Colossians 1 vv 15 20
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Colossians 1 vv 15 20
- 1. Welcome to Grace “… but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31
- 3. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (v. 15)
- 4. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15
- 5. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a ‘Οσ εςτιν ’εικων του Θεου του ’αορατου
- 6. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘icon’
- 7. Genesis 1:26-27 “Then God said, ‘Let us make Man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, an over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
- 8. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a ‘Οσ εςτιν ’εικων του Θεου του ’αορατου
- 9. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 15b-18 “ … the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created … He is created 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.”
- 10. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17
- 11. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ
- 12. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ – IN Him all things were created, v. 16a
- 13. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ – IN Him all things were created, v. 16a – FOR Him all things were created, v. 16b “All things were created by Him and for Him …”
- 14. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ – IN Him all things were created, v. 16a – FOR Him all things were created, v. 16b – He is BEFORE Creation, v. 17a “He is before all things …”
- 15. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ – IN Him all things were created, v. 16a – FOR Him all things were created, v. 16b – He is BEFORE Creation, v. 17a – He sustains creation, v. 17b
- 16. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 • Firstborn – ‘o πρωτοτοκοσ – IN Him all things were created, v. 16a – FOR Him all things were created, v. 16b – He is BEFORE Creation, v. 17a – He sustains creation, v. 17b “… in him all things hold together”
- 17. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 – New creation, v. 18 “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.”
- 18. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 – New creation, v. 18 • Head of the Church, v. 18 a “And he is the head of the body, the church”
- 19. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 – New creation, v. 18 • Head of the Church, v. 18 a • Firstborn from the dead, v. 18b “he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead”
- 20. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 – Old creation, vv. 16-17 – New creation, v. 18 • Head of the Church, v. 18 a • Firstborn from the dead, v. 18b – SUPREME, v. 18c “so that in everything he might have the supremacy”
- 21. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 • Incarnation, vv. 19-20
- 22. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 • Incarnation, vv. 19-20 – God’s PERSON is made visible in Him, v. 19 “For God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Him.”
- 23. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 • Incarnation, vv. 19-20 – God’s PERSON is made visible in Him, v. 19 – God’s WORK is made visible in Him, v. 20 “… 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.”
- 24. Colossians 1:15-20 • Introduction – God’s is invisible, v. 15 – Jesus is God’s ‘image’, v. 15a • Creation, vv. 16-18 • Incarnation, vv. 19-20 – God’s PERSON is made visible in Him, v. 19 – God’s WORK is made visible in Him, v. 20 • Conclusion
Editor's Notes
- ‘So … what sort of church are you, then?’My interrogator in the livestock mart was a powerful sort of woman with a distinctive military career.The question was civil – but searching.She seemed to have surprised herself a little with the directness of the question and I guessed that very soon she’d come up with a self defence response.Yup … here it comes: ‘We are not religious – I just go by what I can SEE … I’ve got to be able to see it to believe it, but we had a wedding last week and …’Apparently the vicar was a bit of a boy, late for the wedding practice because (as they put it) he had troubling dragging himself past the pub … and ONN it went in similar vein.So – if people only believe what they CAN see … what can you see, when it comes to issues of God?You see, the trouble is that what they can usually see is big buildings, seemingly wealthy institutions and badly behaved people – quite a few complete hooligans, in fact - in His supporters club.Because this is such a common and such a practical problem, which causes such a lot of people (humanly speaking) to lose out on the salvation of God, Paul is absolutely adamant about the wrong-headedness of the proto-gnostic heresy plaguing the Colossian church … which denied the deity of Christ by denying the possibility of His Incarnation.Colossians 1:15
- You want to know what God is?Well you have every opportunity …Not gained by looking at the institution or the people of the church … but by looking at the image of God we’ve been given.Now we’ve rushed ahead.People DO object to our faith and our God because they reckon they just cannot see Him.Well, there IS truth in that somewhere … and BEHIND this verse lies a crucial recognition of OT truth
- From OT times onwards, this is a reasonably heavily emphasised theme of Biblical theology.The problem with that is that people always find their visual input pathways are very, very powerful … our minds (perhaps for the crudest of survival reasons!) depend for our safety and security on the things our eyes tell us.We are visual input dependent … even more true in a pre-literate culture (or post literate culture like ours where we’ve gone back from written word to visual image) where cognitive styles are supremely shaped by visual images … and for that very reason the OT people of God found turning to idols was very attractive.So the nations all around Israel had deities that you could see … made of copper or wood or gold or whatever.They were viewable, touchable, material and dead.Isaiah puts it like this:(Isa. 47:12-20)But the God of the OT was too glorious to be safely viewed by sinful man …As God told Moses (Exodus 33:20) “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live.”He did (in the OT) show something of Himself through created and visible things.There were what we call ‘theophanies’ in the OT, so God would take on some sort of visible form …Abraham in Gen. 18:1 ff.Jacob in Gen. 32:28 ffIsrael in the desert where He appeared as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night in Exodus 13:21-22 … and so on.But it was not His spiritual essence, but something representative that He used to indicate His presence in these situations.John 1:18 tells us – as Jesus is being introduced to John’s readership – “No one has ever seen God … but the only begotten Son, Who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”In fact, 1 John 3:2 describes the day when Christ’s followers will see their God in Glory and in looking on Him will be transformed and finally made REALLY like Him … seeing Him as He is what will make us like God!For the time being we do not see God fully, unveiled … but we see the representation, the image, the icon of God in the face of the Incarnate, glory-veiled Jesus.You want to see God?There He fully is in Jesus, veiled sufficiently for it to be currently safe for you to see Him.God is invisible, but …
- Jesus IS God’s image.So – because the Colossian heretics are insisting on the spiritually harmful (and false) assumption that true God can’t be genuinely seen – Paul identifies Jesus Whom He presents as the image of God both as Creator God and as God made (physical) flesh … those two things together, all at once.Jesus is the image of the invisible God.The phrase is:‘Οςεστιν ’εικωντουΘεουτου ’αορατουJesus is the ‘icon’ of the God Who is invisible.What is this about?The nations had their ‘icons’, in fact they were empty vanities so they weren’t icons pointing to something real but idols pointing to something empty (or as Isaiah says, ‘a lie’) … now Christ’s followers have an icon of the character f God that represents to us so much of His true character as sinful flesh can bear to sustain.
- This word ‘’εικων ’ (meaning ‘image’) is used by Paul on a number of occasions … not only with reference to Christ as the image of God (here and 2 Cor. 4:4) but also of the implication of it … of the increasing transformation of the people who FOLLOW Jesus into that same image of God by the power of the indwelling (sanctifying, transforming) Holy Spirit.By the end of all this, nothing remains of the earthly image in those who finally show forth the image of the heavenly man (1 Cor. 15:49; Rom. 8:29)Now – in Col. 1:15 it looks pretty much as if the allusion is in fact to the OT, where mankind is made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27) and of course that whole creation of mankind thing was done for God’s glory (Isa. 43:7).Here’s where the idea of God having an image first appears …
- Mankind was there in creation as a spiritual being, a moral being, a creative (imaginative, manufacturing, creative) being.Creation is where God does His art … from outside it.Mankind is there to reflect and represent God His Creator’s creator-hood by doing art within creation … and mankind in that first sinless state before the Fall exercised dominion within creation for its benefit and in its interest just as God did both within our cosmos and throughout anything and everything else.Mankind was initially there in the perfect creation to be the perfect image of God before creation’s eyes … to do it good.And we all know what happened to that!Notice how this verse links mankind made in the image of very directly to dominion over creation … just as Col. 1:15ff. also does (as we’ll see in a minute).
- But in a singular, special, exceptional sense Jesus, Paul states, is ‘the image and glory of God’ (1 Corinthians 11:7).So this ‘Jesus as God’s image’ idea speaks about Jesus coming into the fallen creation where mankind was now only a fallen and poor reflection to Creation of God’s glory, revealing God to us clearly once more, as our focus of discovery and of worship, both in His identification with humanity and in His accurate portrayal and embodiment of God Himself … P. T. O’Brien: “As the first title of majesty, ‘image’ emphasises Christ’s relation to God. The term points to His revealing of the Father on the one hand and His pre-existence on the other – it is both functional and ontological.”So – because the Colossian heretics are insisting on the spiritually harmful (and false) assumption that true God can’t be genuinely seen – Paul identifies Jesus Whom He presents as the image of God both as Creator God and as God made (physical) flesh … those two things together, all at once.Now that links straight in to the next positive statement about Christ’s relationship to Creation … first the old creation (the cosmos as we know it) then the New Creation (the church and the life of the world to come).You will notice that Christ’s relationship to Creation continues to ‘icon’ or to ‘image’ God to us and the special relationship God the Father has to Creation, because Jesus IS (not just the ‘imager’ – like a cinema projectionist - but actually is Himself the image of God).He is God-to-look-at for us, God on display in our midst.For that reason He sustains a particular relationship to Creation.
- Verses 16-17 describe Christ’s Creator-hood over the world as it was created and as we now know it.THIS world.The OLD Creation.Who is Jesus in relation to this fallen world?
- If ‘image’ emphasises Christ’s relationship to God, Firstborn emphasises His relationship to Creation.Now, let’s just jump straight in and say that the context makes it very plain He is not to be thought of as the first arising created being.The explanation of the title firstborn that follows on (introduced by the word ‘οτι – ‘for’) emphasises the point that He is the One Who brought the whole of creation into being … His title as firstborn is explained in terms of being the Creator, not the creation.In LXX, the word ‘firstborn’ was frequently used “to denote one who has a special place in the father’s love.” (O’Brien)So it is used to describe Israel (Exod. 4:22) and in Judaism the Messianic King as well as Israel, the Patriarchs and the Torah are given this title of distinction.In fact, the way this title is used here and in v. 18 echo the wording of Ps. 89:27 where God says of the Davidic King: “I also will make Him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.”But the context here tells us much greater things about Jesus … He is the πρωτοτοκος as no-one else has been or will be according to the following context … as ‘o πρωτοτοκος Christ is unique, distinguished from all creation … prior to and supreme over Creation (both the old and the new that’s to come).Here it comes …
- That statement of Christ being the firstborn is explained and expounded firstly with this: “BECAUSE in Him all things were created …”The passive mood indicates that God is the Creator … a point reiterated later “all things were created through Him (i.e. God) and for Him.”What’s this ‘in Him’?Well, the ’εν is instrumental … He is the sphere in which the work of creation takes place … just as election in Eph. 1:4 takes place in Christ and not apart from Him, so it is too with Creation (according to Haupt).This means, then, that creation (the unique work of GOD the Creator) depended on Jesus … so that it was not done independently of Him.God the Son and God the Father worked on it and through it TOGETHER … and their creation gave rise to EVERYTHING.Visible things, invisible thingsThings in Heaven, things on earth.Four classes of angelic beings are listed:Thrones, dominions, principalities and powers.
- Through Him, In Him and for Him …“All things were created by Him and for Him …”He is the firstborn so He gets to inherit after all the hard work He (as the ‘firstborn’) put in on the estate.God doesn’t create for a part of creation.God creates for uncreated God … and Christ is the firstborn in that household … with all the rights, responsibilities and joys of the proprietor.
- So, of course, Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate state stands outside the framework of time … which He created as part of creation.But He is the uncreated God … so He is beyond time, before Creation (v. 17 a)Are you getting something of the scale here of Jesus?You want to see before you’ll believe?Here is the before time Creator … not full on so you can’t stand in His presence (that day’s coming) but the image of God in God in the fleshYou see, you can’t say He’s only the image … the image is real God only veiled!He is BEFORE all creation – so not part of it – and …
- Mind-blowing!He is the same One Who sustains it!
- This is no ‘deus ex machina’ kind of deity we’re dealing with (and again here Paul seems to be dealing with the Colossian heretics).God hasn’t wound up creation like a small clockwork mouse, and left it to mince around the carpet!He is the hands on creator sustaining the mechanisms and means that the planet – that the COSMOS – still functions on day after day.And that’s just the might that sustains the mechanics of the old fallen creation!That’s how Jesus relates to old creation …But He’s the firstborn over the new creation too.We’re told less about this because so much of what’s too say seems to lie in the unrevealed future …
- Now, the first reference to the ‘firstborn’ arose pre-creation (outside time) and didn’t seem to have any temporal reference.This one clearly arises inside time, with reference to crucifixion and then resurrection, and clearly has temporal reference.Jesus stands at the start of the new redeemed, death-defeated humanity.The head of the church is the great pioneer, the pioneer of death defeated humanity and the author of human salvation.What’s the point of all this?You want to see what God’s LIKE?Here He is!He is BETTER than you!Here is Jesus … in all His SUPREMACY!
- Here’s the problem that many have with Him.They can’t allow that He’s better than them (that He’s God – veiled because our imperfection’s to frail to survive having seen Him), won’t accept that He alone is the One Who was sinless and spotless and bore sin’s penalty as the substitute I have needed, firstborn from the dead and authoritative head of the sin-saved community … possessing by right the supremacy.Now … Paul has spoken about Jesus as God’s image in Creations old and new.He goes on to talk about Jesus as God’s image incarnate in vv. 19-20, but those make a sermon of their own.Here’s where that next sermon will go …
- So now let’s bring this all to a conclusion.We started at this point … with this question:So you want to know what God looks like?You want to GO by what you see?Here’s what you see …You see God Who came down to you, entered into the mess of Creation and the (sometimes) more inconsistent mess of His New Creation the Church … showing you what God is like – condescensionYou see God Who made you and Who has the right to own you, rule you and command you.You see God Who has the heart to reconcile and redeem you and pay the price for your sin to redeem you.You want to know what God’s like?Look at Jesus!Authoritative, all powerful, King of Creation - ‘sustaining all things by His powerful Word’ …Taking human flesh to bleed and die and pioneer the path through death to life … If you want to see what lies in the heart of God, then Jesus is God demonstrating heart.