Who Is Jesus?

We're in the book of Colossians and tonight we're in chapter one, so I invite your attention to the first chapter of Colossians, where we will look tonight. At the first major division of the book, actually we'll begin the first major division of the book. We've looked at some introductory matters. We've looked at Paul's Thanksgiving for the church there in Colossi and we've looked at Paul's prayer for the church in Colossi. Tonight we begin to get into the first major division of the book. Remember the theme of the book is the Lordship of Christ. And the first major division of the book is the Lordship of Christ in creation and the church. Christ is Lord in creation and in the church in chapter one, verse 15 through chapter two, verse three, we find that Paul is talking about that particular subject. We're just going to look at a few verses tonight, verses 15 through 19 of chapter one. And Paul immediately delves into the main issue that he wants to address in this book. The issue having to do with the false teaching that had invaded the church at Colossi. I know there are lots of other things we do on Sunday nights and sometimes these series are a little irregular on Sunday night and so it's been a while since we've talked about the Colossian cult. The Colossian was a combination of several different types of false teaching, part of which was legalism, part of which was kind of a mysticism, a secret knowledge type thing, part of it was a seticism, a denial of the body, thinking that would make you more spiritual. There were several things that were wrong with that cult but the greatest problem was their view of Christ, the doctrine of Christ. The cult that was existent in Colossi at the time Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians would later become more clearly developed in other parts of the Roman Empire and by the time the Apostle John wrote and a little after the first century would take the form of a cult called Nosticism, GNOS, T-I-C-I-S-M, Nosticism which comes from the Greek word for knowledge, GNOS-S and has the idea of some kind of secret knowledge, some kind of hidden, intimate knowledge that only a few select people know. One of the most glaring errors of Nosticism had to do with the person in work of Christ and I say all of this to stress the importance of what Paul is going to say to us tonight about who Christ is, who is Jesus. You see the Nostics believe that God and his perfection in all of his fullness could not have anything to do with humanity and thus God revealed himself in several different levels of beings below him called angels and one of those beings way down from God was Jesus Christ. He was not really God they taught. And so he could actually come to this earth and not corrupt God by having anything to do with human flesh. That's a weird teaching but it basically devalued the person of Christ, it destroyed what the Bible taught about who Jesus was. So Paul, after hinting at some of the deficiencies of this cult in his introduction to the book, now takes it on head on in verses 15 to 19 because what Paul does is he describes who Jesus is. The person and work of Jesus Christ, in fact in verses 15 to 19 that we're going to look at tonight, he talks about the position and the person of Christ and he takes on directly the false teaching of the Nostics about who Jesus was. Three things Paul declares about the person and position of Christ in these verses. First of all, he declares that Jesus Christ is God. He is God. If you look at verse 15, Colossians 1, he is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation, the image of the invisible God. That first part of verse 15 describes and declares that Jesus Christ is God. Now in order to see that, in order to understand what he's saying, we have to grasp what the word image means. When we think of the word image, we may think of some resemblance to someone, maybe a statue or something like that. But that's not what the word means that Paul used here. There are really two words to help us understand what he means by Jesus being the image of God. The first word would be representation. What he's saying is that Jesus Christ doesn't just resemble God, he is an exact representation of God. In fact, the word was used in New Testament times of a child bearing the image of its father or mother, an exact representation. You know there are some children that are just, what do we call it in our slang, spitten image of dad or mom. They just look exactly like them. You can tell where their genes came from. You can tell they've got the DNA in them of their parents. You can just look at them and tell them they're an exact representation. Now there's a difference in resemblance and a representation. A resemblance someone may look like someone else. For instance, someone might look like our daughter and somebody would say, well, this person resembles your daughter. But I have in my billfold a picture of my daughter, pictures of all three of them, by the way. In fact, I've got some pictures of the grandkids too. You can be interested in seeing this. But I pictures of them. Now, those pictures are representations of them. Someone may resemble Amy or Ruth or Missy, but those pictures are exact representations of them. That is Amy. That is Ruth. That is Missy in picture form. Now the word that Paul is using, the word image indicates that Jesus Christ is an exact representation, not just a resemblance to God, but an exact representation, but rather than being on a sheet of specially treated paper like a picture is, he is a living representation of God. So it means he's of the same essence, the same nature as God himself. So the first word that helps us understand this word image is the word representation. The second word that helps us understand the word image is the word manifestation. Not only is he an exact representation, but he is also a manifestation of God. In other words, you can see God if you look at Jesus Christ. Look at him in the gospels and you can see exactly what God is like. In fact, those who walked with Jesus and saw him perform miracles and heard him teach, saw him live here on planet earth, they saw a visible manifestation of God. They saw God in human flesh, God walking around in skin and bones just like we have, an exact manifestation of visible manifestation. So he is a representation of God and exact representation and he is a visible manifestation of God, God in human flesh. Now there are a few other verses where this doctrine is taught that helps us grasp a little bit the significance and the breadth of this topic, of Christ being the image of the invisible God. John chapter 1 and verse 14, notice what it says, the word, and that's another name for Christ, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. His glory is the same glory that God the Father has. He's a visible manifestation and exact representation of the glory of God. In verse 18 of that same chapter, no one has ever seen God but God the one and only that's a reference to Jesus Christ who is at the Father's side has made him known. So God the Father is invisible, and that's exactly what Paul is saying in Colossians 1, the invisible God, no one has seen him. But if you look at Jesus Christ, he has made him known, he is an exact representation and a visible manifestation of who God is. He has explained to us, shown us who God is. In verse 19, verse 7, Jesus says to Philip, when he said, I'm the way of the truth in the life and Philip said, we're not sure where you're going. Jesus said, if you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. If you know Jesus Christ, then you know the Father. If you know what Jesus is like, what the Father is like. Because he's an exact representation, he is a visible manifestation of God, of who God is. Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3 says, the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being means he has the same nature, the same essence, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification, for since he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. He is an exact representation of who God is. Now what Paul actually is saying then, when he says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, he is saying that Jesus Christ is God. He is claiming deity because he is of the same essence, the same nature, an exact representation of God, a visible manifestation of God, which means Jesus Christ is God. There's none of this, you know, several levels of angels below God and finally you get down here to one name Jesus Christ who doesn't bear much resemblance to God at all. There's none of that. I mean, he's taking on this cult, head on and he's saying, I want you to know right off the bat, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is God. It's not like man made in the image of God. Jesus Christ is the image of God. He is the visible manifestation, the exact representation of who God is. So you ask, who is Jesus? Jesus is God. That's first thing Paul says. Second thing Paul says is that Jesus is the head of the universe. There in verse 15, he says, the first born over all creation, for 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. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. He's the head of the universe. Now there are four things that Paul says about Jesus in relationship to being the head of the universe. The first one is he calls him the first born. He is the first born. Now what do you think of when you think of that word first born, there in verse 15, first born over all creation? When you think of the first born, you think of the oldest child in a family, right? The oldest sibling in a family, the first one born in a family. But that is not what this word means. So we need to clear that out of our thinking. In fact, what the Jehovah's Witnesses called, a present day cult that is very much like the cult in Colossi, what the present day Jehovah's Witnesses called teaches is that Jesus is the first one born to God. He is not God. He is God's son in the sense that God birthed him in a sense. He is the first one born of God and then we are also born of God. So Jesus is more man than he is God. In fact, Jehovah's Witnesses would say that he is not God at all. Jehovah's Witnesses and others like them, including the Colossi Teach that Jesus Christ was the first created being. But that is not at all what the first born means. The word first born, the Greek word means someone who has priority in rank. It has nothing to do with being born, being birthed. It has nothing to do with being the first of many brothers or sisters. The word first born literally means has priority in rank or in other words has sovereignty over. In the Bible Israel is called God's first born son. Look at this verse in Exodus chapter 4, verse 22. Then say to Pharaoh, this is God's word the most. Say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my first born son. Now Israel was not the first nation on earth. There were nations that were already developed long before Genesis 12. There were other nations, but Israel was lifted to a position when it was brought into existence as a nation, was lifted to a position of priority in rank. The Bible calls Isaac, Abraham's first born son. He was not the first son born literally to Abraham. Ishmael was. Isaac was given the priority rank, the one through whom the promises would be given. So this word first born is sometimes used in the New Testament of one who has priority rank, one who is sovereign over. In other words, this word describes Jesus Christ as the Lord of all creation. When it says he's the first born of creation, he is the Lord of all creation, the one who has priority rank in all of creation, who is the sovereign king of all creation. It's much different from what cults who deny the deity of Christ teach. So in being the head of the universe, he's the first born. Secondly, Paul says he is the creator for 16. For by him all things were created. Now that tells us right off the bat that first born cannot mean that he's the first created being because by him all things were created. He's not a created being, he is the creator. He is the one who created all things. He's not created himself. He's the one who created all things. And so right off the bat, the idea that Jesus is the first of created beings is off the charts. It's no longer to be considered. He created all things. And notice Paul goes on to designate things in heaven and on earth. And everything in heavens and everything on earth. Visible and invisible. And then he goes on to specify several categories of invisible things that Jesus created. See it there in verse 16. Visible and invisible whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. Now if you're familiar with Paul's writings, you know that those words that I just read, and Paul's writings, powers, rulers and authorities have to do with different ranks of angels, different categories of angels, kind of like Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant, that kind of thing, different ranks of angels. And oftentimes when Paul talks about them they are evil angels. Sometimes they're good angels. Sometimes they're evil angels over whom God has achieved victory through the death of Christ. But there's a specific reason why Paul designates the fact that Jesus is the creator of all things, including invisible things, including all these ranks of angels. Can you guess why Paul would specify that? Well after what we've just said about the cult that was existed in that day, that God manifested himself in different levels of lower beings and way down here somewhere you'd find Jesus Christ, so that God would not be contaminated by becoming a man. Okay, what Paul is saying is I'm taking that on. I'm saying that's not right. Jesus is not one of these lower beings. He created all the angels. He's above all the angels. He's the first born of creation and he created all things. Visible, invisible, even angels. He created them. The Bible tells us here in verse 16 that all things, the end of the verse, all things were created by him and for him. So he is the creator in the sense that he actually spoke these things into existence, but he is also the one for whom they are created. In other words, all of creation will find its ultimate unity and perfection when everything is brought under Jesus Christ. The creation is in kind of a mess right now because of man's sin. And that's the reason why creation is in a mess because sin has entered this world and the curse because of man's sin. I don't want to be unfeeling and uncaring here this evening, but some people ask foolish questions. Do you know that? They ask questions like, if there's a God of love, why do we have hurricanes like we have? Has nothing to do with God being a God of love. Because of God's love, someday we'll be rescued from all of that. You know why we have hurricanes and tornadoes and things like that? By the way, it's not because of the ozone layer. I mean, that may have something to do with it. I don't know, but the reason we have those natural disasters is because of the fall of mankind into sin and the curse that was placed on creation and Romans 8 tells us very plainly that the whole creation groans until it is delivered from the curse. When will that take place? Romans 8 says it's when the creation is delivered at the same time that we are delivered, the sons of God. It's on the screen. There it is. Creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. In other words, when we are finally redeemed completely and fully, and not only our soul is redeemed, but our bodies redeemed, we're in heaven and all things are put under Jesus Christ. That is when all creation will experience the unity and perfection that it was designed to have. All of that is coming only when Christ rules and reigns on this earth. This sin that has brought every natural disaster into this world, not because individual people by their sin bring them, but because sin came through Adam and the curse came on this world, that's why we have all this mess. Has nothing to do with, you know, God can't be a loving God if these things happen. No, God is a loving God. We're the ones that messed it up. And God in His love sent Jesus to take away all the effects of the curse and someday, when Jesus is ruling on planet earth, all of the effects of the curse will be lifted and everything will be for Him. Everything is moving that direction. And when Jesus Christ is on His throne, ruling over this world and the millennium, and then at the end of that, delivers up the kingdom to the Father, 1 Corinthians 15, when all of that happens, then we will see the perfection of creation. All of other verses that talk about that, Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 10. To be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. Everything will come together under Christ when He rules as king over the earth. That's what it means when it says all things were not only created by Him, but for Him. Everything will have its ultimate goal of perfection when it is put under Him, under one head, even Christ. One other verse on that regard. 1 Corinthians 15, 28. 1 Corinthians 15, 28. We don't have that one, do it. Let's look at it. Let's look at it. 1 Corinthians 15, 28. If we don't have a verse up there, it's my fault. Nobody else's. I've got it in my notes, but forgot to put it on the screen. 1 Corinthians 15, 28. We looked this morning at verse 26, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Verse 27 says, for He has put everything under His feet. Now when it says everything has been put under Him, it is clear that this does not include God Himself. We put everything under Christ. Verse 28, when He has done this, then the Son Himself will be made subject to Him who put everything under Him so that God may be all in all. There's coming a day when Jesus Christ has everything under Him delivers it up to God the Father so that everything takes its rightful place in creation under the authority of Jesus Christ and God the Father. Now that is kind of a long answer, round about answer, but that's the answer you give to someone who says, why do we have all these tornadoes and hurricanes and things like this? It's because creation has not yet been made subject to the one toward whom it's heading, Jesus Christ, the one who will rule over it in all perfection and unity and glory. So Jesus Christ created all things and all things are for Him. Ultimately, they are moving toward being consolidated under His authority and rule. So Paul says, he's the head of the universe. He is the first born. He is the creator. Then thirdly, he is the pre-existent one. See at the verse 17, He is before all things. Before any created thing came into existence, Jesus Christ was. So again, He's slamming this nostic cult that says that Jesus was one of these created beings under God. No, before anything else was ever created, Jesus Christ was, which means He's eternal, which means He's God. He was, He is, He always will be. He's pre-existent, existed before anything else. The fourth thing that Paul tells us about Jesus is the head of the universe is that He is the sustainer of the universe, the end of verse 17. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. Now there is an interesting statement. In Christ, everything holds together. That means that all of creation in its beauty and its balance is held together by the power of Jesus Christ. Every so-called natural law was put into existence by Him, the laws of gravity, the fact that the earth rotates on an axis, the fact that we revolve around the sun, the fact that we are in the exact distance away from the sun to allow life to exist on this planet, all of those things, the whole universe is held together by the power of Christ. Now it's been a long, long time since I studied physics back in 12th grade, you know, four or five years ago when I studied physics. But I do remember something very interesting that I studied in physics and things may have changed in the last four or five years. I don't know. But I remember there was something called the Vandegraff Force. And it's the force that scientists use to describe what holds an atom together. You know, there's little electrons going around and around and protons and neutrons and whatever else there is in an atom, all those things kind of stay together. And we've learned how to fuse atoms and we've learned how to split atoms, but what holds them together in the first place. And I remember the book saying something about scientists use this term Vandegraff Force to describe, but they don't understand how it works or why it works. Why don't atoms just kind of take off in all directions and electrons rather than going around kind of shoot off this way on their own? What holds it together? Well the answer is right here in verse 17. In him all things hold together. It is the power of Jesus Christ because he put it into existence and created it, he is still holding it all together. He is the sustainer of the universe. So Jesus is the head of the universe. He asked who Jesus is. First of all he is God. Secondly he is the head of the universe. Thirdly Paul says he is the head of the church, verse 18. And he is the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning and the first born from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy. Paul deals with a couple of things in that passage about Jesus being the head of the church. First of all he talks about his position. He is the head of the church. Now take the word church first. Let's examine that for just a moment. The word church is those who are redeemed. All who have been saved since the day of Pentecost when the church began make up the body that he refers to here. The body of Christ, the church. Every person who has been saved since that time, since the day of Pentecost, till now anywhere in the world is a part of that body, the church. But now that body also has visible manifestations in local churches like this one. And the Bible uses the word church in both senses, both of that, what's called the universal church, the larger group of all believers. And then the local church, individual bodies of believers. In fact I'm convinced that Paul uses the term in a sense in both ways in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 13 he uses it in the greater sense, the more universal sense, where he says we were all baptized by one spirit into one body. And you can tell from his next words he's talking about that larger body of all believers, other Jews or Greeks, slavery free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink. He's talking about all believers there, all placed into one body. But then he goes on in verse 27 to speak more specifically of the Corinthian church and he says now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. So you see the church, the body of Christ can sometimes mean that larger group of all believers, regardless of what denominational label they may wear, if they are in Christ, if they are believers, they're part of that body. But the term body or church can also be used of a local church. Jesus is the head of both. He is the head of the universal church and that he originated it, he started it, he is the head that controls everything in that body. Jesus is also the head of the local church, at least he should be, he's supposed to be. Now having understood a little bit about the church, let's talk just a little bit more about what the word head means. I think it means two things. First of all it means that Jesus is the governing and directing head of the church. That means that Jesus Christ is the one to whom we answer as the one who is to run the church, not some denominational headquarters, not me or the other pastors, not the deacons. We don't run the church, we oversee and administer the church. We're not the head of the church, we don't run any, this is not my church, it's not your church, it's not the deacons church, it's Christ's church. And he is the head, he is the one from whom we are to get our direction and governance. That's why prayer is so critical in decisions that we make. We'll be having a leadership retreat this weekend, we feel it's our responsibility as leaders to set direction for the church as a whole. But we don't just go in there and say, okay, this is our church, we're going to do what we want to do with this church, it's our church, it's not our church, it's Christ's church. We go in with the attitude of seeking Him and His presence and His will for what He wants us to do. And I know our leadership team well enough to know that they are continually doing that, praying about God's direction because Christ is the head and we are to simply be stewards of what He directs us to do. Jesus is the head of the church, the governing head, the directing head of the church. But there's something else that word head means. It means secondly that Jesus is the life giving head. He's the life giving head. You know the head is really in a sense where all life comes from. Some people think it's the heart and that may be true, but you know they can remove your heart and hook you up with machines and keep you going till they kind of do something to your heart to get back in there. You can't do that with your head. You take your head off and you're done. I mean your head's pretty important. You just can't take your head off and do something you know messing around with other things and say, oh, I just stick the head back on. You can't do that. The head is really the life giving force of the body. It is that which gives all the rest of the body direction and signals as to what it should do. That's what Jesus is. He is the life giving head of the church. So Jesus is the head of the church, the governing directing head, the life giving force and head of the church. But not only does Paul talk about his position, he talks about his qualifications. He gives two qualifications there in verse 18. Here are the two. He is the beginning and the first born from among the dead. Now these are the two things that qualify Jesus to be the head of the church. First of all, he's the beginning. What that means is that he's the one that started the church. He's the one that began the church. He's the author of the church. How did he start the church? By his death, burial, resurrection and ascension. You cannot have a church until you have the death of Christ because that forms the spiritual basis for our salvation. That's how we get in the church is through the death of Christ. And then obviously his resurrection is very important. The resurrection signifies that his death was accepted by God the Father. But you can't have the church also until you have the ascension of Christ. Because Ephesians 1 says it was after he was made the head of the body through his ascension, through his being exalted over all things that he became the head of the body. You can't have the body until you've got the head. So Jesus is the beginning of the church in the sense that you can't have the church until you have the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father. Then the church starts. But not only is he the beginning of the church, Paul says he is the first born from among the dead. First born from among the dead means he was the first one to come back from the dead in a resurrected body never to die again in a glorified body. Now there were a couple people in the Old Testament that were resurrected. And there were a couple three people in a New Testament that Jesus resurrected from the dead, raised from the dead. But you know what? They died again. Jesus was the first one to be resurrected in a glorified body that will never die. Now those are the two qualifications that give him the right to be the head of the church. Show me anyone else who's done those things and I'll say okay you've got a legitimate claim to be the head of the church. Were you crucified, buried, risen and ascended to the right hand of the Father? No, none of us were. None of us have that qualification. Have we ever come back from the dead to live in a glorified body never to die again? No, none of us were. And you know what? Nobody else in human history has either. Not Muhammad, not Buddha, not Confucius. Nobody else is the right to be the head of God's people, the church. So Jesus is ultimately, eminently qualified to be the head of the church. Now that leaves me with this thought. In verse 19, Paul emphatically states once again the person of Jesus Christ when he says this, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. You know what? That is, and he's going to go on in verse 20 to finish this sentence, talking about his work and we'll get to that next week. But in verse 19, he's beginning to summarize how is it that Jesus Christ is God, the head of the universe and the head of the church? Because it pleased God to have all his fullness dwell in him. Now that was a powerful statement to those people who were living in Colossia. You know why? Because the word fullness was the favorite word of the Nostics, the false cult. The word fullness literally means the sum total of divine power and attributes. All of God's power, all of God's attributes, his characteristics, his nature, everything that he is, all of that is seen in this word fullness. And it was a favorite word of the Nostics. What they taught, as I've indicated before, is that all this fullness dwell in God and then he parceled it out to lower beings, each of whom had a little bit less of the fullness. And then finally you got down here to Jesus who walked on earth and he just had a little teeny bit of that fullness that really didn't even qualify him to be considered God. He was just a man. So Paul says, I'm going to take that head on. He was all the fullness of God. He did not share that honor with anybody. There are no intermediate beings between God and man. There's only one mediator between God and man and that's Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All the fullness of God dwells in him. So he insup this whole section, this powerful section on the person of Christ by saying the reason he's God, the reason he's the head of the universe, the reason he's the head of the church is because it pleased God that all his fullness, all of his divine power and attributes be summarized in the person of Jesus Christ. Now where that leads me to is this. If Jesus is who he really is, as the Bible teaches, and he is, if he is God in human flesh, exact representation of the Father. If Jesus Christ is the head of the universe and if he is the head of the church, don't you kind of feel like you ought to be the head of our lives? If that's who he really is, he deserves first place, doesn't he? He doesn't deserve the leftovers. He doesn't deserve half-heartedness. He doesn't deserve lukewarmness. He deserves everything. He deserves first place in our lives. There we treat the God of the universe, the Lord of the universe, the Lord of the church, as one to whom we give our least. Certainly we ought to give him our best. Pray together. Father, I thank you that our Savior, the Lord Jesus, is such a great and mighty God. I thank you, Father, that he is God. He is your exact representation, your visible manifestation. Thank you, Father, that he's the head of the universe, the head of the church. And Lord, it is amazing to me, to us, that one that great would stoop to love us enough to die for us. So our hearts are filled with gratitude for what you've done for us. Lord, may we not give you any less than our all. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.