The Glory of God in the Supremacy of Christ

Pr. Jacob (Anglican Church)

 

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. Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still (Colossians 1:15-23)

As we come to the letter to the Colossians, we focus our minds on Jesus, because that is what the gospel is about. In this passage, Paul writes to the church in Colossae, and you can see that his letter starts like many of his other letters. He’s writing to a church which he hasn’t personally visited, which he didn’t found. We learn in verse seven that this church learnt the gospel from Epaphras, a fellow worker of Paul. Even though Paul has not been to this church, he’s heard about them, and so he prays for them as he prays for the other churches. We see in verse three to what he prays:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel. (Colossians 1:3-5)

It's a pattern of faith and hope and love that moves Paul to prayer, and so he prays for them and gives thanks for them. His prayer is the same as his other letters; we see that in verse nine:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:9-10)

Paul prays for them to increase in their knowledge and their love of God, and that this may issue forth in a life that matches up with Jesus, that is worthy of their calling. As Paul goes on, he begins to move from praying back to reflecting upon what God has done, giving thanks to the Father. Why? Because of what God has done:

... giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves. (Colossians 1:12-13)

And at this point Paul launches into poetry. We don’t know whether Paul has written this on the spot, or whether it’s something that early Christians recited or sang, but it’s a short poem or hymn that focuses on Jesus, and uniquely and densely packs in a picture of the glory and majesty of Christ. This is what we’re going to focus in on today. Who is this Jesus we worship? And so Paul begins, there in verse 15, “He is the image of the invisible God”.

Elsewhere in Scripture we learn that God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). God is not a physical being like you and I. He doesn’t have a house, we can’t go and knock on his door, we can’t wrestle him to the ground, and so throughout the Scriptures there is this question: how can we know God, how it is that God is revealed to us, since God is invisible?

John’s gospel gives us the answer. In John 1:18 we read that “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known”. No one has ever seen God, because God is invisible, but the only God, Jesus the Word of God, was at the Father’s side, and has made him known; in Jesus we have the image of the invisible God. Hebrews 1:3 says “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”. If we want to know God, if we want to deal with God, it must be through Jesus. Uniquely and supremely, he is the revelation, the making-known of who God is, so much so that in John the disciple Philip comes to Jesus and says to him:

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:8-9)

To see Jesus is to see God. And so we know supremely who God is by who Jesus is.

Then Paul tells us that Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation”, and again we wonder, “What does this mean?” When we hear the word ‘firstborn’, we naturally think of the two halves of the word, ‘first’ and ‘born’, and normally we are speaking about the one who was born first. Children do not come out at the same time; one is born first, even if they are twins. And yet in the Bible you see a shift in the meaning of firstborn, and it’s a natural shift, a shift we can understand. In their society, as in many societies, the firstborn is the eldest, and has the supreme rank, and for many years held the lion’s share of the inheritance. This is the meaning that the Bible uses again and again; the firstborn is the one who is supreme above the rest and has the priority of rank. We see this in Psalm 89, where the speaker is God and is addressing David the king, and then he says:

“I will also appoint him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.” (Psalms 89:27)

This is exactly the same sense of ‘firstborn’. Nothing is going to be changed about the birth-order in David’s family, but God is going to make him the highest of the kings of the earth, supreme above all the other kings in rank, and this is the meaning in Colossians with Jesus. Jesus is the firstborn over all creation. There is Jesus and there is creation, and he is supreme above and over it all. So whatever else exists, the church building, your house, your possessions, yourself, Jesus is above it all.

Paul goes on to tell us why in verse 16: “For by him all things were created”. Everything that exists came into existence by Jesus, in Jesus. That means he was there in the beginning, as Paul says in a few verses. It means that everything we think about, every thing we reflect upon, came into existence in Jesus. The stars in the sky came into existence in Jesus, the chairs on which we sit came into existence in Jesus, the very hairs of our head came into existence in Jesus. John says the same thing at the start of his gospel:

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3)

That’s why he is supreme above all things, because he was also before all things, and all things came into existence through him.

Paul now begins to list those categories, just to be clear. “Things in heaven and on earth”, that’s a Hebrew way of saying ‘everything’. Things are either in heaven or on earth, and so that’s everything. And just to make it even clearer, things “visible and invisible” —there are things that you can see and things that you can’t see, and Scripture says that whatever they are, whether you can see them or you can’t see them, they came into existence through Jesus, and so he is supreme above them all.

Then Paul goes on to mention “whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities”. Paul here, and in a few other places, seems to refer to some kind of spiritual powers, as we see in Ephesians 6 and later in this letter. The Bible doesn’t really tell us very much about this, but it does say that there exist spiritual beings that are invisible to us (we would call them angels, or fallen angels) and they seem to have a kind of hierarchy: thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities. The Bible wants us to know that, but it doesn’t tell us much more, and doesn’t encourage us to think about it too much. But what it does tell us—particularly to the Colossians, they seem to be caught up in wondering about these powers—is how to relate to them and what to do about them. Paul says they too were created in Christ, and so Christ is supreme above them, and so whatever worries the Colossians might have about these spiritual powers, they don’t need to worry because Christ is supreme. He is above them all, and they were created in him.

More than that, in verse 17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together”. This helps us understand why ‘firstborn’ means what it means in verse 15. He is before all things—that means not that Jesus was the first of a whole bunch of others, but that he is before everything else. Again going back to John’s Gospel, and the very first words, “In the beginning was the Word”.

Jesus was there, right at the start, in eternity beyond eternity with God the Father. There are some ancient believers who were in error about this. They believed that Jesus was created first, that he was a creature like us. The same teaching exists today among groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe that Jesus is not God from all eternity, but that he is a created creature, special, unique, but still created by God. But here Paul is saying that he is before all things.

So he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. That is, they continue to exist, moment by moment, only because Jesus wants them to. Let me illustrate. Imagine I have a book, and I’m holding it in the air. I can hold it up, and it will continue to remain there only because I choose to, only by the exertion of my will and the movement of my body which holds its place. And so it is at my mercy. And then what if I drop it? The moment I let it go, it falls. It falls out of its place, out of its order, and into a certain state of chaos. How much more so with Jesus—all things hold together in him! He sustains them by the exertion of his might and the choice of his will. The stars in the heaven, the animals of the fields, the very chairs we sit upon, and the beating of our hearts continues moment by moment only because Jesus wills it.

He is before all things, above all things, at the centre of all things, and all things were created by him and in him, and, at the end of v16, “for him”. All things were created for him. This means that Jesus is at the end of all things. The world was created with an ultimate goal, an ultimate purpose, an ultimate meaning that is found only in Jesus, the beginning of all things, above all things, the centre of all things, and at the end of all things. Part of our problem is that in the beginning everything pointed to Jesus, everything led to Jesus, everything existed for the glory and worship of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So as you looked at the stars, they would have led you to reflect upon the majesty of who God is; go for a walk in the woods and the trees would point you to the artistry and beauty and glory of God. Your soul would have leapt within you and you would have rejoiced in what God had done. But now we live in a world where everything doesn’t point to Jesus but, because of the sin of our own hearts, things lead us astray. So people look at the stars, and instead of reflecting upon the glory of God, they begin to follow idols; some people worship the stars, others look to them for guidance, astrology, things like that. Go for a walk in the woods, and some people, instead of glorifying God for what he has made, consider nature as sacred and worship the creation. We look at the fascinating uniqueness of the human body, and we should be reflecting upon the wonder and the majesty of God... and yet others praise and glorify random events and the beauty of humanity.

God has determined from the very beginning that all things exist in Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. Not only that, but he is the beginning of the church, and supreme above the church, and so supreme above the new creation. That’s where Paul goes in verse 18 and the second part of this section: “And he is the head of the body, the church”.

We are united in the church, united to each other and united to Jesus, in an organic relationship, and he is the head, which means that he is the source of life for us. Cut off my head and I won’t run around like a chicken. It will be messy and ugly and I will die, for the rest of my body gains something of its life from its connection to my head. So too with us and Jesus. Our source of life and vitality is our head, Jesus. Not only that, the head is figuratively for us above the rest of our bodies. It has preeminence, and Jesus too is preeminent. He is above us, in rank, in honour, in glory. And he guides us and leads us and directs us, just as our heads guide and lead and direct our bodies. Jesus is above us, he leads us, he guides us, he invigorates us, he gives us life. Why? Because he is also the “beginning and the firstborn from among the dead”. Jesus is the first who has come back to life as the new man, the new human being, who shows us what the new creation will look like. At the end, when all things are restored, and when God is renewing the creation to exist without pain, without suffering, without fear, without sorrow, Jesus is the first. We see that in Jesus’ own resurrection; it is unique. We do see other resurrections in the Bible, such as Lazarus in John 11. Lazarus has been dead for four days, and they roll away the stone in front of his tomb, and Lazarus stumbles out, shuffling, still wrapped up in grave clothes, kind of like an Egyptian mummy, and they have to unwrap him. We’re not told all the details of what happens next, but presumably Lazarus went on with his life. Perhaps like many people that have had close experiences with death, he felt he had a new lease of life, and once you’ve felt that, anything is possible. Perhaps he took up an extreme sport, like ultra-marathon running, feeling like nothing could get him down, nothing was going to stop him. So you can imagine Lazarus out there, running his 50 kilometres in the streets and lanes of Judea, and time goes on. One day he is out there, and he’s slowing down, getting a bit out of breath, and there is a tingling in his left arm, and a tightening sensation in the chest, and a sense of dread, and Lazarus knows what is coming, because he’s done this before. But that second time, I imagine, held far less fear for Lazarus. He knew that Jesus is the resurrection and the life; he knew that Jesus has the power over death. And by this time, I presume, Jesus himself has been raised from the dead. See, Lazarus and the other people in the Scriptures are raised in this life only to die again. Jesus is raised, never to die again, and he is the firstborn, the first of the rest. We who trust in him will follow. And the purpose here, why Jesus is firstborn from the dead, is “so that in everything he might have the supremacy”. Why is Jesus the one who has come and died for us, why is he the firstborn of the new creation, why has God gone to all this trouble? So that Christ may be supreme.

Why must Christ be supreme? Why must he be above all things? Verse 19 says “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him”. In Jesus is all of God in bodily form. This idea is repeated in 2:9: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form”.

And so in Jesus God has become a human being. Not a part of God, not a slice of God, not God just for a little while, but all of God has become a human being. And so because he is supreme, because he is God, because he was before all things, and above all things and at the centre of all things, and at the end of all things, if the world is to be right, if things are to be fitting, it is only fitting that he have the supremacy in all things, including salvation, including the new creation, including the reconciliation of all things. And so verse 20 says, “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”.

Notice that God was pleased to do these things. No one is up there twisting God’s arm and saying, “God, you better get down there and fix those human beings up, you’d better sort them out”. God was pleased to carry through his plan. He chose to. He was not forced to, he didn’t have to. It was his love and delight. His love and delight was to reconcile all things to himself, and again “things on earth or things in heaven”. He does that through the Cross. He makes peace through his blood shed on the Cross, so all things that exist, all things that have turned away from God their creator, will be restored to peace with him. And here’s the difficult part, the curious thing about this verse: it really is all things. Yet we know that not everyone trusts in Jesus, not everyone turns to him, that there are spiritual powers that are fallen and rebellious. How will they be reconciled? How will they be brought to peace? We get a hint, and an answer towards this, over in chapter 2:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

Here Paul is talking about us, about those who believe in Jesus, saying that the accusation that is against you, the law that says “you have broken these things, you have sinned against God”, is finished with. God has forgiven you. He has done that by cancelling them, by writing off the charges, paying the debt, and he has nailed it to the Cross—that’s where it happens—and then in verse 15 he says, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”.

He has gone back to talking about spiritual beings, fallen ones that have rejected God. God has disarmed them, and so the question is, what power do they have? What power does Satan, and those who follow him, actually have? Their power is simply this—and this is what the name Satan means, he is the Accuser—he is the one who will stand in the presence of God and accuse us before God, and say about us, “What about this man, he did this, he rebelled against you. Bring justice, bring judgment!” That is his weapon. That is his main and virtually only weapon. And yet Jesus has disarmed Satan and all his powers; he has taken the weapon out of his hands, and so he has brought a peace, which we see in the second part of verse 15. The image here is of a Roman conqueror, returning to Rome, one of the Emperors, one of the great generals. They would have a procession of those they had defeated, brought in shame into Rome, to demonstrate their victory. Christ has made a spectacle and triumph over his enemies. They have been brought to peace, but it’s an unwilling peace, it’s the peace of those who are forced to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. God will reconcile all things to himself, but those who are rebellious to the end will be brought to peace through judgment and submission.

No so for those who trust Christ. This is the thrust of the last three verses in chapter 1. What does all this supremacy of Christ have to do with us? Verse 21 says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior”. In the past we were against God, alienated, estranged, enemies in our thoughts and in what we did and the way we lived, but now there’s something different, seen in verse 22: “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”.

He has brought you back into the relationship, back into peace, by Christ’s physical body through death, to present you holy in his sight, blameless and above reproach—free from accusation. God’s purpose through Jesus’ death is to present us holy, blameless, clean, pure, innocent, undefiled, righteous, and free from accusation in his presence. And yet there is a condition attached in verse 23:

...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. (Col 1:23)

This shouldn’t surprise us. Paul is simply saying, “How will this be the case?” And the answer is to continue in your faith. How do we start the Christian life? It’s by trusting in Jesus, trusting that his death has done it all, has reconciled us. How do we continue in the Christian life? There’s no secret knowledge, no tricks, no advanced course, it’s simply continuing to trust in Jesus’ death and what he has accomplished. And how will we finish that race? We’ll finish it in the same way, by trusting in Jesus’ death, what he has done, so that in all things he might have the supremacy.

See, Paul has been laying out for us the supremacy of Christ: who he is, that he was before all things, above all things, the firstborn of all creation, at the centre of all things. That the whole universe continues to exist moment-by-moment because of Christ, and he is at the end of all things. All things will be restored, will be reconciled, will exist for the glory of Jesus. So the next question is: in our life, in our faith, is that the reality? Jesus must be supreme, because he is supreme. All the glory of God is seen in Jesus, in his eternal glory, in the glory of what he has done at the Cross, and in the glory of the new creation. The question is really simple—is Jesus supreme in our lives, in our hearts? Do we worship and glorify him as supreme above all creation, for who he is from all eternity to all eternity, and for what he has done at the centre of all history, the Cross? Is he supreme for us?