Colossians 1:15-20
Prison Letters Colossians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Poem: It is harder for us to see in the English. The Greek just flows and sounds so beautiful. The poem allows one more dimension to understanding the greatness of our God.
I try to write in Amy’s birthday cards or in our anniversary cards to put into words how great I love her. I try. I try sometimes to write poems and create words that describe in words the love I have for her. Just speaking the words are not enough.
If I can sometimes get on a role, then man is starts to get there.
This section of scripture shows us that Christ is Lord. We see it in the words but also in the Greek it is the beautiful poem that flows and leaves us in awe.
Can anyone read Greek? I wish it was so. I even looked for a reading online of this passage in the Greek and I did not find it yet.
(Pray)
7 Unique Characteristics of Christ
Christ is..
The image of God
The firstborn over creation
The creator of the universe
The head of the church
The firstborn from the dead
The fullness of God
The reconciler of all things
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
He is the image of the invisible God
Image implies representation and manifestation
Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s being
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 said anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Any one who saw Christ who is the visible manifestation of the invisible God, has thereby seen God indirectly.
Image: (Eikon)
The very Substance or essential embodiment of something or someone
This word does not always mean perfect image.
Here the word and context demands that Christ is the perfect visible representation and manifestation of God.
Christ is the perfect resemblance and representation of God
Alistair Begg says, “God loves only one person the way he was. That was Jesus”
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
He is the Firstborn over all Creation
This says two things of Christ
He preceded the whole Creation and He is Sovereign over all Creation
Jesus declares himself first in Revelation 1:17 and here the word means absolutely first.
Firstborn also implies sovereignty
Firstborn:
Christ’s priority to all Creation (In time)
Christ is Sovereign over all Creation (in Rank)
Easton’s Bible Dictionary Sovereignty
SOVEREIGNTY—of God, his absolute right to do all things according to his own good pleasure
16 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.
17 He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.
By Him all things were created
All things were created by Him and for Him and in Him they hold together
Instrumental Final Cause Conserving Cause
Christ is the one who all things came to be but Christ is also the one by who all things continue to exist.
Father God is the ultimate source and the Son is the mediating cause of the world. Jesus is the “master workman” of Creation. He is the beginning of the Creation of God.
Notice what it includes:
Everything was created by Him in heaven and on earth,
The visible and the invisible
Thrones or dominions
Rulers or authorities
All things have been created through Him and for Him
18 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.
Christ is the Head of the body, the church
Christ is the head of the universal church into which all believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit the moment they believe in Christ
Christ is the head of the church here at Bridge of Faith
Christ is the head of the that reaches way beyond Bridge of Faith
Christ the head of the church that reaches beyond denominations
This special body of which Christ is the head is neither Jew nor Gentile but it is the whole new creation of God
Christ is the firstborn from among the dead
Christ was the first to rise in an immortal body
Christ resurrection marked victory over death
Christ was the firstfruits of those who die.
Christ rose to never die again.
Sin leads to death
Jesus did not sin so the grave could not hold him
He defeated the grave
In this Christ is supreme over everything.
Christ is the first place over all creation. He is before all. Christ came in the flesh and lived among us, he humbled himself by dyeing on the cross and he is now exalted by God the Father to the highest place and has been given the name that is above every name.
19 For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,
God’s fullness dwells in Him
This is one of the most powerful descriptions of Christ’s deity in the New Testament
Fullness (pleroma): completeness
This full or complete Deity (God) is said to dwell
Dwell (Katoikeo): abide lastingly or permanently in Christ
20 and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Christ is the reconciler of all things
Through Christ God will reconcile all things on earth and things in heaven to himself.
People are reconciled to God himself. Let’s be clear that it is not the other way around. That is that God is reconciled back to us. We are the ones who are lost and sinners that need reconciled back to a Holy God.
Christ is..
The image of God
The firstborn over creation
The creator of the universe
The head of the church
The firstborn from the dead
The fullness of God
The reconciler of all things
