Christ the Preeminent

Introduction: Christ the Creator and Reconciler of the Universe

In the first chapter of Colossians, the Apostle Paul is passionately expressing the joy he has because of what God has done among them. He reports how he has faithfully and repeatedly kept this congregation in prayer, specifically for the knowledge and spiritual wisdom to confront some false teaching that they are being exposed to. While the exact content of this false teaching is not clear, the outcome of it is that Christ’s person and work are deminished while other ideas are being centralized. The Judaizers seem to have made their way to Collosae and were emphasizing the need to keep Sabbaths, Jewish festivals, and to embrace extreme ascestic practices. They also pulled focus away from Christ and taught the veneration of angels, chasing visions and dreams, and overall creating a religion centred on human works and effort rather than the finished work of Christ.

So, what better way to begin this letter than to point the believers to the object of genuine Christian faith: Christ himself. In our text, Paul focuses on Christ’s preeminance as the one who reveals the invisible God, over all of creation as her creator, and over the church. By pointing his readers to the exalted and preeminant Lord of all, he points them to his work on the cross and the glory of such a gospel which, when contrasted with any competing idea or object of worship, shows it to be true, perfect, and effective at bringing them to know God and obtain eternal life.

Paul’s Thanksgiving for the Gospel at Work

Verses 15-18 are commonly thought to be part of an early Christian hymn that Paul is quoting as he puts his focus on Christ. Whether or not this is the case, there is no doubt that verses 15-20 are doxological. In other words, this passage is not simply a theological treatise on the greatness of Christ, it is a deeply feeling passage of worship founded firmly on the truth of who Jesus is.

In verse 13, as Paul is telling his readers about his prayer for them to have spiritual wisdom and growth into spiritual maturity so that they may endure in their faith, he tells them that he has also been praising God for what he has already done in them. Paul is eager to look forward for them, but is also ready to rejoice at how far they have come. Their journey to faith is, of course, not due to their own strength or spiritual wisdom, but because they have been “qualified” to share in the inheritance of the saints. This inheritance is described in verse 13 as two things:

First, as deliverance from the domain of darkness. Paul’s theology solidly puts all human beings, fallen in Adam, as belonging to a spiritual kingdom ruled by Satan and composed of rebels against God. These are held captive by sin and death and live in a slavery of the heart to them until they die and recieve the reward of that service in death and judgement. In Christ, however, those qualified by God in his free election are given a living faith by the Spirit to believe and be justified. This justification sets the sinner free from the tyranny of sin and the fear of death and hell.

Second, they are not only delivered from a kingdom of darkness and evil, but also unto another Kingdom, the Kingdom of Christ God’s beloved Son. After his death for sins, he rose from the dead, made atonement in the heavenly temple, and is now seated at God’s right hand as King of all Kings. It is into his Kingdom that we are delivered and in him we have redemption from our previous slavery and forgiveness from the evil we have committed against his eternal authority. By his redemption, we are free to leave the service of sin and death and come over, fully forgiven and justified, into the service of righteousness and the inheritance of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul uses this opportunity of thanksgiving to wax poetic on a doxilogical description of the preeminance of Christ. Preeminance refers to Christ’s position as first, greatest, and most glorious. In this poem or hymn, Paul specifies three areas over which Christ is first, greatest, and most glorious. His preeminance in these three areas are meant to draw us to his majesty, wonder at his glory, and love him for his saving work.

Preeminant in Revealing the Invisible God

First, we see Christ as preeminant as the one who reveals God. This has some parallel to the first few verses of Hebrews 1. There, we see the author emphasize how God communicated in previous generations through prophets carrying the messages of angels. This is contrasted with the Son of God, the Word, who perfectly communicates to humanity from God.

Because God is transcendant, we are unable to experience him directly. Just as a microscopic dust mite cannot really know or communicate with a human, so God is so lofty and high above us that we cannot possibly know him without some form of mediation; someone to reveal him to us and facilitate our relationship.

In his incarnation, the invisible God became visible to us by embracing human nature. Being fully God, he can truly represent his invisible essense and character. Being fully human, he can truly know and be known by us. When we read that Christ is the image of the invisible God, this does not mean a copy which is less than the real thing, but rather it emphasizes his ability to make the invisible God known to us.

Preeminant Over All Creation

Secondly, we see Christ as preeminant over all creation. In his incarnation, the second person of the Godhead entered the created realm and, by his perfect obedience to the Father, became the human ruler of creation that neither Adam nor any of those he represents could.

Being called the firstborn of all creation in verse 15 has brought much confusion to some, and even made this text central in the Arian heresy. However, if we pay close attention to this text, it speaks of the Son being the means by which all things were created. How could he himself be created if all things were created through him? Firstborn is not referring to an event that happened in time, but rather a status of position and inheritance in the created world. In other words, it means Jesus is preeminant over all created things.

In the OT and other Jewish literature, Wisdom is often spoken of as a person, separate from God, who yet was a part of God and proceeded from him. While the early church Fathers would go on to use OT wisdom language to refer to the Holy Spirit, here Wisdom language applied to Christ. Proverbs 8:27-31 speaks from the perspective of wisdom like this:

Proverbs 8:27–31 ESV

When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

Paul takes similar language that was often used of Wisdom and uses it for Christ. This does not mean that Proverbs is speaking directly of the Son personally, but rather Paul is taking this language of God having somone with him through him he creates and relates to the world and shows Christ to fill the role. In other words, the world was created by the Father’s wisdom mediated through the Son.

All of creation is included here; not just the physical world, but the spiritual world also. Heaven and earth, visible and invisible. Powers and authorities often refers to spiritual beings who have certain influence or authority over the world. While God the Father spoke the universe into being, God the Son was the Word in the beginning (John 1:1) who carried out that creative work.

However, unlike wisdom, all things were not only created through, but also for Him. This makes him not only the cause and instrument of the creative work, but also the central purpose of creation. This makes the Son not a mere servant or agent of God, but shows him to be God himself. Since all things exist for the glory of God, and all creation exists for the Son, the Son is God as the second person of the Triune Godhead.

Verse 17 also tells us that he is before all things, again as the uncreated Son, and holds all things together. Through science we can certainly see the mechanisms in place by which the universe runs and works, but no scientific discovery has or will ever contradict the truth that it is Christ who holds it together. While science can show us the physical mechanisms in the natural world, those mechanisms are held in place and sustained by the Providential power of Christ. He upholds them and, were he to retract his power even fore a moment, all natural forces and laws would cease and reality itself would fall apart. Little did those who crucified Jesus know that the person they torchered and nailed to a cross was keeping their organs running, their neurons firing, and even the oxygen molecules they inhaled from breaking down into nothing.

So, being both the crafter, sustainer, and owner of all creation makes Christ preeminant. His coming in human flesh brought the divine nature into the created world and made him not only the King over all creation, but preeminant among all created things.

Preeminant Among God’s People

Thirdly, Christ is preeminant among God’s People. Verse 18 identifies Christ as the head of the body which is the church. This church is not an assemply of loosely related peoples with similar religious convictions, but a spiritual body joined together by Covenant in Christ who is the head of that body. That is, he is preeminant among those whom God is redeeming unto glory and immortality.

He is the beginning, the founder of God’s people. Before Abraham was, the Son was and he established that covenant with the Father of Faith. In his incarnation, Christ fulfilled that covenant in the establishement of a new covenant in his blood. Without him, there is no relationship between God and man and therefore no covenant people of God.

He is also the firstborn from the dead. This isn’t saying that no one ever experienced resurrection before Christ, such as Lazerus or the widow’s son. Those resurrections were temporary and did not bring about glorified eternal life, but only a return to life as we experience now. What Jesus is first to experience is the final resurrection from the dead. When he rose from the tomb on the third day, the final resurrection officially began. We may wonder why its taking so long for the rest of us to join him, but God is eager to show mercy to this dying world for as long as possible. Still, in his resurrection he officially inaugerated the age of the Kingdom and the resurrecction and, among all those who will rise, he is preeminant. Those who are resurrected unto eternal life are God’s children and of course for any of us to be saved we need our spiritual older brother, Christ, to bring us along and share in his resurrection life.

To be raised from the dead is also a glorifying event. Those who are raised will see the face of God, will be raised to be higher than the heavenly beings, and will even judge angels. To be the first among that group makes him preeminant in everything. Human beings are the image bearers who were called to care for and rule this world. Christ has fulfilled this mandate and brought the human race to rule over all created things in glory. Among these, he is above them, the first, most majestic, and most highly lifted up among all that exists.

Reconciled by Preeminant Blood

In verse 19, all the fullness of God is seen to have dwelt in bodily form. When we speak of the man Jesus, we are speaking about a divine person. His blood is the blood of God. In fact, a lot of people don’t realize that calling Mary the Mother of God was not a Roman Catholic to adore Mary, it was an ealy church title to magnify Jesus, for his mother did give birth to a fully divine human child. Therefore, the glory of Christ among Creation is the glory of God over and above all creation. He truly is Emmanuel, God with us, and since God came to be with us sinful human beings, we see the most powerful love imaginable in his purpose to reconcile all things to himself.

And it is all things, whether in heaven or on earth. The redemption of humanity has purposes far beyond what we see or know. Romans 8:22 tells us that all creation is groaning for our redemption. In creation, God brought chaos into order and established rest for his creation. Sin and rebellion, both from Satan and through his temptations from humanity, brought disorder to both the physical and spiritual world. Christ’s redemption not only saves our souls, not only brings us to glory, but through it Jesus will bring all Creation into rest again. He will punish and condemn those who refused to repent and continue to bring disorder into the world, he will raise us up in holiness in perfect wisdom and righteousness. With him as our head, preeminant above all, the created world will be finally brought back to rest, for it will finally be united to God in Christ.

Conclusion

Our salvation, the salvation of all creation, and universal unity with our Creator is the peace that was made by the blood of his cross. Hopefully you see Christ as more glorious than ever before. Although the world may see a pitiful Rabbi shamefully stomped under the harsh heel of Roman rule, we see in the cross the ultimate victory for him and for all creation.

Some were coming along trying to distract the Colossian believers by detracting from Christ and pointing to the glory of angels, of outdated ritual, and of a man-made religion of self-imposed suffering. Likewise, some will try to distract you by detracting from Christ. It may be the world trying to fill you up with lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes, and the boastful pride in worldly security; indeed, many become so distracted by what they see in this life that Christ becomes small and insignificant in thier life as they pursue all the things their heart desires.

Or, you may be tempted to be distracted from Christ by means of man-made religion. Some ascetic practices, such as fasting, are clearly benefitial to the Christian life. But a life driven by a desire for discipline as an end, rather than a means to a closer walk with Christ, is idolatry and means nothing to God. Roman Catholicism distracts and detracts from Christ’s glory by lifting up Mary his human mother, even though Christ himself identified believers and doers of his word as his true mother and sisters and brothers. Icons venerated, saints prayed to, priests honoured with the spiritual title father which Christ specifically told us not to give to human leaders, all distract and detract from a simple but powerful faith in Christ. Protestantism has its share of this as well and they don’t have to be bad in themselves: homeschooling can distract and detract, so can music preferences, so can preaching styles, or spiritual gifts, or our knowledge of the Bible, or even sound, Christ-honouring theology can distract and detract from the preeminance of Christ in our lives.

Throughout your life as a believer, voices are going to be pulling you away from the preeminance of Christ towards something else. Come daily before him in all his glory, let the Gospel warm your heart more and more in love for what he has done for you. Stop every once and a while, step back from the little things in your life, and look at the big picture of all things being united in Christ by his blood. Let it fill you with wonder, and then look at the distractions, not because you desire them, but because you pity every eye that is stuck looking at that and not looking at Him.