Introduction
If
you are a follower of Jesus Christ, have you spent much time contemplating why?
I know, it’s obvious right—died on the cross, rose from the dead, forgave our
sins—the usual right. But I want you to think harder; I’m challenging you to
consider not why you believe in Jesus but why are you in love with Jesus (I am assuming you’re in love with Jesus).
I think about this often and I invariable wind up shaking my head at the
absurdity that the Creator of the universe went to such extremes to be in
relationship with me. My guess is
that many of you out there feel the same way I do. I posted a lesson last week
that was critical of a sociologist that wrote a book attempting to explain the
original growth of Christianity. Written by an unbeliever, the author simply
passed off Christianity’s growth as essentially comparable to the growth of all
other religions, generally and specifically. I was critical of the author’s
methodology and the fact that he neglected to consider God’s role in the growth
of Christianity. The point of my criticism was that Christianity has never been
like any other religion—not because of its superior theology but because of
Jesus; the audacity of God to condescend to our level to demonstrate his love
for us. Over the nearly 100 lessons I have posted to this point, no other
single lesson has been received with as much anger and vitriol as was that
lesson. Honestly, I was a little shocked. Not by the degree of venom that was
being spewed but by the sheer volume of angry comments. The general tenor of
the comments condemned my insistence that Christianity was not the same as
other religions and that because I was critical of a secular scientific
explanation, I was the “typical” anti-science Christian and an ignorant rube to
boot (the actual comments about me were not nearly as polite). Well, for those
of you who know me, I’m not “typical”—anything. You might call me strange,
weird or odd but hopefully not typical. Furthermore, I’m not even remotely
anti-science although I refuse to conform to the belief that science is the
answer to every question. Finally, I don’t consider myself an ignorant rube but
I will concede that I believe Jesus Christ is Above All of creation and
as such places Christianity Above All other religions. More importantly,
however, is the cross—I can’t get over the cross. That’s the piece that unbelievers
just don’t get. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, left his throne and allowed
Himself to be put to death because he knew it was the only way we could be in
relationship with Him for eternity. Jesus Christ wants to be in relationship
with us Above All and gave his life to prove it. There is nothing that has ever
or will ever be able to compete with that message. This is the essence of the
Gospel message; a message that Paul preached with regularity. Paul summarizes
that message beautifully in his letter to the Church in Colosse. It is majestic
in its description of Jesus’ divinity and moving as it describes the magnitude
of Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. Let’s look at Paul’s Gospel message to the
Colossians in greater detail.
Subject Text
Colossians 1:15-23
15He is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him
and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness
dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your
minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight,
without blemish and free from accusation—23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has
been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I,
Paul, have become a servant.
Context
Many
believe our subject text is either a hymn or poem to be sung in praise and
thanksgiving. Which makes it all the more amazing since Paul is writing this
letter to the Colossians while under house arrest in Rome. Colosse is about 100
miles east of Ephesus which served as the epicenter for the Church in the
provinces of Asia. Although not nearly as influential to Christianity’s evangelical
outreach as was Ephesus, Colosse was, nevertheless, an important trading center
in the region. As such, Colosse, like other trading centers, was a crossroad
for new ideas and countless religions. As was the case in some of his other
letters, Paul seems to be battling against the insidious religion of Gnosticism
in his letter to the Colossians. Gnostics believed that a special knowledge was
needed to be accepted by God, even for Christians. Paul says that since the day
he found out that a church had been established in Colosse by Epaphras, he has prayed
for them that they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through
spiritual wisdom and understanding (Col 1:7-10). Paul expected their knowledge
of God to be reflected in their lives through their good works. He makes it
clear that there is no “special” knowledge necessary for their salvation and
ours. Instead, God has revealed all we need to know for our salvation through
His Son, Jesus Christ. To demonstrate that no “special” knowledge is required
for salvation, Paul clarifies for them exactly who Jesus is and why knowing and
believing in Him is all they would need to secure their eternal salvation.
Text
Analysis
There
are many people (even enemies of Christianity) who are prepared to concede many
things about Jesus; He was a great prophet; He was a good (maybe even sinless)
man; He was smart, kind and compassion; He was a miracle worker. But that’s
usually as far as they are prepared to go, insisting that Jesus was bestowed
with his divinity hundreds of years after his death by Church leaders formally
at the Council of Nicea in 325 A. D. (http://seredinski.blogspot.com/2011/10/when-jesus-became-god.html).
But v. 15 doesn’t allow for that belief. We can use countless verses outside of
the Gospels to build a sound theology for the divinity of Jesus which is a
tremendous faith-building exercise that I challenge you to do. However, Paul
allows us to cut right to the chase with this verse. Jesus is the image of the
invisible God. Paul is saying that if you’ve seen Jesus then you’ve seen God.
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God—the verb is present tense,
describing Jesus’ position now and forever. God as Spirit is invisible and
always will be. God’s Son is his visible expression. He not only reflects God,
but, as God, he reveals God to us.”[1] This verse is like a
raised sledgehammer poised to strike an anvil with a force whose magnitude
won’t be understood until the later verses of our subject text.
Some
additional context will help us understand the full impact of v. 16 for the
Colossians. There was a fairly large Jewish population in Colosse as many Jews
fled there to escape the persecutions under Antiochus III and IV nearly two
centuries before Christ. The Jews would have been very familiar with the
creation narrative in Genesis and God’s sovereign rule over all things in heaven
and earth. Therefore, attributing the creation and sovereign rule of all things
to Christ in vv. 16-17 reinforces the proclamation of Christ’s divinity in v.
15. Think about the implications of what Paul is saying. What do you suppose is
the primary implication of the simple assertion that “by him all things were created?” If “all”
things were created by Christ, then Christ cannot be a created being; Christ
had to exist before creation. “Pre-existence was not attributed to Christ
simply through a process of intellectual adaptation or speculative thought.
Fundamental was the conviction, born of Jesus’ career and the subsequent
powerful religious life of the earliest Christian groups, that Christ
personally and uniquely embodied the divine salvific purpose and bore
surpassing significance. And the Pauline writings show that the pre-existence
of Christ was meaningful in the practical purposes of ethical exhortation and
religious identity-formation.”[2]
Having, therefore, established that Christ existed prior to creation as well as
being the agent of creation, what does it mean when Paul makes the claim that
“in him [Christ] all things hold together?” As the father of two beautiful
girls, I can say that I participated, in part, in their creation. However, as
any parent will tell you, sustaining the lives of our children after they are
conceived is essentially out of our hands. That leaves parents with three
options: 1) Spend our lives trying to regain control over our children in a
futile attempt to sustain them throughout their lives; 2) Spend our lives
trying to ignore a fact that grinds on our minds and gnaws at our guts that we
have no power to sustain the lives of our children; or 3) Surrender the lives
of our children to God with the understanding that He is the One that is the
Sustainer of creation. “The Son is the centre of unity for the universe. He
keeps all its parts in the proper place and due relations and combines them
into an ordered whole. Apart from Him it would go to pieces.”[3]
Paul
goes on in v. 18 to tell us the position that Christ holds in relation to the
Church, precisely what qualifies him to hold that position, and the authority that
accrues to that position. Because the Church exists specifically as an
outworking of the ministry of Jesus Christ, it is logical that Christ would be
the head of the Church as identified in v. 18a. Furthermore, Christ is
qualified to hold that position because he is the one and only one to lay down
his life and by his own power, take it back up (Jn 10:17). It is one thing to
be an instrument in restoring someone else’s life as Jesus so often did, it is
quite another to be the instrument in restoring one’s own life. Consider what
Paul is saying in v. 18b. Christ existed before creation so that he could be
the agent of creation (“he is the beginning”), he became incarnate as a man so
that he could lay down his life and by his own power be the first (and only)
one to take his own life back up again, and because creation, life and death
are completely within His control, he is by necessity supreme according to v.
18c. “The clause here is a true purpose clause, expressing God’s intention of
ultimately bringing all of creation under his rule through Christ. Christ rules
the church with the purpose of bringing all things ultimately within the scope
of that rule. What is perhaps even more significant for the situation in
Colossae is the emphasis that Christ is just as preeminent in the realm of
redemption as he is in the realm of creation. Christ’s universal Lordship is
not just a theoretical affirmation about the way the world is; it holds
wide-ranging implications for the way Christians are to find ‘fulfillment.’ It
is this focus that the ‘in all things’ may emphasize.”[4]
We
get to the apex of our subject text in vv. 19-20 where we find God’s purpose
for Christ. God’s purpose is twofold: 1) God used Christ to reveal himself
personally to humanity. Through Christ, we are able to “know” God; His
character; His holiness; His righteousness and most of all the depth of His
love. All of who God is resides in the person of Christ; to see and know Christ
is to see and know God. “He is a full, not partial, embodiment of God. In the
Old Testament, God chose a place for his name to dwell and to express divine
care. The Lord particularly chose to dwell on Zion. God also fills heaven and
earth. The ‘fullness’ is a circumlocution for God: [Now] God pleases to dwell
fully and permanently only in Christ. Christ supplants the temple, or any other
house made with hands, and represents God in person…‘all the attributes and
activities of God—his spirit, word, wisdom and glory—are disclosed in him.’ We
especially see God’s redemptive power in Christ.”[5]
And it is precisely this redemption that is God’s grand objective. After Adam’s
sin, God’s trajectory has always been to reconcile creation to himself at his
own expense (Gen 3:15). Separation that was created by sin, an offense against
an eternal God, could only be reconciled by the actions of an eternal God.
Similarly, sin that inaugurated the decay and destruction of all of creation
could only be reversed by the power of the One who sustains all of the created
order. “In the blood lies the power for sanctification and the conquest of all
powers at enmity with God. A transforming and renewing power flows from the
atoning death of Jesus into the life of those who have accepted redemption in
faith. Christ’s blood makes possible life in God’s presence; it gives access to
God…As the blood of the covenant, it is the basis of the new divine order…the
blood of Christ serves as guarantee that the promise of the New Covenant is
fulfilled in the NT church. Col. 1:20 speaks of the cosmic significance of Jesus
Christ’s sacrificial death. The blood makes peace both on earth and in heaven.”[6]
Paul
summarizes his gospel message; the
Gospel message, to the Colossians, and by extension to us, in vv. 21-23. Many
refuse to believe it while many more refuse to acknowledge it: we have been
separated (“alienated”) from God as a result of our sinful behavior. However,
just because we refuse to accept something as true, doesn’t make it any less
true. So what is the truth? Here it is: Our sin has separated us from God and
the means for our reconciliation is that God himself became incarnate in the
person of Jesus Christ so that by and through his death on the cross the cause
for our separation (sin) would be removed. By removing our sins, we are free to
be in the presence of a perfect and holy God without fear of condemnation
provided we cling to the faith that what Christ accomplished on our behalf is
sufficient for all our needs in this life and the life to come. “The message of
Christ’s peace-making work, which involves the reconciliation of the cosmos,
has particular reference to the Colossian Christians. These readers who are now
addressed directly are reminded of their pre-Christian past when they were
enemies, alienated from God and his people. The gravity of their previous
situation sets in bolder relief God’s gracious and mighty action of reconciling
them to himself. That reconciliation which was effected in history at great
cost—the death of his Son on the cross—had as its goal the fitness and
preparedness of his people for the final day when they will stand before him.
Continuance, however, is the test of the reality of their faith. Like a
building set on a sure foundation and erected with strong supports and
buttresses they are to remain true to the gospel, and not shift from the fixed
ground of their Christian hope.”[7]
Application
The
reality conveyed in the poem/hymn of our subject text is the root cause of my
adoration for Christ and is perhaps a reality that has lost some of its
significance in the Church today. What is your response to the revelation that
the Creator of the universe revealed Himself to you in the person of Jesus
Christ. His mission was to fix what was broken in you and in me by sin so that
we could be free to be in relationship with Him if we choose to. But what, what
could He do to reconcile such an egregious offense? The cross was the answer.
By shedding his blood and dying on the cross, he achieved what we had no hope
of achieving—a way back into the eternal presence of a most holy God. If we
were to truly understand the reality of what God did on our behalf through
Jesus Christ, our only natural response as created beings would be to fall on
our knees and with raised hands and voices praise the incarnate Creator who
redeemed us.
“Perhaps
the best way to try to capture the mystery of creation, incarnation and
redemption is in the poetry of our hymns. This poem shimmers in the exultant
celebration of Christ’s creative and redemptive work. It praises who he is,
what he has done, and what he will do…Unfortunately, we have become less
skillful singers of praise to God and Christ and may have even forgotten how to
speak the language of adoration. Those who have lost an immediate sense of
God’s presence and glory tend to turn God into an object of study and the
subject of theories instead of praise and adoration…‘God is not an object that
we could take in our hands in order to analyze it and describe it exactly. God
is always God in action, and the life and death and resurrection of Jesus
specifies this as action of love.’ This love in action for us and all the world
should evoke our amazement, our awe, and our praise.”[8]
Take
a moment to listen to the song at the beginning again but this time with the
words in front of you and let the Spirit wash over you and remind you of the
depth of God’s love revealed to us through the incarnate Creator who has
redeemed us by His shed blood on the cross and resurrection from the dead—Jesus
Christ who is Above All.
Above all powers,
above all kings
Above all nature
and all created things
Above all wisdom
and all the ways of man
You were here,
before the world began
Above all
kingdoms, above all thrones
Above all wonders
the world has ever known
Above all wealth
and treasures of the earth
There's no way to
measure what you're worth
Crucified, laid
behind a stone
You lived to die,
rejected and alone
Like a rose,
trampled on the ground
You took the fall
and thought of me
Above all
Above all powers,
above all kings
Above all nature
and all created things
Above all wisdom
and all the ways of man
You were here,
before the world began
Above all
kingdoms, above all thrones
Above all wonders
the world has ever known
Above all wealth
and treasures of the earth
There's no way to
measure what you're worth
Crucified, laid
behind a stone
You lived to die,
rejected and alone
Like a rose,
trampled on the ground
You took the fall
and thought of me
Above all
Crucified, laid
behind a stone
You lived to die,
rejected and alone
Like a rose,
trampled on the ground
You took the fall
and thought of me
Above all
Like a rose,
trampled on the ground
You took the fall
and thought of me
Above all
By: Michael W. Smith
[1]
Bruce Barton, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, Dave Veerman, Life Application New Testament Commentary,
(Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 873.
[2]
Gerald F. Hawethorne, Ralph P. Martin, Daniel G. Reid, eds., Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 746.
[3] W.
Robertson Nicoll, The Expositor’s Greek
Testament, Vol. III, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1983), p. 505.
[4]
Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the
Colossians and to Philemon, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2008), p. 130.
[5] David
E. Garland, Colossians/Philemon—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), pp. 92-93.
[6]
Colin Brown, gen. ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), pp. 223-224.
[7]
Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians,
Philemon—Word Biblical Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000),
pp. 71-72.
[8]
Garland, The NIV Application Commentary,
pp. 104-105.
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