JESUS, MY ONE AND ONLY (Colossian 1:15-20) INTRODUCTION Did you hear about the little girl who was drawing a picture in Sunday School one day? Her teacher came over to look and ask what she was drawing. I m drawing a picture of God. To which the teacher said, No one what God looks like. The little girl replied, They will when I get through with this picture! No one knows what God looks like, true, but Colossians 1:15-20 gives us a CLUE as to where to look. This is because this passage is one of the loftiest if not the loftiest descriptions of Christ in the New Testament! There are other passages that reach high in their description, like John 1, Hebrews 1, and Revelation 1, but I believe that this is the passage that exalts Christ the highest of all. Many people see Jesus in terms of how He best meets their needs. This is appropriate. To all He is the Savior and He is the constant companion, and He is the healer, and He is Good Shepherd who takes care of His sheep. Now there is nothing wrong with these ways of looking at Christ, but at times we need to step back and get a broader view of Jesus. Who is Jesus to God, the Creation, the church? The church at Colossae was faced with all kinds of views of God. There was the Roman and Greek pantheon of the gods such as Zeus, Mars, and Aphrodite, etc. There was the Gnostics view who were saying that the material universe is evil and that God didn t have anything to do with it. You must have a special secret knowledge of God to know Him. Then there were the Jews who were denying that Jesus is the Messiah, denying that Jesus is God who had come in the flesh. There were all kinds of other views of god. It is much like it is today. We need to have a clear idea of God and how Jesus relates to Him. Paul, by the inspiration of the Spirit, sought to answer these questions in this brief passage by having us look at Jesus. What does this passage tell us about Jesus? What is His relation to God, the Creation, and the Church? JESUS IS THE TRUE IMAGE OF GOD First, what is Jesus relationship to God? Verse 15: He is the image of the invisible God, February 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church Page 1
No one has ever seen God. But Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus makes God materialize before our eyes. The word for image in the Greek is the word icon. Icon in this context is more than just likeness, which is certainly included; it means a true representation or manifestation of God. You can have two tomatoes which are alike but they are not the same entity. One is not the manifestation of the other. Icon here is more like a coin with an image of a person on it. It is an image and that is a manifestation of the person. Jesus is the true MANIFESTATION of the invisible God. So look at Jesus if you want to know what God looks like! This view is confirmed by a couple of other statements in this book. 1:19 God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. And in 2:9 NKJV For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form Jesus is the image of the invisible God, because He is God and He has come in the flesh. He is the 2 nd Person of the Godhead, the Trinity. He is qualified to show us what God is like. What an exalted view of Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God, the true representation of God! Wow. No wonder the early Christians saw Jesus as the One to be worshipped as God. When the Roman governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Trajan the emperor around 111 AD he described the Christians worship practice in the area of Asia Min. He wrote: they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. The Christians early on worshipped Christ as God, because He is the only true image of the invisible God. Is this how you see Jesus? Do you see Jesus as the only true manifestation of God and give to Him your worship? JESUS IS THE CREATOR AND THE GOAL OF CREATION Now what about His relation to creation? Verses 15 says that He is the firstborn over all creation. Jesus is the firstborn over all creation. Now when we hear the word firstborn we immediately think of the birth order of biological children. I have three daughters and one of them is my firstborn. That would be Patricia. February 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church Page 2
This is not the way that Paul is using the word here. Firstborn means here that this one has the highest status in the family. The firstborn was the one who was to be the heir of the Father. But the firstborn didn t have to be the biological firstborn. Think of Isaac. He was not the firstborn biological son of Abraham. Think of Jacob. He was not the firstborn biological son of Isaac. But both of these had the highest status in the family. Jesus is the firstborn over all creation which means that he is the one who has receives the highest authority over creation and he receives all the inheritance of the Father. To demonstrate that Jesus is the firstborn over all creation it is stated that all things were created through Him and for Him. Verse 16: For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. The prevailing view today about the origin and purpose of creation is that creation is the product of blind evolutionary processes and therefore there can be no overarching purpose in it. Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, in an interview to CNN with Larry King on September 11, 2010 said, "God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator," He argues in a new book, The Grand Design that God did not create the universe. Now you may think that this is an extreme view. He probably is one of the few that goes public with this kind of talk, but it is the prevailing view among many scientists and educators today. They believe that this universe is the product of blind evolutionary processes, not God. Only if you acknowledge Jesus as the One through whom creation came and that He is the Goal of all things will you truly know your PURPOSE in life, in history, in scientific research, etc. Is there a purpose in life? Is there a purpose in all these stars, galaxies, and worlds? God s purpose is to give to His Son Jesus the highest status on all of creation. One more phrase in this section. Verse 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. [ or hold together.] Jesus is not only the Agent and Goal of creation; He is the glue that holds it together. It is not the law of gravity and laws of molecular physics that hold things together, it is Jesus who uses the law of gravity and laws of physics to hold them together. Scientists are looking for what is called the Theory of Everything. A theory of everything (ToE), final theory, ultimate theory, or master theory is a February 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church Page 3
hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe. Finding a ToE is one of the major unsolved problems in physics.well, Jesus is the Theory of Everything. He is the One who holds all things together. He is the explanation of Everything! What an exalted view of Christ. Will you give Him that exalted place in your life? Will you see yourself as created by Him and for Him? JESUS RELATION TO THE CHURCH Jesus relation to God is that He is the true representation of God; His relation to creation is that through Him all things were made and He is the purpose of all things. Now what is Jesus relation to the Church? Verses 18: And He is the head of the body, the church, The church is made up of all those who believe in Jesus. The church is made up of all persons whom the Holy Spirit has regenerated. I believe that it was the puritan John Owen that first alerted me to the fact that as the Holy Spirit was involved in creation hovering over the face of the deep as Genesis 1 puts it; He also is involved in the new creation, the forming of the people of God into the Body of Christ. Just as the Holy Spirit was involved in forming, sustaining and perfecting the human body of Christ, so is the Holy Spirit involved in forming, sustaining, and perfecting the mystical body of Christ, the Church. The church is made up of all regenerated believers. It is a creation of God the Holy Spirit and Jesus is Head of this Body, which is called the Church. The head of a body is the master of the body. The body is the servant of the head. The body, if it is working properly, carries out the head s instructions and purposes. The church is the body of Christ and the church is the servant of Christ. Verse 18 gives the ultimate purpose of the creation of the church. It reads: he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. [or that He may have the preeminence. NJKV.] The church s ultimate purpose is to acknowledge and to proclaim the preeminence of Christ. We are to put Jesus first in all things in our life. To put it in a down to earth way, He is to be our One and Only. February 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church Page 4
Let me give you an illustration of a person being a One and Only to another. Your spouse is to be your One and Only in terms of your relationship to others. What would Lana Jo think if I told her that she is one of many other women in my life? Well, I may not live to go to the next level. What would she think if I told her she was first among other women in my life? Well, that is not what she wants to hear. She wants to hear and to know that she is my One and Only. Jesus wants to hear from you that He is your One and ONLY, not just one among many, not even the first among many. He wants to be your One and Only in worship. He wants to be your One and Only in service. He wants to be your One and Only in devotion. CONCLUSION 20: Paul sums up this great passage on the Preeminence of Christ in verses 19- Colossians 1:19-20 NIV For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, (20) and 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. All the fullness of God dwells in Christ and through his shed blood on the cross He is able to reconcile all things to himself. If you are having problems in seeing that Christ is the true representation of God; look to the cross. There you will see the heart of God; the love of the true God. If you have doubts about accepting the place of Christ in creation or in your life; look to the Cross. At the Cross your eyes and heart will be opened to Jesus as the Creator and see His purpose in Creation. If you fall short of submitting to the preeminence of Christ in your life, look to the Cross. It is there that you will see your sin and it is there you will see your sins being purged by the Blood of the Cross and you will be reconciled to God. The ultimate goal of this passage is move us to be reconciled to God through the Blood of the Cross, the Blood of the One who is the Image of God, who is the Creator, who is the Head of the Church and to make Jesus your One and Only. This leads us into the part of this service where we will remember Jesus death for us through the Cross. Let us look to the Cross as we partake of the Lord s Supper. Amen? Amen! February 4, 2018 Corntassel CP Church Page 5