Soli Deo Gloria (Col 1:15-23)

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Colossians 1:15-23.

Today, we’re not just wrapping up another sermon series, we’re really wrapping up our time as a church together. With that said, I know no better way to end our time together by reflecting on God’s glory together—after all, seeing God’s glory is the whole point of Christianity—seeing God face-to-face is the whole point of salvation.

Jonathan Edwards in a sermon titled “The Pure in Heart Blessed,” said “The pleasure of seeing God is so great and so strong that it takes the full possession of the heart; it fills it brimful, so that there shall be no room for any sorrow, no room in any corner for anything of an adverse nature from joy. There is no darkness can bear such powerful light.”

We’re all longing for that as believers and there’s an innate sense in which unbelievers also long for it, but they don’t realize that they long to see God’s glory.

With that said, it’s clear that we cannot see God’s glory on this side of eternity—in fact, when Moses sees part of God’s glory, he has to see it while being hidden from it lest he die (Exod 33:18-22) And yet, it doesn’t stop people in Scripture from wanting to see God’s glory.

Now, before we read the text—I do think we need to take a moment to define what we mean by God’s Glory because like faith, hope, or love, it’s an idea or a term that we use frequently, but we don’t often define it. So, what do we mean by God’s glory?

God’s glory is His intrinsic worth—it is the fullness of who He is, the sum of all His attributes and perfections. It is His holiness, wisdom, power, and beauty as the infinitely valuable God.

God’s glory is His manifested presence—it is how His worth becomes visible and experienced. e.g., when His presence fills the temple, when Jesus reveals His divine nature, or when creation displays His majesty.

God’s glory is the ultimate telos or end goal of all things—all creation exists to display and delight in God’s glory. His purpose is that everything would reflect His excellence and bring Him praise and worship.

God’s glory is the infinite beauty and worth of His being, displayed in His works and supremely revealed in Jesus—to be known, loved, and reflected by His people forever.

Of course, that brings up another question do humans participate in God’s glory?

The answer is a qualified yes—human participation in God’s glory according to Scripture is always derivative and transformative, but never divine in essence. We participate in God’s glory as we display His glory. We don’t possess His glory, but we show His glory. How we do that is simple:

We reflect His glory by virtue of who we are—as images of Him.

We reflect His glory by being transformed in redemption and sanctification.

And we will share in His glory in the consummation, when we enter into glorification and fully radiate God’s excellence.

This morning, we’re particularly interested in the concept of being transformed in sanctification for God’s glory. Specifically, we’re discussing our posture in life and how our posture in life can bring glory to God and that’s where Colossians 1:15-23 comes into play.

Let’s read the text together:

Colossians 1:15–23 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 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. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 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.

As we study this passage together, we’re going to break the sermon into two parts: (1) Soli Deo Gloria and Colossians 1:15-23 and (2) Soli Deo Gloria, the Reformation, and Today. The text explores how Jesus reveals God’s glory before showing us how we, as people united to Jesus in faith reflect God’s glory. The second part will then tie the passage to both the Reformation and today.

The goal for today is for you to better understand what God’s glory is and how you reflect His glory as His creation and as His people.

My hope for you is to desire glorifying God by living a transformed life and by submitting to Jesus.

Prayer for Illumination

Soli Deo Gloria and Colossians 1:15-23

Jesus reveals the Fullness of God’s Glory (15-20)—our first section speaks at length about who Jesus is, what He’s done, and the general posture that creation ought to have towards Him. Really, this section answers three questions, (1) who is Jesus? (2) what did Jesus do? and (3) how does creation respond to Jesus?

The first question: Who is Jesus? — in response to who is Jesus, we really see five different ideas:

v. 15—Jesus is the image of the invisible God and He is the firstborn of all creation

First, What does it mean that Jesus is the image of the invisible God? The term image really has two reoccurring meanings in Greek: (1) is that of a representation or a symbolic picture of something else. The second meaning of the word image is that of manifestation. It means that the picture is something more than just a picture or symbol—and that’s the meaning for this use of the word as context is considered.

Jesus is the very manifestation of God—Richard Melick, “The point is that in Christ the invisible God became visible. He shared the same substance as God and made God’s character known in this earthly sphere of existence. The revelation of God in Christ is such that we can actually see him, even with all of our limitations.” (Richard R. Melick, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. Vol. 32. The New American Commentary. (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1991), 215.)

Or, in other words, the distinction between Jesus and God is not that of substance but that of person—one being; three people (when including the Spirit).

Jesus is the very manifestation of God in the flesh.

Second, What does it mean that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation?

This statement’s misunderstanding has historically been the cause of some heretical ideas—in particular, the heretical idea that Jesus was created rather than has always existed. It’s essentially the concept that Jesus is greater than the rest of creation, but He’s still not God—and thus, He’s lesser than the Father.

This heresy is known as Arianism, which is named after the man Arius, who originally articulated the idea—and its seen in a few groups today: (1) Jehovah’s Witnesses, (2) Unitarians, and (3) some Mormons.

What the text means by firstborn of all creation isn’t that Jesus was literally the first to be born of creation.

The concept of firstborn includes more than just the literal idea that the person was born first—in the Ancient Near East, it spoke of a special relationship.

In this case, Jesus has a special relationship with the Father—a relationship of privilege.

Really, the concept is that Jesus is preeminent—He surpasses everything else, He’s distinguished in some way (really, in every way).

When these two ideas are rightly understood, what we get are two ideas about Jesus that are vitally important—that Jesus is the one who reveals God to us as God’s manifestation; and as He works, He is prominent or preeminent over His creation.

This is all explained as the text continues vv. 16-17, “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.” We’ll come back to this sentence later.

So, Jesus is the image of God and the firstborn of all creation

And then in v. 18—Jesus is the head of the body, which is the church. Jesus is the beginning, and Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. I think these ideas are a little easier for us to understand, but think through them with me because in a way, these statements express the extent to which Jesus is preeminent:

First, Jesus is the head of the body, which is the church itself. I know that’s contrary to how some pastors act sometimes, but the reality is that Jesus is the leader of His church.

In this case, it carries the idea that Jesus is preeminent in contrast to His church.

Second, Jesus is the beginning, which He says Himself in Revelation 1:8 “8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.””

I would suggest that in the context of Colossians 1, it carries the connotation that Jesus is preeminent on this side of eternity.

And third, Jesus is the firstborn from the dead—meaning, He is the one who actually defeats sin and death and is the first to rise in a resurrected body.

I’d suggest that in the context of Colossians 1, it carries the connotation that Jesus is preeminent on every side of eternity—after all the text continues by stating, “that in everything he might be preeminent.”

The second question: What did Jesus do?—He created and He reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Creation in Scripture is something that only God can do and He does it ex nihilo.

It’s a grand show of His power, authority, and ability when you consider that Genesis 1 presents the creation of all things out of nothing by the very power of Jesus’ voice.

Which, by the way, shows us how intimate the creation of mankind was when everything else was spoken into existence by Jesus and man was formed out of dust by His own hands and man was breathed into with the breath of life.

So Jesus created all things—and in sin, mankind rebelled against its creator, which caused a need for Jesus to “reconcile to himself all things.”

Notice that He says all things and not just mankind—this shows us to what extent sin had influenced God’s creation—that even though mankind rebelled, all creation was subjected to futility as Romans 8:20 says.

And yet, Jesus offers Himself to be the one who reconciles all things to himself by making peace by the blood of his cross—what we call the substitutionary atonement.

Why did he do all these things? The passage answers this question:

First He created all things for several reasons, but I think Colossians 1:15-23 really highlights two—all things were created to display the supremacy of Jesus Christ and all things were created for God to be glorified in the act of reconciling creation to Himself. After all, that’s really the context of all that’s going on here.

There is an element in which even if God didn’t create all things, that He would still be supreme or preeminent—however, without creation, there actually wouldn’t be anything to compare or contrast God to.

Thus, a purpose of creation is merely that—to showcase that God is different than creation.

Which brings glory to Himself.

Second, He reconciles creation to Himself to (1) make peace and (2) to again, glorify Himself.

After previous weeks in this five solas series, I hope you’ve realized that the reconciliation that Jesus affords for us is something that only He could do for us.

Thus, the concept that He makes peace for us—is really a given in Christianity. He has to make peace for us because we can’t make peace with God apart from Him.

Of course, since He has to do these things for us, then the only person who can get glory from it is really Him alone,

The third question: How ought creation (including mankind) then respond to Jesus?

Creation ought to respond to Jesus by submitting to Him. How do we know? Well the passage itself weaves the idea of submission throughout.

vv. 16-17, why is He the image of God and the firstborn of all creation—well partly because He created all things and they were created for Him, He holds all things together and He is before all things—in fact, all things were created through him and for Him.

Notice how the passage says that all things were created for Him and not for us—i.e., not for you and not for me. All things were created with an ultimate teleological focus (in philosophy teleology is the study of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve (Oxford Languages)—in other words, all things were created for an ultimate purpose.

And in, Colossians, it’s clear that the ultimate purpose of all creation is Jesus—His glory through being reconciled to Him and dwelling with Him—reconciliation and dwelling with Jesus only happens when His creation submits to Him.

And, to clarify, this isn’t the concept of submission that Muslims have towards Allah—in which Allah doesn’t really care for his creation, he just wants their obedience.

In Christianity, the concept of submission to Jesus is soaked in His care for us as His creation—Jesus doesn’t want our submission because He’s some sort of cosmic dictator, He wants our submission because He’s a shepherd caring for His sheep—and He knows what’s best for His sheep.

He wants our submission because He genuinely loves us as His people, which is why He makes peace with us through the blood of His cross.

In addition, we see the concept of submitting to Jesus as we’re reminded that He is the head of the church, He is the beginning, and He is the end.

Every local church needs to function in light of the fact that the local church is ultimately Jesus’.

Which means that every local church ultimately should be led by Jesus.

Every Christian needs to remember that Jesus is the head of the body and that He is the beginning and then end.

Which means that every Christian ultimately ought to be led by Jesus.

Jesus Reconciles Us to Reflect His Glory (21-23)—in the last three verses, Paul digs into a bit on what it means that Jesus has made peace by the blood of his cross. Look at those last three verses with me: “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 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.”

Notice the positional change that Paul emphasizes you—prior to Jesus making peace, you were one way, but now, you’re different.

Prior to Jesus making peace for you—you were alienated and hostile—in particular, you were separated and hostile towards God, Himself.

Which is contrary to how most unbelievers think of when they think of their relationship with God—most would say that they don’t really care one way or another about God.

God says, that prior to salvation, everyone is hostile towards Him—which really amplifies the idea that you are either for Jesus or against Jesus.

And yet, by Jesus’ blood on the cross, those who believe have been reconciled in his body of flesh.

There’s a reason for this, it’s so that He can “present you [as His people] holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”

Notice that the presentation of His people as holy, blameless, and above reproach only happens because of Jesus’ sacrificial atonement for His people—i.e., you can’t be holy, blameless, and above reproach without Jesus justifying you and sanctifying you.

He does this for you to reconcile you to Himself—He does this to make peace with your through Himself.

And He does all this for His own glory—because He is preeminent, the firstborn of all creation, the very manifestation of God in the flesh.

So God glorifies Himself in all these different ways, but that’s not all—as His creation, we have the priveledge to participate in glorifying God—Colossians 1 gives us to ways that we do this—How do we reflect Jesus’ Glory?

By submitting to Jesus—living in light of the truth that Jesus is preeminent vv. 15-20.

There’s a statement that’s often thrown around when talking about salvation—that you need to make Jesus Lord over your life—it’s often spoken by well-meaning people, but I think it misses a profound truth—Jesus is Lord over your life whether you want to admit it or not.

Jesus is Lord over all things because He is preeminent—He created all things and all things are subordinate to Him.

How it should be worded is that you need to submit to Jesus, who is the Lord of your life.

Submission starts with repentance, belief, and following Him—you can’t submit to Him if you don’t actually believe and follow Him.

It continues as you through the Spirit’s working within you sanctifies you as Romans 12:1–2 teaches is your spiritual service of worship “1 Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Submission to Jesus as your Lord involves learning to love what He loves and hate what He hates, it includes obeying Him even when we might want to do something else.

We glorify God by submitting to Him.

In addition, we glorify God By living a changed life—living in light of who we were and who Jesus is transforming us to be vv. 21-23

As He prepares us to be holy and blameless and above reproach and as we change through the Spirit’s sanctifying work within us—we glorify Him.

Transition: We’ll come back to all this in the application, but I want to connect this to the Reformation and to today before we get there. So, think with me about church history.

Soli Deo Gloria, the Reformation, and Today

Who received glory during the Reformation? — if we take God’s glory to mean the things that we explained in the introduction—that God’s glory is His intrinsic worth, His manifested presence, and the ultimate goal of all things—and the idea of glorifying God to mean that we submit to Jesus and we live by a changed life—I think we can clearly see that the person who was receiving glory during the Reformation wasn’t Jesus.

Consider the papacy, which we really talked about the first week of this series:

If mankind is meant to glorify God by living a changed life in submission to Jesus, what does that say about the papacy during the 1500s

Which was known for being wicked—hosting orgies in the Vatican, waging wars against unbelievers, and blatantly twisting Scripture to fit its own teaching.

God wasn’t glorified by what was happening with the church at large during the Reformation.

Consider the veneration of saints, which we talked about at length the second week of this series:

If Jesus is the means through which we are reconciled to the Father by His making peace by the blood of the cross.

If Jesus is the means through which we’ve been transformed and are being transformed to be presented as holy and blameless and above reproach

Then what does it say about the Marian veneration, the intercession of the saints, and the elevation of human people—sometimes above Jesus Himself.

God wasn’t and still isn’t glorified by the veneration of saints that happened during the Reformation and still happens to this day.

Consider the indulgence system, which we’ve talked about multiple times throughout this series:

If part of the glorification of God is the submission of His creation, which includes repenting from sin.

Then those who teach that you can be forgiven for sins committed by purchasing indulgences are teaching that you don’t really need to submit, you can keep sinning, you just have to give the church money.

Really, if you consider sin in terms of cosmic treason against an Almighty King, then what’s really happening is that the church during the Reformation taught that you can commit treason against God and purchase your way out of the consequences of your treason.

God wasn’t and still isn’t glorified by any system that makes light of sin.

And so, the Reformers sought to return the glory to God alone by restoring the Gospel to its rightful place.

Who receives glory today?

Consider how many churches glorify man rather than God

By elevating leadership

By prioritizing other things over God

Even by emphasizing emotional response rather than God’s truth.

God isn’t glorified when churches choose to glorify the creation rather than God.

Consider how many Christians glorify themselves rather than God

By choosing their own comfort over God and His people

By prioritizing themselves over God and His people.

By making decisions based on their own desires rather than on God, His Word, and His commands.

God isn’t glorified when Christians choose to glorify themselves rather than God.

And so, those of us who believe, really ought to focus our lives on doing all we can to reflect God’s glory.

Transition: With all that said, I think you’re already starting to see how exactly we can apply Colossians 1. Because Jesus is preeminent, we best glorify God by submitting to Him and by living a changed life. Let’s talk about those two application:

Application

Two ways that we reflect God’s Glory Today:

First, a way that we reflect God’s glory today is by submitting to Jesus—this includes (1) recognizing who Jesus is and (2) submitting to Him as Lord.

Recognizing who Jesus—one of the foundational points of Colossians 1:15-23 is the realization of who Jesus actually is:

He’s the image of the invisible God; He’s the firstborn of all creation; He’s the Creator; He’s the sustainer; He’s the head of the church; He is the beginning; He is the firstborn from the dead.

All of that highlights who Jesus is as the preeminent one—the one who is before all things, the one who is sovereign, the one who is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Really, it’s not a matter of making Jesus Lord of your life, it’s a matter of actually living like He is Lord of your life.

That starts with submitting to God in repentance and belief—you cannot submit to Jesus, if you don’t actually repent, believe, and follow Jesus.

Hebrews 11:6 “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.”

With that said, if your someone who has yet to repent and believe—if you do repent and believe, your repentance and belief will reflect God’s glory in how Jesus saves.

It continues by allowing the knowledge of who Jesus is to influence your life in other ways:

Knowing that Jesus Created all things and that He desires to know you should help you see just how much God wants to dwell with you as His people.

Knowing that Jesus is the image of the invisible God and that you know Jesus ought to cause you to revel in God’s graciousness—that the God who is above all is willing to condescend to know you.

Knowing that Jesus is the beginning and the end ought to cause you to trust Him—because He has all things under His own power and control and He knows the beginning and the end.

More could be said here, but for sake of time, let’s talk about the last application.

Part of glorifying God is submitting to Jesus—so submit to Him.

Second, a way that we reflect God’s glory today is by living a changed life—this is the idea of submitting to Jesus in all of life—and let me be abundantly clear that these are all things that are only possible because the Holy Spirit indwells and works within us as He sanctifies us concerning sin, obedience, and affections.

Concerning Sin—we ought to constantly be growing in such a way that we disdain our own sinfulness and so we continue to repent from our sin.

It really shouldn’t be said about a Christian that that Christian loves his sin—rather, it ought to be well known that that Christian opposes his own sin and is quick to repent when confronted about his own sin.

That doesn’t mean that Christians won’t struggle with sin—but does mean that it is genuinely a struggle and not just jumping into sin whenever the opportunity arises.

I can’t help but to think of John Owen’s quote about sin—to be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

Rejecting your sin, reflects God’s glory.

Concerning Obedience—I mean this in more ways than just concerning sin.

Meaning, of course, that when Jesus calls something sinful, we should reject it—which is a negative example of obedience.

There’s also positive examples for obedience to consider as well—Jesus calls you to make disciples, you need to obey that call; Jesus calls you to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to obey that call; Jesus calls you to care for the orphaned and widowed, you need to obey that call.

Christianity isn’t just about rejecting sin; it’s about actually following Jesus.

Obeying Jesus, reflects God’s glory.

Concerning Affections—I mean this in terms of your hearts desires.

Our biggest issue in life is disordered affection—we love things that we shouldn’t love, we desires things that we ought not desire; and even when it comes to good things—our affections are often still disordered.

Recognizing that Jesus is preeminent means learning to live with Jesus as preeminent in your life—that is fundamentally an issue of affections.

Christianity isn’t just about rejecting sin; it’s not just about obeying Jesus—it’s really about loving Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Loving Jesus, reflects God’s glory.

Part of glorifying God is living a changed life—so, reject sin, obey Jesus, and love Him.

Friends, you exist to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever—you do that by submitting to Jesus and living a changed life.

My prayer for all of us is that as we go into our next chapter—we make our decisions with God’s glory in mind. As we leave here, as we look for a new church, and as we get rooted in the community there—our primary concern is submission to Jesus and a changed life that glorifies Him.

In the next chapter, let’s look forward to seeing God’ glory made visible—radiating through creation, revealed in Christ, and reflected in His people.

Pastoral Prayer