Col No.5 The Pre-eminence of Jesus

By quoting a hymn, if your memory is good, you may recall last Sunday morning when we were dealing with the thought of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I felt myself led to bring before you that final stanza, is it, or the middle stanza of that great hymn, My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to his cross, and I bear it no more. Blessed rest, blessed hope of my soul. Well here is the Apostle Paul.

Possibly he is the author of the hymn, or maybe he's quoting from an early Christian who has written this particular hymn to the Lord, and Paul seizes upon it, he wants to quote it. Why does he want to quote this particular early piece of Christian hymnology? Well he does so because it brings into focus the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember from what we were saying last week as we were studying the preceding verses that the great plan of God's redemptive purposes are opened up for us in the thirteenth and the fourteenth verse.

There is the thought of God launching a rescue work, sending his son into this world, and we considered that very word, rescue, did we not? And then the idea was coupled of the Lord Jesus removing us from this earthly sphere, spiritually at any rate, and lifting us up to a new life in him. Rescue, removal, and then the thought of ransom, the Lord God Almighty paying the ransom price for the redemption of the world through the shedding of the blood of his own son. And then the consequence of all this was forgiveness.

Those who have so trusted Jesus know their sins forgiven. So here is that fourfold sweep of God's redemptive purposes illustrated in the thirteenth and fourteenth verse. But you see the apostle now, having considered redemption, automatically moves over to the thought of a redeemer and who he is, what he is, who he was before he came on this earth, and what God the Father looks upon him as being and the position that he has granted unto him.

So the apostle cites this hymn. It was the practice of the early Christians. According to one of the Roman writers in the first century, a man by the name of Pliny, who incidentally was writing to the emperor, and he was describing early Christian worship.

And he said, you know, the only problem I can work out in Asia Minor, the only reason for complaint against these Christians is the fact that they come together on the first day of the week and they sing a hymn to Jesus Christ as Lord. They sing a hymn to Jesus as Lord. Well, this possibly was one of the hymns that they were singing, like all the hymns that we've sung so far this morning, ascribing our praise to Jesus Christ as the Lord of the universe.

Now, when you look at this particular hymn, from the 15th through to the 19th verses, you will find that the pivotal thought is locked away in the 18th verse. It's that expression right at the end, in Jesus Christ is someone who ought to have the preeminence. This verse speaks of the supremacy of Christ.

This I say is a logical thing for the apostle Paul to bring out. After all, he's spoken before of the redemptive purposes of God. Who brought those purposes into being? Who brought a vision into reality? Who made actual the wishes of God on this earth? The Lord Jesus Christ.

He therefore, says the apostle, is the supreme one. He has preeminence, and there are three areas of preeminence that the apostle underlines and which for him are conveniently sung in this particular hymn. There is the thought of the preeminence in the fact that Jesus Christ, verse 15, is the image of God.

He is preeminent in that facet of his purposes. Also he is preeminent because as the latter part of the 15th verse through to the 16th tells us, he is the agent in creation, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, and so on. And then he is preeminent, he is the supreme one, verse 18, in the fact that he is the head of the church.

So these are the three areas of the supremacy of Christ. He is in the image of God. He is the agent of creation.

And finally, he is the head of the church. Let's look briefly at this, and all the time asking ourselves, is this preeminence that the apostle argues for concerning the Lord Jesus, is this borne out in our lives? Is he preeminent? Does he control us? Are we acknowledging his lordship in the way that we live in our relationships, in our actions, one toward another, in our attendance at the means of grace, the reading of scripture, the bringing of our hearts before the Lord in prayer, coming around the table of God? Are we showing in this way that we are more than pure academic theologians, that the preeminence of Jesus fans out into practical areas in our lives? Well, let's look at this glorious passage of scripture, and perhaps we shall have to come back to it again next week if I'm not able to bring as much as I feel that I should this morning to your attention. He is, I say, from the deduction of the first part of the 15th verse, preeminent because he is the image of the invisible God.

That means purely this, that what God is, all his characteristics, all his abilities, they all converge in the Lord Jesus. He corresponds exactly to what God the Father is. In scriptures which I would have turned to but have no time, you will discover in Timothy that the Lord God Almighty is referred to as the invisible God, who alone has all immortality and power.

This God who is beyond human ken, who is beyond your comprehension and my comprehension. How are you to know him? Well, you are to know him through Jesus Christ, who, unbecoming man, brings with him the revelation of God. He is God.

He reproduces God. He reveals God. To the extent that one day, towards the end of the three-year training of the disciples in the upper room, one of their number, a man called Philip, says to the Lord Jesus, Look, Master, if you show us the Father, if you show us who the Heavenly Father really is, if you introduce us to him, then we'll fully understand what you're talking about.

And Jesus, you remember, let, in response to this, fall from his lips a colossal answer. He said, Philip, have I been so long with you? And you never know me. You never knew me.

Don't you realize that all the essential being of God is in me? I have come to introduce you to God. Theologians, preachers sometimes use the word exegesis. What does that mean? Well, the displaying forth of the contents of a text.

Jesus is the exegesis of the Father. All that the Father is has been poured into the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

The three in one, that great historic doctrine of the Christian faith. Well, it's adumbrated, it's expounded in these particular words. Who is the image of the invisible God? Go to the 19th verse.

It couldn't be expressed more clearly. It pleased the Father that in him, Jesus Christ, should all fullness dwell. You see again the thought that all the characteristics of deity are impressed upon our Lord Jesus Christ.

Go through to the second chapter. Again, the teaching is so clear, I hardly have need to bring it before you once again. The third verse, in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The ninth verse, still on the thought of Jesus. In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. These are great statements.

You say, well, why bring them to our attention if we know them? Well, I trust you do know them. But I bring them back to your attention today because there is an assault on the deity of Christ. Our Christadelphian friends, our Jehovah's Witness friends across the road, so many of the sects, they're coming along and they're denigrating the Christ.

They're saying, yes, he may be the supreme being in the earthly creation, but he is not God's own son. He is not eternally existent with the Father. Well, I say to you that Paul's letter to the Colossians makes absolute nonsense if their theorizing is correct.

The historic doctrine of the church in regard to the Lord Jesus Christ stakes explicitly, and the Bible underlines the doctrinal conclusions of our forefathers. Jesus is the exact image of God. Hebrews 1, verse 2 gives you that literal expression in the Greek.

The Lord Jesus Christ exactly corresponds to God. What God is, he is. He is what God is.

The image of the invisible God. So then, that's the first thing that this hymn, this early Christian hymn, written only a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, incidentally, the first thing that this hymn has to say. The second thing, and here there's so much that I would like to share with you, the second thing tells us that Jesus Christ is the agent of creation.

The agent of creation, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. I like the rendering of the living Bible on this particular verse. I don't often quote from the living Bible because it's a paraphrase and I prefer a translation, but I like this.

Let me bring it to you. He was, sorry, Christ himself, verse 16, Christ himself is the creator who made everything in heaven and earth, the things we can see and the things we can't. The spirit world with its kings and kingdoms, its rulers and authorities, all were made by Christ for his own use and glory.

He was before all else began, and it is his power that holds everything together. Some of the greatest thinkers in our world, going back to the Greek era, say, of the philosopher Plato, coming down to times nearer our own, the brain of that great man, Einstein. These men were convinced that there must be some first cause, some power in which everything else coheres and is traced back to.

Because, well, according to Plato, the uniformity of the planets as they go around the sun, they in themselves indicate a great designer. Einstein, with the mammoth brain that he had, came to the conclusion that the laws which he was able to determine, the second law of thermodynamics and the law of energy which he adumbrated, all these he was convinced, drew him to the conclusion that although he was not a Christian, as we understand Christianity, nonetheless there is a great force behind everything, a power in which everything else coheres and has its existence. And this is precisely what the Apostle Paul was saying as he's quoting this great hymn, centuries ago, in him, the Lord Jesus Christ, by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.

This universe which you perceive, the other regions which you don't, the angelic regions, the demonic regions, these areas we know very little about, though sometimes we're influenced by them, all these things, seen and unseen, they cohere, they converge, they take their authority originally, initially, from the Lord Jesus, who is the agent of creation. I find this to be a very remarkable statement. I only wish that our boys and girls could grasp the teaching of this more clearly.

Sometimes in the outdated textbooks, for textbooks used in school, are usually at least 10 years or 15 years behind modern scientific thinking. I wish that they could realise that the teaching of the New Testament in respect to evolution, in respect to biology, in respect to physiology, physics, chemistry, so on and so forth, is in no way contrary to the admissions of science when it can make conclusions which are definite and not only suppositions which are open to debate. The Bible here is saying of our Lord Jesus that He is the principle behind all creation.

And you see, once you admit to this, there is no problem in respect to miracles. Here comes a man from Nazareth, this carpenter. He's a remarkable teacher.

Even those who are biased have to confess that no man has spoken like this man. He preaches and people understand. He's not like the ordinary rabbis.

They indulge in theologising and philosophising and it's all a question of words. And the average artisan, he doesn't understand. He's put off by this thing.

It's just the religious elite endeavouring to earn money and sometimes exploiting people by so doing. But there's nothing like this with the Lord Jesus. He's completely different.

This man, when he speaks, he has an authority, he has a power, he has a discernment that others do not have. And what is more, look at the miracles that he's doing. No one ever spoke like this.

No one ever did things like he has done. And I say to me, when I read this 16th verse in particular of Colossians 1, I have no problems with the miraculous activity of the Lord Jesus. This is what you would expect.

Here is the architect of the universe. Here is God becoming man. Here is God revealing himself.

Here is the one who sets up physical and scientific laws. So when he's on earth, what will he do? Well, he will demonstrate that he has power and authority of the world that he has created. So he can speak to a man who is demon-possessed and he can exorcise the demon.

He can walk underwater. He can suspend the law of gravity. Of course he can.

He can multiply the loaves and he can multiply fishes and feed thousands of people. All this becomes a reasonable proposition, a reasonable thing to expect. If what the apostle Paul is here citing in terms of a hymn is right, that by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth.

Jesus Christ, the one in whom all things cohere, the one who ordained the uniformity of physical and scientific laws, when he is on earth, he will demonstrate the fact that he is the agent of creation. Oh, well, so far so good. But our Jehovah's Witnesses friends, they will not be convinced of this.

And they will cite, for instance, this word firstborn in the 15th verse. And they will say, well, that means that he was a created being. And they demonstrate their inability to expound Scripture right.

If this is what the apostle Paul was saying, then how can he in the 17th verse go on to say that he is before all things and by him all things consist? If Jesus was a created being, how can he be before all created things? He will be involved in that whole program of creativity. So what is the apostle here saying? Well, he has the rights of the firstborn towards the world which he has created. What are the rights of the firstborn? Well, in Hebrew type, in Hebrew custom, the firstborn inherited the wealth of his father.

The firstborn had all authority and exercised his authority in the domestic life of the family when the father had gone. Precisely the case with our Lord Jesus. Here the Greek word is prototokos.

And the idea is that Jesus is outside of all creation. He is over and against all creation. He is the creative force.

He has creative ability. And when he moves into this world, this God man, this one who has received all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, he manifests the power and the authority in with which he has been invested. So much more that one could say, but not this morning.

The apostle Paul citing this hymn has shown us two things so far. Jesus corresponds to God. Jesus is the exact image of the invisible God.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the agent of creation. But there is a third that I want just to touch on. The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the body.

Verse 18, the church who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead and so on. I've been reading of a rather famous tourist who's been visiting Mexico quite recently. Doubtless you have seen pictures of him and read of him in the newspaper.

And this is quite a remarkable man. In some ways I admire him. I admire what he stood for in his own communist state before he became Bishop of Rome.

But what I cease to admire and what I cannot comprehend at all is when this man is described as the head of the church. Neither will I brook any rival in respect of the Archbishop of Canterbury or indeed our own great queen for whom one has respect and offers prayer. These people are not the head of the church.

There is only one head of the church. Who is the head of the church? Well, it's the one who was there at the beginning. It's the one who was the firstborn from the dead.

I never read of a Pope who actually came back from the dead. In fact, some were very grateful that they didn't for the type of lives that they lived. Not perhaps the more recent ones but some of the more infamous ones in the 12th and 13th centuries.

I've never read of an Archbishop of Canterbury coming back from the dead. I've never heard of a monarch coming back from the dead. But the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is the image of God, who exactly corresponds to God, the one who is the agent of creation, he is the head of the church.

He is the leader of the redeemed community. He was there at the beginning, not only the beginning of time, but in this respect, the beginning of the creation of the new humanity. What did Jesus come on earth to do? Well, he didn't come to patch up an old humanity.

He didn't come to tell people to turn over a new leaf. No, he said that any man who is in me, at least the apostle makes this declaration on the part of the Lord Jesus. If any man is in him, he is a new creation.

If you feed on me, says the Lord Jesus Christ, you will live forevermore. And he introduced such concepts of being born again and regeneration. Now, who established this experience? Who made it possible? Who was there at the beginning to do these things? None other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

And how did he demonstrate his power? Well, because he was the firstborn from the dead. Scan your history books, get a collection of your religious books and all the books that claim to be inspired, the Koran and all the religious literature of Hinduism. Sift it through, study it in detail and you will not find any claim made as is made by the Christian gospel that a carpenter who came from Nazareth, who was more than just an artisan, a man who directly corresponded with the eternal omnipotent God, one day was crucified on a Roman gibbet and the third day he rose again to prove what? To prove that this was the beginning of a new humanity, that in him and by sharing his life, ordinary mortals like you and I might have sins forgiven, might be raised from darkness to light, from death to life, might be quickened by the impulse of the spirit.

My head controls my body. That small pituitary gland at the base of my skull pumps through hormones which will affect the various tissues and cartilages within my body. Within my head there is inadequate, I will confess, a computer which sifts information my eyes receive and my ears take in.

It sifts stimuli that come through the rest of my body. It's that that makes decisions. No, that works on the ordinary level.

On the spiritual level, the case is exactly in correspondence. Who is the head of the church? Jesus Christ, who directs the church on earth? Any human agency? Not at all. The Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

How does he work out his purposes in this world? Well, he works them out through his redeemed community, through his church. So you see, the requirement that is an obvious one, that he must have preeminence. He is the one who corresponds to God.

He is the agent of creation. But more than this, he is the agent of recreation. He is the leader of the most dynamic, the most important institution in this world today.

You say, what is that? It is the church, the body of Christ. And you and I are members by grace of that body. And we are to extol our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He who fulfilled the purposes of the father. He who brought to pass the great plan of redemption is the redeemer.

And he is the one to whom all honor and glory in time and eternity are to be accorded. Thank God for this great Christian hymn of the first century, which we might well join in re-echoing and singing in the 20th. Well, we'll come back to that again next week.

That was just to get you interested in the subject.