CHAPTER 1: Part 4: The Wonder of Jesus

Meditations in Colossians: 28. The Kingdom of the Son

Col 1:13,14 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption (through his blood) the forgiveness of sins.

I have commented many times about how easy it is to skip over words in Scripture, taking them for granted and failing to get to grips with them. My original intent had been to move on to the next paragraph which is all about Jesus, but then I realised that Paul had eased us towards that subject within the end of this present paragraph. But it starts right at the beginning of the letter where Paul's opening words were, “ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus.” (v.1) He doesn't say an apostle of God, but of Christ Jesus and there is a clear reason for that.

The ‘Christ elements', if I may call them that, are limited in the early verses of this letter. The church he writes to is “in Christ ” (v.2) and Christ is identified as the Son of the Father (v.3). Salvation is based upon “faith in Christ” (v.4) and Epaphras is identified as a “minister of Christ” (v.7) but these are all very peripheral references to Christ. It is only as we get to the paragraph starting with v.15 that the focus turns wholly to Christ. However in v.13 we have this subtle, almost-in-passing, reference to “the kingdom of the Son,” and suddenly we see why Paul is an apostle of Christ, because Christ is administering God's kingdom. Let's examine various facets of this.

First, Christ seated at the Father's right hand : The scriptural testimony is quite clear: “Jesus …was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honour at God's right hand,” (Mk 16:19) and “Now he sits on the throne of highest honour in heaven, at God's right hand,” (Acts 2:33) and “He is seated in the place of honour next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers are bowing before him.” (1 Pet 3:22) See the same in Acts 5:31 / Acts 7:55 / Rom 8:34 / Ephes. 1:20 / Phil 2:9 / Col. 3:1 / Heb 1:3 / Heb 8:1 / Heb 10:12 / Heb 12:2 Nowhere else in the world do you find this incredible testimony about any man except here. Seated at the Father's right hand on the thrones of heaven is the highest position it is possible to have, and the abundant testimony of the New Testament is that that is where Jesus now is.

Second, Christ who has all authority: The testimony is equally clear that Christ is there at the Father's right hand and the Father has bestowed upon him all authority, for example, “And God has put all things under the authority of Christ , and he gave him this authority for the benefit of the church,” (Eph 1:22) and, “You gave him authority over all things…we .. see.. Jesus… crowned with glory and honour" (Heb 2:8) See also 1 Cor. 15:25, Isa 9:7 and Psa 110:1.

Third, Christ who reigns with a purpose: Indeed in the 1 Cor 15 reference we see something very significant: “ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (1 Cor 15:24,25) First, note that God is working towards an end, a specific time when He winds all things up that we know at the present. Second, Jesus is reigning or ruling at the present time. When we considered the difference between a kingdom and a dominion we noted that the kingdom is overseen by a king but a dominion is overseen by a governor on behalf of the king who reigns over all. Thus Satan may have been given power over those who reject God and rebel against Him, but Jesus is still the King of Kings who rules over all. Indeed Psa 110:1,2 prophetically suggests that he rules in the midst of his enemies. The verse above says he rules until a point in time when he has subdued all his enemies. Rev 19 suggests that that will be when he returns as a conquering king.

However there are clues in scripture that suggest that Jesus' kingdom on earth began when he started his three year ministry and continues on growing and growing. It is interesting to note that when Jesus started preaching he spoke of the kingdom or rule of God and demonstrated it by healing people: “Jesus went throughout Galilee , teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom , and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (Mt 4:23) The apostle Paul was later to teach, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power .” (1 Cor 4:20) No wonder Jesus said, “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” (Jn 14:12) The church is supposed to continue to demonstrate the kingdom.

When Jesus told a parable that started, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,” (Mt 13:31) he pictured it as starting from a very small beginning (a mustard seed) but growing into a large tree: “when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree.” (Mt 13:32). It is not the only ‘tree' in the world, but it is certainly the largest! We should not expect the Church to get smaller and smaller, for it is the instrument that Jesus uses as his ‘body' to demonstrate and exercise his rule.

The 1 Cor 15 verses above show us that temporarily the administration of the kingdom of God has been put into the hands of Jesus who is working through his body, the church, up until some future climax when he will bring all things to an end and then hand it back to the Father. We are presently in the era of the Son who administers the kingdom of God through the work of his Holy Spirit on behalf of the Father.

Ultimately all glory and authority is the Father's but for the moment the administration of the end times has been handed to the conquering lamb, Jesus: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne….. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. ….. . And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." (Rev 5:6-10) Hallelujah!

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 29. Image of the Invisible God

Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God.

There are those who say that all religions are the same. They are the unwise, the unread and the casual. They have clearly not read the New Testament. Here we move more fully into a paragraph of revelation about Jesus Christ that places him far above any other person or religion. You either deny the truth of these verses as being simply made up wishful thinking or you accept them as the divine revelation from heaven. For a whole variety of well thought out reasons, we accept the latter.

We saw in the previous study (and these are studies based on the combined testimony of the whole of the New Testament) that Jesus is the administrator of his Father's kingdom, seated at his Father's right hand, having been given all authority to rule until the day he winds all things up. As we said then, for starters there is no other human being of whom that has ever been said.

But now we come to this dynamic little sentence: “He is the image of the invisible God.” Let's ask, first of all, what it says, and then go on to ask, is this the only such reference about Jesus, is this a one-off thought from the apostle Paul? This verse first of all reminds us that God is invisible. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “God is spirit,” (Jn 4:24) and of course you cannot see ‘spirit'. Another way of putting this might be to remind ourselves that the Bible shows God inhabiting heaven, an existence beyond our eyes, and we only encounter Him by the presence of His Holy Spirit (spirit again.) In passing we might also note the definite article, ‘the' invisible God. We almost take it for granted that there is only one God. But then there is the word ‘image' which means expression or reflection. So Paul is saying that Jesus is the expression of the one and only invisible God who is spirit, flesh revealing spirit.

So let's go on to consider, is this just a one-off suggestion as to the reality of who Jesus was and is? The answer has to be, by no means!!!! John has to be the greatest source of all things ‘Son of God'. His Gospel famously starts out, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (Jn 1:1,2) That lifts Jesus higher than any pale reflection of God to being equal with God, somehow an expression of God. ‘The Word' was clearly Jesus for John later declares, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1:14) This ‘Word' who he has previously said, “was God” has now appeared to us, has “ become flesh”.

A few verses on he comes closer to our verse here in Colossians, when he says, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.” (Jn 1:18) You cannot accuse John of being unclear about what he thought of Jesus. Describing Jesus at the Father's side he called him “God the One and Only.” Yes, he is speaking of Jesus there.

Intriguingly earlier in his Gospel, he remembers an encounter that Jesus had with the Jews where again and again he spoke of himself as the bread that has come down from heaven (see Jn 6:41 etc., etc.) It does not so much equate him with the Father but it certainly reveals Jesus as one who existed previously in heaven with the Father. A little later on Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one.” (Jn 10:30) and “know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (Jn 10:38). No wonder the legalistic Jews were upset.

Later on in his Gospel, John recounts a conversation between Jesus and his disciple, Philip: “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'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?” (Jn 14:9,10) The message is quite clear!

When we come to the book of Revelation we find even more revelation received by John. For example, “I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty," is found in the opening lines (Rev 1:8) and yet a chapter later Jesus says of himself, “These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again.” (Rev 2:8). Alpha and Omega is simply the same way of saying, the first and the last.

A few verses on, though, in this letter to the Colossians, he says of Jesus, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” ( Col 1:19). Later in this same letter he says, “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” ( Col 2:9) Paul also used this same ‘image' language when writing to the Corinthians: “they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor 4:4).

The writer to the Hebrews declared of Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being .” (Heb 1:3) Wow! You can't get much clearer than that. Another way of speaking of God's ‘image' being Jesus, is that he is the exact representation of God.

So, no, this is not a one-off obscure comment from the apostle Paul; it is a teaching found in numerous places in the New Testament. Again we would ask, of who else in all history have these claims been made? Let's not have any of this thoughtless talk of “all religions being the same”. Whatever else we may say about the religions of the world, they are not all the same!

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 30. Firstborn over all Creation

Col 1:15   He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation .

If we avoid thinking about fairly basic words or phrases, we surely do when we come to a more difficult one as we have above. Whatever does it mean when it says that Jesus is “the firstborn over all creation”? Well the idea of the firstborn being special comes up throughout the Old Testament. The use of first born in respect of Jesus is fairly limited. We have, “ And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him.” (Heb 1:6) and a few verses on from our present one, Paul says of Jesus, “he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,” (v.18) In the book of Revelation we find a similar reference: “Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead.” (Rev 1:5) However these latter two references are clearly in respect of Jesus' resurrection but our present reference has nothing to do with that. At first sight we might say it is nearer the Heb 1:6 reference.

As we did once before, I find it is sometimes helpful to see what the paraphrase versions or other translations say about a verse. Here is a selection: “ he existed before creation began.” (JBP). “He existed before God made anything at all.” (Living). “We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created.” (Message reflecting more the following context). “Christ lived before anything was made.” (NKJV). What these various versions say is that the translators struggle to comprehend Paul's words at this point.

So what can we say. He is the “firstborn”. Very well, before anything else there was just ‘God' and then He expressed Himself in another form, that of ‘a son' The early church struggled with this idea. Did God ‘make' Jesus so he was a lesser being? Did Jesus come out of the ‘Father' so he was an expression of Him. Remember, we've seen that John especially clearly identifies Jesus ‘as God' in his Gospel, as do others. It is interesting to look at the early creeds.

The Apostles Creed (Orig. AD140) starts, “I believe in God almighty, And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord, Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” That didn't really touch the question. It wasn't yet being challenged.

The Nicene Creed (AD325) says of Jesus, “ We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made , of one Being with the Father.” Here they were struggling to go deeper. Begotten simply means ‘born of' or ‘comes out of'.

Much later the Athanasian Creed went into it in great depth. Here are some snippets: “Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. ….. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. …. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten . The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”

We suppose therefore, that “firstborn over all creation” means first born in that he was the first expression of the Father before anything else, before the Creation itself , in which the Son played a part, which we shall see in future studies. The Trinity is a mystery. We describe it as three persons in one but how that works in detail is still a mystery. In that the Son ‘came out of' the Father, the Bible shows him in submission to the Father. Paul wrote on this: “ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor 15:25-28)

In as much as there are different roles within different expressions of the Godhead, The Father, being supreme, has given all things to Jesus to rule over until a time comes to wind up everything, when the Son hands it back to the Father so that God is supreme over all things. The Message version nicely puts the end of the above quote, “ When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive.”

Again the Living version of the above verses is also good: “ For Christ will be King until he has defeated all his enemies,   including the last enemy—death. This too must be defeated and ended. For the rule and authority over all things has been given to Christ by his Father; except, of course, Christ does not rule over the Father himself, who gave him this power to rule.   When Christ has finally won the battle against all his enemies, then he, the Son of God, will put himself also under his Father's orders, so that God who has given him the victory over everything else will be utterly supreme.”

The ‘firstborn of creation' raises Jesus Christ, the Son of God higher than anyone or anything in all of existence. No wonder in heaven there is equal worship for Father and Son: “ To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Rev 5:13) Hallelujah!

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 31. Jesus the Creator

Col 1:16   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.

I suspect the thing that most marks God out for many of us is the fact that He is the Creator: “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1) In the recent studies we have seen Jesus equated with the Father as God, now seated at the Father's right hand in heaven with all authority given to him so that he oversees God's kingdom. But now we find that he was part of the ‘Creation partnership'.

There is a strength that comes through in these verse when twice Paul says, “all things” and just in case we were unsure of what that means we might summarise it by saying everything in existence whether in heaven (invisible to us) or on the earth (visible to us) and that includes all and any person or being that exists “whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities ”. Now we assume that description includes human beings and angelic or demonic beings who have power. This is a staggering claim that yet again lifts Jesus the Son of God above anyone or anything in all of existence (except his Father).

Before we consider the ramifications of this, let's check other verses that suggest the same thing. John's Gospel has to be the starting place: “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (Jn 1:3) Not much doubt about that. We find the same thing in Hebrews: “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe .” (Heb 1:1,2)

In Proverbs 8 there is a beautiful prophetic picture of wisdom personified which in the light of the above verses must have applied to the Son: “I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep …. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.” (Prov 8:27-31) He is our link between the Father and us His world, and he was there with the Father bringing all things into being. Perhaps we take for granted some of the verses we have read. For example, John's description of Jesus' activity: “ “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” There is nothing in existence that came without his actions, absolutely everything is covered in this.

What did the Hebrew writer mean when he said, “ through whom he made the universe.” ‘ through Jesus'? It would almost seem as if the Father has expressed or brought out of Himself Jesus (begotten) to become the primary link between the spiritual and material worlds and so right at the ‘beginning', having begotten the person and being of Jesus the Son, everything material comes through him, and then additional; spiritual beings (angels). The Father spoke and said, “Let there be light,” and in a way that defies our finite minds, and so light came through the Son, then the material world, then ‘earth' then seas, then plants and trees, then living creatures, then mankind – all through the being who is the Son. The Father willed it, the Son expressed it and the Spirit energised it.

So Jesus, with the Father, brought into being ALL things – including an angel who would fall and become known as Satan. Did God make a mistake? Was Jesus involved in a gigantic error? No, the agency that allows rebellion is called free will; it is the essential that allows sentient beings to act freely, to be living beings who make purpose for their actions and lives – and that included angels. So, yes, God knew Satan would rebel, knew that sin would enter the world through Adam and Eve's rejections of His instructions and knew what would follow, but that was the cost of free will. But within that knowledge the Godhead planned how to bring redemption and planned how to use Satan. I have written elsewhere on how God uses Satan but here is a brief summary with some starter verses:

To reveal men's hearts - see 1 Chron 21:1

To bring judgement on unbelievers – see  Rev 9:11

To bring discipline to believers – see  1 Cor 5:5

To subjugate unbelievers – see  1 Jn 5:19b

To maintain humility in our lives - see 2 Cor. 12:7

To develop faith & righteousness in our lives – see  1 Peter 1:7 / 5:8-9 /  2 Peter 1:4-8

To bring about trials whereby we can be rewarded - see 1 John 2:13,14 / Rev. 2:17

To teach us how to fight – see Judges 3:2

To demonstrate God's power over the enemy – see Eph 3:10

So, no there were no mistakes in Creation, only divine wisdom as Father and Son brought into being every single thing we can think of in existence. As we said before, as we started considering the person and work of Jesus here in this letter, never let anyone say that Jesus is ‘just another religious leader'; the Bible does not allow us that.

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 32. Jesus the Sustainer

Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together .

Here we go again with two phrases that we probably so often skip past without little thought but which are, like the rest of these incredible snippets in the letter, like nuggets of gold that need mining. First of all, “He is before all things.” I suggests there are two meanings or applications of this part of the verse. First, because he was begotten before the Godhead created anything else, he is indeed before all things. Second, I would suggest that because of who he is, he is before anyone and anything else in all of existence in respect of importance.

I know we have been there before but it needs emphasising because we are so slow to really take in these things, but let's consider more fully this aspect of Jesus having existed before anything else. Let's recap again John's verses: “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” ( Jn 1:1,2) The Living Bible puts it so straightforwardly: “ Before anything else existed   there was Christ, with God.” Then there is, “ I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!” (Jn 8:58). “I AM” of course was God's divine name shared with Moses in Exodus 3. Then remember how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane : “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began .” ( Jn 17:5) Wow, that's pretty clear!

To pick up the second possible meaning of that part of the verse if, as we have been seeing, Jesus IS God and Jesus was there bringing into existence all of creation and, as we'll go on to see shortly, he holds all things together, then indeed there is no competitor to rival him for importance. No other being – human or otherwise - has had these things said about them. As a separate study work your way through Hebrews chapter 1 where the writer lists off a stream of reasons why Jesus is pre-eminent.

But then Paul goes on to this second tricky phrase: “in him all things hold together.” This is quite amazing, Let's look again at how a couple of the paraphrase versions put it: “ He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.” (Message) and “He was before all else began and it is his power that holds everything together .” (Living) The consensus is that somehow or other, Jesus the Son of God is the one who keeps everything going; not the pull of gravity, not the initial big bang momentum, but Christ. We measure ‘life' in a human beings by brain waves or heart beats and we assume they have just been started off by the mother while the infant is in the womb, and they simply slow down and stop at death. We observe life in a plant or a tree as sunlight and water act on the cells of the tree or plant and they multiply and we speak of the plant as ‘living' but actually these verses say that somehow life continues and the world continues only because of Jesus.

The writer to the Hebrew wrote, “ The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Heb 1:3) In the same way that life and matter were created by God's word – “And God said, ‘Let there be…. And it was so.” (see Gen 1) so it seems, keeps things going by His word. While he speaks it keeps going.

It is a mystery we will not understand until we get to heaven. But is makes Jesus even more significant. We so often focus on his all important work on the Cross (and rightly so) but we must never forget the New Testament's testimony that Jesus is with God and Jesus is God. Also that God created the world and Jesus created the world. Now we see that the very existence of the world depends on Jesus the Son of God. We might ask, can we ever elevate Jesus enough? There is yet more to come.

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 33. Jesus, head of the Church

Col 1:18    And he is the head of the body, the church;

In this sweep of the wonder of Jesus, Paul has been pointing out how Jesus is supreme above all (and he will reiterate that later on). So far he has done that by pointing out that Jesus is the temporary ruler over God's kingdom on earth, that Jesus is the image or expression of God, that he was there before all else, the begotten Son, sharing with his Father in bringing into being all of existence and he maintains all of existence by his word. Now, coming down from these incredible and lofty acclamations he also identifies him as the one who is head of the church.

But before we get to ‘church' we pass the word ‘body', his body which is now the church. Taking Paul's letters in Scriptural order, in Romans this concept does not appear until chapter 12: “ Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Rom 12;4,5) There it is, one body with many members – each of us.

This has an echo in 1 Corinthians : “is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Cor 10:16,17) There is a similar oblique hint about us being part of the one body of Christ, but this comes into its fullness in chapter 12 which details these ideas and culminates with, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Cor 12:27) He then goes on to detail specific ministry gifts.

The next big mention is in that wonderful letter of the church, Ephesians: “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” (Eph 1:22,23) When he later details the gifts of ministries to the church, he says that they are, “to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” (Eph 4:12) He also uses the concept later there in connection with husband and wife relationships.

Which brings us to Colossians where we have our present reference and a few verses later on his reference to “for the sake of his body, which is the church.” (v.24) Later on he makes reference to the proud believer who, he says, “has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.” ( Col 2:19) It is still in his mind when he later makes the appeal, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.” ( Col 3:15) It is a concept that is unique to Paul's writing but in it he conveys some wonderful truths.

So let's summarise what this concept says in Paul's writings.

How far this is from all of the trapping of ecclesiastical ritual we often see on television, with men or women dressed up in special clothes. How far this is from the gimmicky services we often find in many modern churches. I challenged one of our own church leaders about this recently because although I have advocated and used such things as ‘café church' or ‘messy church' in the past, my conclusion today is that so often (not always) we use these things to hide the absence of the Holy Spirit in our gatherings. Let's learn to wait on the head of the body to both be inspired and to find out what he has on his heart for us to be and do when we gather together. HE is the head of the church, not the Pope, not the arch-bishop of Canterbury or any other ‘bishop'. When we let him be the head, then we might start seeing the body behaving like his body. May it be so!

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 34. Jesus, firstborn from the dead

Col 1:18b he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead

The apostle Peter in his second letter commented of Paul, “ His letters contain some things that are hard to understand,” (2 Pet 3:16) and there are times when the lazy side of me wishes Paul had spelled out what he was meaning in much greater detail. He has just said, “he is the head of the body, the church,” and now says, “he is the beginning”. The temptation is to think he is referring back to Jesus before Creation that we have considered in verses 16 and 17 but coming after the reference to the church we take it to mean that he is the beginning of the church itself. Let's ponder on that.

Matthew records an interesting interchange between Jesus and Peter: “Simon Peter answered, " You are the Christ, the Son of the living God ." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Mt 16:16-18) Now we won't go in to the clever word play in these verses but simply note that Peter made a strong pronouncement about Jesus which Jesus said came from heaven and this pronouncement will act as a foundation stone on which the ‘church' (the ‘called out ones' of God) would be established. The word ‘church' appears only three times in the Gospels, and that in Matthew.

“The Church” is, as I noted above, “the called out ones” of God, those God has called to Himself to be redeemed by the work of Jesus. The Church are those who relate to God through Jesus Christ. There is a sense by which Jesus coming to the earth modeled for us what it was like to have a relationship with the Father. The difference between him and us is that he already was related to the Father as the Son of God and needed nothing to bring about that relationship; we need the work of his death on the Cross to bring it about for us. Jesus draws us to himself and collectively we are his ‘body' the vessel through which the Holy Spirit will bring about the will of God, or express the kingdom of God .

On one occasion Jesus told the parable of the mustard seed which was a single seed which grew into a great tree (Mt 13:31,32). Jesus himself has to be that mustard seed and his relationship with the Father grows to include many other people and we collectively become that ‘tree'. But he is the beginning. The Church, brought into being or reality by the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, is a new creation. It had not existed before that day. Now, by the working of the Holy Spirit, this body of believers is brought into being to grow and grow across the world. But Jesus is the beginning of it all.

But then comes this phrase, “the firstborn from the dead”. This leads us to ponder on a physical reality that pictured and brought about a spiritual reality that in turn was a physical reality. Let's explain.

First of all the physical reality that is implied in these words: the resurrection of Jesus. The record is clear: Jesus died on the Cross and the Father raised him from the dead after three days: “you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead.” (Acts 2:23,24) Paul wrote, “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Rom 8:11) it was the power of the Holy Spirit who raised the body that was Jesus from the dead.

Yes, Jesus has raised people from the dead (e.g. the young an of Nain, Lk 7:11- and Lazarus – Jn 11) but they were raised with the same physical bodies they had before, to just carry on the life they had before. When Jesus was raised from the dead it is clear that he had a different body that could do things it previously couldn't do. Moreover his resurrected life prepared him to return later to the Father. In that this was a work of the Holy Spirit, Paul speaks of him being the ‘first-born', the first one brought about by the work of the Spirit bringing new life.

Now I said this physical reality (Jesus' resurrection) pictured and brought about a spiritual reality – that is us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1, Col 2:13) and when we were ‘born again' the Holy Spirit brought us new spiritual life: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor 5:17). We too have been raised from the dead, but whereas Jesus' “dead” was physical, our “dead” was spiritual. But I also said this spiritual reality was also a physical reality and what I mean by that is that although we have been transformed spiritually, we live out our lives in a physical body and so the spiritual impacts all of the material aspects of our lives. Thus Jesus is and was, “ the first-born among the dead.” We were the dead and so he died so that he may be raised to life to challenge us and show us the possibility in the spiritual realm, and so it has been. Hallelujah!

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 35. Jesus Supreme

Col 1:19 he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy .

There is a question that will face every human being: “What do you think of Jesus Christ?” If the answer is not, “He is the Son of God who died for me, he is my Lord and my Saviour,” any other answer will be inadequate.

Our verse above is devastating in its clarity and yet so many fail to see and accept the truth that is in it. Jesus, being the firstborn among the dead, we said, referred to Jesus resurrection and his place now at the head of the church. There is no other religious leader throughout history of whom this claim is made. You can accept it or reject it but the claim is there throughout the New Testament, not once but many times and in many ways – Jesus Christ died and then rose from the dead after three days. What this should do is make any person stop, pause, think, reflect, read, study and draw conclusions that should result in them on their knees before God. Jesus is supreme, above all others. It should have us earnestly seeking God for what He is trying to say to us through Jesus.

Until the resurrection you might say of Jesus, he was a good man, he was a great teacher or he was a great healer or he was a great miracle worker. All of those descriptions would have been accurate but all of them would fall short of the truth and show that you had missed so much of what was in the New Testament. We might have missed the essential truth that comes through so much of what Jesus said about himself – until you come to the resurrection. Then, surely, any wise person says, “Hold on, what have we got here? This has not happened to any other person in history. What is going on here? Who is this?” And they go back and read again.

Doing that they may stumble over the truth that leaps out again and again from the New Testament Scriptures. For example, listen to Jesus own words in chapter 5 of John's Gospel: “ For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.” (Jn 5:21-23) See what he claims about himself. He is a life-giver just like God, his Father. He is a judge, just like the Judge, his Father. He is the one who determines who lives and who dies in eternity. How does he do that? By assessing the way people respond to him. Those who see who he is and honour him, honour God. Failure to honour him means failure to honour God. He is the measuring stick or the arbiter of what is truly religious, who truly loves and honours God. How can you possibly read about Jesus in the Gospels and walk away untouched? Many do because of the blindness of sin.

Even with him there, many rejected him because of their blindness. Jesus said, “The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep,” (Jn 10:25) and “even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” (Jn 10:38) There he was in their midst performing signs and wonders – miracles – and still they did not believe him. That in itself should have lifted him in their estimation but they were to busy trying to protect their own reputations to see the wonder of who he was. The power that he exhibited and the incredible numbers of healings that he did should have elevated him above all others. But then comes his death and an onlooking centurions sees the truth and declares, "Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15:39) But then he rose from the dead and showed himself to his followers and they knew, and their lives we never the same again.

But then he ascended to heaven before their very eyes so that now they could declare, “ Now he sits on the throne of highest honour in heaven, at God's right hand,” (Acts 2:33) and “God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name ,” (Phil 2:9). It wasn't just the apostle Paul who made such declarations: “He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward. Now he is seated in the place of highest honour beside God's throne in heaven,” (Heb 12:2) and “He is seated in the place of honour next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers are bowing before him.” (1 Peter 3:22) This is where he is today. Supreme!

In these studies we have seen Jesus displayed as the unique Son of God, begotten before Creation. The one who alongside God his Father helped bring all things into being, and the one who upholds all things by his word. We have seen him as the miracle working wonder teacher but even more we have seen him die and be raised from the dead, and if nothing previously had moved us, that should have done. But now we have seen him ascended on high, seated at his Father's right hand ruling. The testimony of the New Testament is sure and clear. So, back to the beginning, “What do you think of Jesus Christ?”

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 36. Jesus the fullness of God

Col 1:19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,

We always try to pick up every significant word in our verses in these studies and so we should wonder at the link word, ‘for'. It flows on from the previous verse that concluded, “so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” Perhaps we could change it to read, “in everything he might have the supremacy because God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” Because God's fullness was in him, all these others things happened and he was shown to be supreme above all others. What other human being could claim to contain the “fullness of God”?

Which leaves us wondering, what exactly does that phrase mean? Let's use that little cheat method I've encouraged you to use, of seeing what the various paraphrase versions or other translations say. The Living Bible says, “ God wanted all of himself to be in his Son.” The JBP version says, “It was in him that the full nature of God chose to live.” The Amplified Bible is more helpful;: “for it has pleased [the Father] that all the divine fullness ( the sum total of the divine perfection, powers, and attributes ) should dwell in Him   permanently,” which is interesting because I have a CD commentary which comments, “ For Paul "fullness" meant the totality of God with all his powers and attributes.”

Paul himself comments further on in this letter, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” ( Col 2:9) So, if God is good, then Jesus is good. If God is love, Jesus is love. If God is holy, then Jesus is holy. But we have to be careful, for other attributes of God the Father are that He is all powerful, all knowing, all wise, He is infinite, He is eternal and so on, and we have to ask, was Jesus all powerful, all knowing etc. and the answer has to be as far as the presence of the divine Son of God was in this particular body, and the Son was one with the Father and the Spirit, yes.

And yet there s a mystery here, how God can exist in a single human body and be God incarnate, God in the flesh. Clearly the body was limited in time and space (until after the resurrection) and there are indicators that suggest that the human person that was Jesus had limitations and had to rely upon the Holy Spirit. Yet he was God from conception and was still God when he ascended back to heaven, and he did not change in between.

So the human body clearly had human experiences and got tired and felt pain and anguish. Indeed I have suggested that when Jesus cried out on the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” that was the human element or maybe even the divine element covered in sin that momentarily lost the sense of the Father and Spirit. That they were still there, I have no doubt because the Father would never turn His loving back on His Son, even when he was going through what he was going through. No, not even the Sin of the world that the Son was carrying would have made the father turn away, because He faces it in you and me, even as He did in Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Moses etc. throughout history.

So how could divine and human blend together? Why is it so difficult to understand and distinguish divine and human in this incarnation? I think the best illustration I have heard of is the analogy of the Meal Offering of Lev 2. It consisted of fine flour, representing the humanity of our Lord, and olive oil which stands for the Holy Spirit and deity. Each become blended together to become for ever one. The cake that was thus made was one cake, not two, although the two materials exist together so we cannot see them. In the same way the two natures – human and divine – exist together but not being observable. With the incarnation, the Son who had pre-existed in heaven with the Father, became man.

The Son, we have seen a number of times now, existed from before the Creation, begotten of the Father (coming from the Father) and with all His attributes. From all we have seen, the Son was God and the Son came into being at the will and pleasure of the Father, and with all of the Father's nature. It was this nature, these powers and attributes that we see expressed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Gospels. The physical side (the flour) experienced all that we experience as human beings – except he did not sin: “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.” (Heb 4:15)

The divine side, expressing the nature, powers and attributes of the Godhead enabled Him to perform the signs and wonders etc.: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him .” (Acts 2:22) When the body was put to death on the Cross, “ God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” (Acts 2:24) Was it possible to distinguish human from divine? No, in the same way it is impossible to distinguish the flour from the oil in the cake.

Here's a closing thought: “the church, which is his body, the fullness of him.” (Eph 1:22,23) “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:12,13) “you have been given fullness in Christ.” ( Col 2:10) We said above that when it speaks of Christ being indwelt by the fullness of God it means the totality of God with all his powers and attributes. So if we have the fullness of Christ then we have access to all of God's powers and attributes and the church has access to all of God's powers and attributes. Ponder on that.

CONTENTS of Ch.1

Meditations in Colossians: 37. Jesus the Reconciler

Col 1:19,20 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.

There are so many strands of the Gospel that Paul weaves together in this chapter and because there is such an interweaving we find ourselves covering the same ground again and again but picking out particular or different aspects. Even within these two verses Paul says the same thing twice, but in different ways.

When we speak of reconciliation we are referring to what takes place when two estranged people are brought together again. There had been a conflict between them but when they are reconciled that conflict is dealt with and peace is restored. In the following verse, as we shall see in the next meditation, Paul reminds us what we once were – enemies of God. We were self-centred and Godless and at odds with God, and we will consider that in more detail in the next meditation. For now, let's just take in this concept of reconciliation in general terms.

Paul speaks in these same terms to the Romans: “ For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom 5:10,11) There it is again. In our verse above it speaks of “making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” In these verses he simply speaks of “the death of his Son.” We've seen it before so we needn't go into it in detail: we were guilty and justice demanded our sins be punished, and so Jesus on the Cross took our punishment. Our sins and our guilt separated us from God. The sins and the guilt needed dealing with and Jesus did that. Once they were dealt with, we can be reconciled to the Father.

Paul also spoke about this to the Corinthians: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:17-21) What a passage! It starts out speaking of how, as Christians, we are new creations and ends with speaking of how in this we reveal God's righteousness. In between is the message and the ministry that brought this about – through Christ and in Christ – the work of the Cross meant that He would no longer look on our sins because he “who had no sin”, on the Cross became “sin for us”. Thus we were reconciled to God by justice being satisfied.

We should note in passing that this does not apply to absolutely anyone but simply to those who will respond to it. It is not a universal salvation that means anyone regardless is saved. As we'll see later, the condition it that we receive this message and respond fully to it. But then in our verses above, there is an interesting and challenging phrase: “to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

The big picture is that when Adam and Eve sinned, not only was the harmony between God and us destroyed, but also disorder came into creation: “the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope….We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Rom 8:20,22) God stepped back from mankind at the Fall, so His blessing on the world was no longer automatic, but He did it in the realization that the Godhead had planned from before the Creation for the redemption of the world through Christ. Now, Paul says, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed…. that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom 8:19,21) Our salvation leads on to the world being restored but, he suggests, there is yet still a future dimension to this: “we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8:23)

To summarise this we might say that when Christ died on the cross, he made peace possible between God and us, and he restored the coming possibility of harmony in the physical world, though the full realization of this, it seems, will come only when Christ returns. The Cross not only dealt with our Sin, our sins and our guilt, it appears to have opened the way for the physical world to be changed as well. Maybe that is what we see in the Gospels when Jesus heals so many people, he is restoring them on the basis of what he is about to do on the Cross. I suspect there is yet much more that we have to learn about these things.