Christ is the image of God, perfectly living and displaying the character of God, we now see that this is because “the fullness of God” dwells in HIM. He has all of God and is lacking nothing. The Colossians have no need to “be filled” more fully.

“Christ is the full expression of diety.” GK Beale

If Christ lacks nothing, then He can be trusted, because He needs nothing. There is a reminder here that we bring nothing of value to the table in our salvation.

HE reconciles everything to Himself by HIS blood, HE makes peace through His blood

As we have seen, under the old Adam, everything in creation (though once perfect) has broken. Romans 8:19–23 “For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now. Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”

For the Colossians, Paul is reminding them, teaching them(?), that they need nothing but Christ. He is the beginning, the present, and the end. As creator, He is sufficient for their needs because He is over all of it. It was created through Him, by Him. It is being held in place by His Will and Word, as He waits to restore it all.

And because He is God, His fullness, His image, HE CAN restore it. He WILL restore it. HE reconciles what was broken and brings it back to wholeness. Which Pastor Ralph will go further with next week.

I found this summary of Colossians 1:15-20 particulary helpful from NT Wright:

-Colossians 1:15–20 gives the church not merely an exalted view of Jesus, and hence of humanity, but of God and his world. God, man and the world are each now to be understood in relation to Jesus Christ. He makes the invisible God visible; he fulfils the Father’s reconciling purpose on the cross; he is the Father’s agent in creation and redemption. He is the truly human being, the true Image of God. He is Lord of old and new creation, being in himself the beginning of the latter, the first created being to attain the state of perfection which will one day be shared by ‘all things in heaven and on earth’. It is this Lord that the Colossians have come to worship, his ‘image’ that they will one day fully share.

Application/Closing

And so how do we apply that to our lives?

If Christ is Superior, then:

We must recognize HIS authority over us AND creation.

EXPAND,

nothing can ultimately harm us-Romans 8

We must surrender to His will and His ways.

EXPAND,

we are not lord over our life, reprioritize

If Christ is Sufficient, then:

We must trust Him with our lives.

EXPAND

we must respond in faith,

Kent Hughes sums it all up nicely. We must make Christ first in our lives:

• First-place in our families.

• First-place in our marriages.

• First-place in our professions.

• First-place in our mission and ministry.

• First-place in matters of the intellect.

• First-place in time.

• First-place in love.

• First-place in conversation.

• First-place in pleasures.

• First in eating.

• First in play.

• First in athletics.

• First in what we watch.

• First-place in art.

• First-place in music.

• First-place in worship.