Colossians 1:15-20

Colossians 1:15-20 — 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
 
I want to reflect on something very important that I hinted at but failed to unpack in Sunday’s sermon on Genesis 1, and that is the fullness of deity in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Paul does not hold back or ease into his defense of Jesus’ identity as God in his letter to Colossae. Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. In other words, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the perfect, visible revelation of the infinite, eternal, and invisible God, because He is God. In the words of Jesus Himself,  "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9). And Paul goes on to further state, the firstborn of all creation.

This phrase, the firstborn of all creation, is one that was taken out of context by a number of presbyters in the early church, along with Proverbs 8:22, "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old." Yet this cannot apply to the divinity of the Son, since all creation happened through the Son (John 1:1-3). There was nothing that wasn't created through the Word (who is the Son), so the Son could not have been created. The issue is that the title "firstborn" can be understood as a sequential order or a status. If understood as sequence, it makes it seem that the Son of God was the first creature, but that contradicts the whole of Scripture, so it must be status. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has the status of firstborn of all creation, meaning a status to rule over and be sovereign over the rest of creation.

Without going to in the weeds, Paul goes on to say exactly what John says in John 1. Jesus Christ, the Son of God is equal with God in essence, eternally begotten, and co-eternal; sovereign over all creation which was created in God the Father through God the Son by God the Spirit. And because God created it, it is His. And not just the Father’s but also the Son’s (and the Spirit’s).
 
Yet Paul emphasizes the role of the Son within creation and salvation, by saying that the Son in both His divinity and the humanity which he took on reigns over creation and reconciles creation to God (to Himself). Here lies a key point to this passage that emphasizes the main idea of my sermon on Genesis 1: The God and Creator of all that created did not abandon His creation but stepped into creation in order to reconcile sinful man to Himself by paying the debt of sin, taking on the guilt of man, and proclaiming those redeemed by the blood to be righteous in Christ. The Creator did that. 
Jesus Christ was not just a great teacher or perfect prophet. He was God in the flesh, the second person in the Trinity. God so loved the world that the Son entered into it to save it. God is Creator, and we are creature, and we learn who God is through the grace of self-revelation — in the Word of God.

There is so much that can be said about this, but here is the bottomline: If you deny that the Son (Jesus Christ) is God, then the cross cannot save because a finite creature could not take on the full wrath of God, but Jesus Christ is truly God and truly human, capable of representing humankind and bearing the full weight of sin in His divinity.
If you would like to know more about the Trinity, let me know!
United in Christ,
Rev. Joshua Fried
Pastor