Colossians 1:15-23

Colossians 1:15-23 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn 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. And 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. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 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.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But 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— if 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.

These are majestic verses. This is probably the most important passage in Colossians. It directly answers the false teachers who were saying Christ was just one of many spirits who comprised God’s fullness, like angels, and that all had to be worshipped and appeased.

Paul says Christ is the unique manifestation of God. An image in the New Testament is a true representation of the original. (Genesis 1:26-27) We were meant to be in His image too. When we look at Jesus, we not only see what God is like, we see what we were meant to be like too!

Verse 19 says, “In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” We see all of God in Him. There is nothing left out. (John 14:9)

These verses also remind us that Jesus came to earth to reconcile us to God. We need to remember that that reconciliation came from God. God’s attitude toward man was and is – always love. He was always reaching down to us and God sent Jesus because He loved us. (John 3:16)

Sometimes I think there’s an impression that we have this wrathful God up there and Jesus did something to keep us from His wrath. Kind of Good Cop, Bad Cop. But, it’s very important for us to know and think about the fact that God already loved us so much He sent His Son to die for us. He created the Garden of Eden and wanted to walk there and talk to His children, He sent prophets; He came to earth again during the Exodus and dwelt in the Holy of Holies. He was always the one reaching out to us. The cross is the final proof that there is no length to which the love of God will refuse to go, to win our hearts.

Note Paul says, not only man is being reconciled to God, but earth. In Romans 8:22 it says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning to travail.” The earth is not what God meant for it to be either, but we are promised a new earth when Christ comes back. Also in this verse Paul says God is reconciling the Heavens to Himself. I’ve read several different thoughts about this, from just that heavens and the earth is kind of an all-encompassing phrase. To the fact that Satan was a fallen angel and that will all be reconciled in the end. I had a thought when reading this, that the angels kind of watch with interest everything going on. They know of course one of their own had fallen and is in combat with God and it’s a cosmic or spiritual battle that will be reconciled.

We see next that the aim of this reconciliation is holiness. Christ did all this to present us to God, unblemished. This means we have an obligation to be worthy of His great love.

There was at this time a group called Gnostics and this loosely means “the intelligent ones”. They thought Christianity was too simple and wanted to turn it into a philosophy. The Gnostics believed that all matter was evil and all spirit good, so God would not have come to earth, which is matter and therefore evil, as a human.

Paul said He did.

They believed that He didn’t create the world because He didn’t create evil. Paul said that Jesus, who is God in flesh, created the heavens and the earth.
They thought that since a good God would have nothing to do with evil He put forth all kinds of layers between the world and Himself: like spirits and angels. In fact both the Gnostics and the Jews had a highly developed and elaborate system of angels.
The Gnostics thought there were seven heavens between God and us. Thrones, lordships, powers and authorities were different grades of angels. Paul dismisses all this. He says Jesus wasn’t one of these spirits or levels. He created angels and everything else too.

And it was for Him that all things were created. Everything was created to be His and to give Him glory. The world was created that we might ultimately belong to Jesus Christ. (Philippians 2:10-11)

So Jesus created the beginning. He is the goal of creation in the end and he holds the world together in between. This saying means that all scientific laws, like gravity, are divine laws.

The Gnostics also refused to see Christ as the only way to salvation, saying that people could find God through some special and secret knowledge. Paul said Christ is the only way. He is the first-born of all creation and has all the authority of the first born. First born here doesn’t just mean He is God’s first Son. It was a common title of honor. Israel as a nation is the first-born Son of God. (Exodus 4:22)
This means Israel was the chosen, the most honored and favored child of God.
Also firstborn is the title of the Messiah. (Psalms 89:27) So when Paul wrote that Christ was the first born of all creation, it meant the highest honor which creation holds belongs to Him.

And when he said Christ is the first-born from among the dead, this is central to Christianity: His resurrection means everything to us! Because He lives, we know we will too.

Paul also says here that Jesus is the head of the church. He is the guiding, directing, dominating spirit of the church. Just like our bodies can’t do anything without our heads – every word and action of the church must be governed and directed by Him. We are the instruments through which Christ works.

Thoughts from 1st John Part Two

What do we believe anymore? How many people have ever looked up anything on Wikipedia? Do you know that regular people write that? And many do it so they can link to their own websites for their own promotional gain.

How many look up medical questions on line? Do you know which sites you can believe and which ones you can’t?

We are bombarded by the written word. And we are bombarded by false prophets. God knew this would happen and provided us with His Word to use as our plumbline.

I once read something in a study of the Gospel of John, that I wrote down to save,

“The awful responsibility for rejection is proportionate to the light received. It is God, the Creator, who deigns to speak to men in the person of His Son.To be given light and to refuse it by ignoring His Words, by showing indifference to those words, by refusing to give time to reading them or by rejecting those words – is to be judged by those words.”

In the early days after the ascension of Jesus, the Gospel, or Good News of the gift of salvation and eternal life through faith in Jesus, was conveyed to the world through the preaching of the apostles. Men that Jesus had officially appointed as witnesses to Himself.

In John 14:26 Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would “remind you of everything I have said to you.” In John 16:13 and 15 He promised them that the Holy Spirit would “guide you into all truth” and would “take from what is mine and make it known to you.”

Basically the same thing is said in Matthew 16:17-19 and 28:19. In a unique way the Holy Spirit would bring Christ’s words back to the remembrance of the apostles so that they could be recorded with divine authority as God’s truth. Ephesians 2:20 tells us that the church is built upon this foundation of apostles and prophets.

As time passed and the apostles spread out over the world – many people were so fascinated with Jesus they attempted to write about Him. (Luke 1:1)

As these other writings began to appear it was clear that a distinction had to be made as to what was merely the product of imagination and what was truly authoritative. The criterion of authority was that the true Gospels must conform completely to the oral teaching of the apostles themselves. By the end of the 1st century every book of the New Testament had been written, but not yet assembled into one book. The process of assembly was almost complete by the end of the 2nd century. Whenever it was certain that an apostle had written a book or authorized it’s writing that book was deemed indispensable and included in Scripture.

The apostles had lived with Jesus; they had first hand knowledge of Him. They were men of impeccable authority who would consider it blasphemy to relate anything not thoroughly investigated or received directly from Him.

The next most authoritative writers were the men who knew the apostles well and were approved by them as reliable witnesses. Luke is an example.

Each of the 4 Gospels was written either to a different group of people or for a different purpose, which is why certain things might have been emphasized or pointed out in 1 but not another. For instance – John was the last of the 4 written. By then a lot of pagan philosophies had arisen. Paul talked about these in some of his letters. We talked about the Gnostics when we studied the book of Colossians. They believed everything material was evil and everything spiritual was good, so that God, who was wholly good wouldn’t have any contact with earth or man –THEY said. Seemists, another group, had trouble believing Jesus’ divine nature. They thought it descended on Him at His baptism and left Him just before His death on the cross. They inferred that His sufferings were only seeming and not real. They also denied the reality of the incarnation. Hellenistic Christians, in their desire to appear intellectual attempted to relate Christ to current philosophical ideas. This threatened to undermine true faith in Christ: as the Way, the Truth and the Life.

All these groups back then claimed to be Christian and also claimed that they had a higher enlightenment, a closer, mystic fellowship with God, clearer knowledge and truth and freedom from sin. Both their spiritual pretensions and fantastic view of Christ made them a bad influence on the Asian churches and caused more than one Christian writer to dispute their claims. 1st John was written because of the Seemists. And John says in that book that they weren’t true Christians.

The groups were educated people and they wanted Christianity to be intellectual, fit to stand beside the other great philosophies of the day. But, the effect of their teaching was to destroy the incarnation, to eliminate the Christian ethic and to make fellowship within the church impossible because of their elitism.

The claim of knowing Christ is meaningless apart from obedience to His commands. Living as He lived – by His example – is the evidence of our faith and union with Him.

John wrote his gospel to correct these tendencies and to show Christ was/IS the unique Son of God. John 20:31 says, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.”

Matthew, written about AD 60, gives special emphasis to Christ’s person – in view of past prophecies. He was writing mainly to the Jews who of course knew the Old Testament. He showed Jesus as King. Mark was full of action and anecdotes. He was the first gospel, written about AD 58 and the shortest. He wrote down Jesus’ words and the things He did. He showed Jesus as the obedient servant. Luke linked events with the names of governors and places – kind of putting Jesus into the part of history when He lived. He showed Jesus as the Ideal Son of Man and he interviewed many people including Jesus’ Mother, and carefully documented it all.

The book of John was written about AD 98 after a lifetime of meditative reflection on Christ by the man who was known to be a thinker and loved by Jesus.