Jesus, The Agent of Creation
Notes
Transcript
Last year in Bible Club, we taught the students a song called “Jesus Christ is the Same” from Slugs and Bugs. If you were here for our closing ceremony last year then you would have heard that song.
The title of the song is from Hebrews 13:8, and that portion serves as the chorus of the song.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
The verses and the bridge of the song come from Colossians 1:15-20. The intent of the song thus is to teach the listener both Hebrews 11, and Colossians 1:15-20.
My goal in teaching this song to them was to instill in them significant passages of Scripture that they might remember for their whole lives.
I am thankful to say that for at least a few of these students it worked. I heard back that at least three of our students were heard singing the chorus of the song at home. To date at home, my kids, my wife and myself can at times be caught singing the song.
So it worked.
Music is strongly tied to memory. Studies have shown that those who are struggling with dementia and severe memory loss will often maintain the ability to play an instrument long after they have forgotten much else. This is also why music is often used to remember important things.
Music is also often turned to in times of trouble. So the songs that you have committed to memory are what comes out in times of suffering.
One tragic example of this was in 2020 - when the world was still shut down, a lot of people were in immense despair, so the entertainers did what they do and they took to YouTube to create collaborative short-form content since they couldn’t make movies and TV shows.
One such instead was were a group of 26 celebrities created a video of them singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” during Covid. I think they thought it would be the “We Are the World” of 2020. But now it maintains the reputation of being just awful. The person whose idea it was has even said it was one of her biggest regrets in her career. But the reason why that it is so tragic is because there is no hope in that song.
When it seems like the world is falling apart and you have no hope - then to turn and “imagine there is no heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky.” If that’s what you turn to in despair then I pity you. There’s no hope in that.
God has written eternity on the hearts of man, so those without hope for eternity have no choice but to imagine that he hasn’t. How miserable…
This is why we need to make sure that our homes and our churches are filled with songs of truth, and songs of robust meaning about God and his Word. This is I take the task of what we sing so seriously.
So when hardship comes - and we don’t know how to pray but we can still mumble through a song of comfort - the language of “Be Still My Soul” or “He Will Hold Me Fast” is what comes out…
Or from “It Is Well” - “My sin oh the bliss of that glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more praise the Lord Praise the Lord Oh My Soul.”
Or Abide With Me “Hold Thou My Cross Before My closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies heaven morning breaks and earths vain shadows flee in life and death lord abide with me.”
I firmly believe that this is Paul’s intent in recording this passage.
Colossians 1:15-20 is widely believed to be an early Christian hymn. The reason for this is because it is structured like a poem or a hymn. It has a two verses, and seemingly a chorus or a bridge.
I will get to the structure in just a moment. Before I do, that is significant because the poetic nature to the texts lead me to believe that this is the sort of text, or song that should come to mind when life hurts. When the cares of this world squeeze you, this should be the juice that comes out.
That Jesus is eternal. Jesus is creator. Jesus is redeemer.
And I’m going to throw the structure of the hymn up on the screen. And we’re going to dissect that for a moment.
Colossians 1:15–20
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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.
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.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
If we look at the structure we see the statement:
Now I have removed the verse numbers from this because they interrupt the flow of the hymn, but I will still refer to them because it is necessary.
The structure follows this - verse 15-16 one section. The first stanza of a hymn.
He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, for in him all things were made, in heaven and upon the earth, seen and unseen, thrones or dominions or rulers, or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.
First I am going to comment on the structure, then we will go back and look at the content.
So to break that down -
We have He is the image of the invisible - a declaration about who Jesus is
then it follows with the firstborn of all creation… the language of firstborn here is repeated in the second stanza
Then Paul further explains what that means with “for by him” (Though the ESV and some other translations have for by him in 16 and for in him for 19 - it’s the same phrase.)
Stanza 1 and Stanza 2, both follow the format:
He is the…
The firstborn
For by him/for in him
Then there is another section, let’s call it a bridge. A bridge in a song provides a change from the rest of the song and yet often brings the song together. It often will have a different feel than the rest of the song - different chords or lyrically it may bring everything together.
And this part in verses 17- the first part of 18 serve the same purpose.
This bridge section is composed of two statements starting with “AND HE IS.”
And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body the church.
This middle section as it were is a joining statement that connects the two themes of both stanzas. The theme of Stanza One is that Jesus is the Agent of Creation, and the theme of Stanza two is that Jesus is the Agent of Redemption.
This language of agent isn’t from the Scriptures, but rather a theological term that applies to Jesus’ special actions in Creation as well as in Redemption.
All three persons of the Trinity, The Father, the Son and the Spirit - are active in the creation of all things, and in the redemption of God’s elect… however, Jesus specially acts on behalf of the Father in both of these aspects.
Paul is declaring Jesus’ role as Creator, and sovereign King over Creation, and then immediately tying that to Jesus’ role as redeemer and head of the church.
The two main points of Paul’s hymn in Colossians 1:15-20 is:
Jesus is the Agent of Creation
Everything that created was created because of Jesus.
Jesus is the Agent of Redemption
Everything that was redeemed was redeemed because of Jesus.
This morning we will focus on attention on Stanza 1: Jesus as the Agent of Creation. What that means about Jesus, and what that means for us. And then in following weeks we will come back to look at Stanza 2: Jesus as the Agent of Redemption.
Agent of Creation
Agent of Creation
Looking at the first phrase there in our first stanza in verses 15 and 16. We first read: He is the Image of the Invisible God.
Paul is making a statement about Jesus’ divinity. That those who have Jesus have seen God.
One theologian A.T. Robertson used the illustration of a stamp. When you press a stamp on paper you get exactly what the stamp shows transferred to the paper. Or as another theologian wrote “the embodied Christ is the exact replica of the non-embodied Father.”
Jesus himself says something to this extent in John 14:9:
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
And the writer of Hebrews tells us something similar:
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Though God is invisible, Jesus in human flesh reveals to us the invisible God. Those who beheld Jesus with their eyes saw God.
And yet there is a nature to the language that is used here that draws us back to the creation of man.
In Genesis 1:27 the Lord speaks and says “Let us create man in our own image”. Thus Adam was created in the image of God, and every human being ever born bares the image of God. At the fall in Genesis 3, that image was marred. We still bear that image, but it has been stained and damaged by sin.
Yet Christ, the second Adam, accomplishes what Adam failed to accomplish. Christ reflects the image that Adam and others should have reflected but did not. This is because Jesus is God in human flesh. But also that he perfectly did that which Adam did not, he was perfectly obedient to the law and the will of the Father.
The following phrase is “He is the firstborn of all creation.” This has the potential to be a confusing phrase. First born does not refer to Jesus’ birth.
This is not a statement of not of origin, but rather as a rank. He’s not referring to Jesus’ birth in the first century. He’s referring to Jesus’ rank as King of Creation.
In fact, this cannot refer to Jesus’ beginning - because he doesn’t have a beginning, but must refer to Jesus’ status. In Israelite families, the firstborn gained authority by virtue of being given the inheritance rights. We see this with Jacob and Esau. Also when we consider that of a monarch, though we don’t live in that form of government, we did see that in 2022 when the Queen of England passed away - following that her firstborn son was crowned as King of England.
The title of Firstborn of Creation is asserting that Jesus has all the rights and privileges of the firstborn son of a ruler. One who would inherit rule over the kingdom. Jesus is the supreme ruler over everything created because he created it.
The same language of firstborn is applied to David in Psalm 89. To show that David was to be the highest of kings - but if you know the story of David, then you know that it was significant that David was not the firstborn.
27 And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
Now in verse 16 we read that 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.
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.
While is writing of Jesus’ supremacy of creation. Paul is also writing of his eternality.
For example:
If all created things are created in Jesus and for Jesus, by definition, Jesus must be excluded from that. Thus he cannot be created. He is eternal. There was never a time when he was not.
I’m sure you have heard me say that before. I harp on this concept a lot. Here’s why:
Every few years Ligonier Ministries alongside LifeWay published the state of Theology Survey. The questions vary in the different years so the 2025 survey was different from the 2022 survey. In 2022 they asked people to respond to the statement “Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.” 70% of evangelicals who were surveyed (711) stated that they agreed that Jesus is the first and greatest begin created by God… 70% of evangelicals surveyed said they strongly agreed with heresy.
Jesus cannot be the first and greatest created being because Jesus was not created. Jesus himself says as much many times over “Before Abraham was I am” in John 8:58. And yet even clearer in Revelation 1:17-18 Jesus speaking to John after John has gazed upon the glory of the Lord, Jesus speaks and says “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore…”
This language of the first and the last… is language that is found in the Old Testament that is exclusively reserved for Yahweh, which you can see in Isaiah 41, 44 and 48.
A similar statement is recorded in Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” In Revelation, John’s applying of the Isaianic language is a clear declaration of Jesus’ eternal nature, which agrees with and helps us to fill out and further understand what Paul is writing here.
John bookends his Revelation with these statements of Jesus’ divinity and eternality.
In addition to that though, Paul is also communicating to us that Jesus has created all things. The things on earth, the things in heaven, the things that we see every day, the things that we cannot see. Everything was created through him and for him.
And in the reference to thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities. Seems to refer to both earthly powers, well as to spiritual. Whether governments of this world or angels. Jesus has supremacy over these things. He reigns eternally over them. They were created to glorify him. And though the governments rage against him - he will triumph over them - and he will glorify himself in their demise. Romans 13 teaches us that governments are made to be God’s servant, for a time they may rebel against him but he will hold them in derision and conquer them. Psalm 2 speaks of this when it says to honor the son lest he be angry.
And Paul continues on, in his middle section of the hymn, in that bridge he starts with “he is before all things. And in him all things hold together.”
Jesus is the reason why the earth stays in orbit of the sun. Jesus is the reason why the earth continues to spin on its axes. Jesus is the very reason that we exist. Jesus is the agent and the purpose of creation.
And it is in that second part of the bridge portion at the beginning of verse 18, where Paul shifts his focus to Jesus as the agent of redemption - but we’ll save that for next time.
To bring this all down from the theological and to move to the practical for a moment. If Jesus is first in all things… in eternity, in creation and in redemption… and if all things, including us were created in him and for him, what should that mean about human beings? That our entire lives ought to be devoted to bringing him the glory that he deserves. In his salvation of sinners he was glorify himself.
This is true for all human beings. You were made to worship. Everyone is going to worship something or someone. You can either worship the one who is worthy to receive power, and wealth and wisdom nad might and honor and glory and blessing. The lamb who sits on the throne and reigns forever and ever… or you can worship something lesser.
Coming out of this text we ought to appropriately ask how should we live knowing that all things that have been created have been created through Jesus and for Jesus? How should your
Your home. Your workplace. The golf course. Your hobbies. Your kitchen. Your family. This church.
All of those things have been created to glorify to God.
How can you maximize the glory that he righty deserves in every aspect of your life? if all things were created through him and for him - then they should all be used for his glory… which shows that we have no place to compartmentalize our faith. Your worried about sharing your faith with neighbor or family member but they were created to glorify Jesus.
The question that is often on the minds of may in our culture today is “what is my purpose in life?” or more specifically “What was I created for?” And this text, gives us the answer ot that. What were you created for? To Glorify God. You were created to bring glory to Jesus.
The proverbs tell us that God has made everything for its purpose - even the wicked for the day of trouble. So God will be glorified either way. However, as Christians we have the responsibility, and opportunity to tell others, that they were created to bring glory to God. And they can do that by turning from their sins, believing in Jesus and obeying his commands.
As we continue through the book of Colossians we will read how Paul makes this theology practical. Here he sets up the glorious true that Christ is the Agent of Creation, the the purpose of all of *THIS* all of you - is to glorify him - and he alone is worthy. As Paul continues his letter his shows that because Jesus is before all things, because he holds all things together - because Salvation and redemption is found only in him… then we ought to live according to his laws, his commands and in a manner that glorifies him.
