Colossians 1:15-17 - A Deep Dive into Jesus Christ's Identity (Session 5)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of Colossians 1:15–17, exploring the historical context, theological meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith. 

Are you ready to step into an exploration of the identity of Jesus Christ, as described by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 1:15? We promise you a journey that delves deep into the rich tapestry of Jesus Christ's divine attributes and the mysteries of God made visible through Him. We challenge conventional interpretations and confront early church false teachings to affirm that Jesus is indeed the Almighty God, the architect of the universe.

Journey onwards with us as we illuminate Christ's role in creation and in resurrection, unraveling the profound meaning behind His descriptors as the 'firstborn of all creation' and 'firstborn of the dead'. Discover the magnitude of His supremacy over death, and marvel at the divine equation where Jesus is God. We'll unwrap powerful New Testament passages, savoring their wisdom drop by drop, promising not just an intellectual trek, but a spiritual encounter. Come, let's reason through the complexities of the scripture and distill its timeless wisdom together. Join us on this odyssey, and let's marvel at the Creator of everything, that is Jesus Christ.

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:16

Welcome to Reasoning Through the Bible. Today we get to answer a very profound question, which is who is Jesus Christ? So, Steve, can we answer that question who is Jesus Christ?

Speaker 1 0:27

Yes, we can. Through the Word of God, and especially through Colossians, we're going to be able to answer that for sure.

Speaker 2 0:34

Colossians has a great deal to say about who is Jesus Christ. Welcome to our guest. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to the book of Colossians, chapter one, and we're going to be starting in verse 15. And in verse 15, we really start getting into the deep water about who is Jesus, and there's some very, very profound things here. So, as we said last time, I hope you brought your life jackets we're in deep water.

Speaker 2 1:00

In verse 15 of Colossians 1, paul, the apostle Paul, really starts to explain who is this person, jesus Christ, and a little titty bit of review. One of the reasons why he's doing this was because there were some false teachings that had arisen in the church, namely that there were a series of demigods or demiurgis who had created each other, and then there was this long ladder of creation emanating from the one true God downwards to a series of gods, and somewhere down the line was Jesus and somewhere down the line was creation. Paul is dealing specifically with that, saying that no, no, jesus is the Almighty God, the creator of all things, and he's going to hammer that theme over and over and over again here in Colossians.

Speaker 1 1:54

And that also speaks to our position and our relationship with God. It's like what you said. They were teaching that there were grades or different positions. We pointed this out last session. We're either in Christ or we're in Adam. We're either in the world or we're not in the world. We're either in darkness or we're in light, and there is no gradation between the two of them. Once we're in Christ, then we have all these benefits that Paul goes into. If we're not in Christ, we have all the detriments that go with not being in a righteous position with God. It really is just that simple of whether being in Christ or out of Christ, but yet it's so much more not I don't want to say complex, but so much more rich detail for us to go through.

Speaker 2 2:46

The Word of God in Colossians does exactly what you just said, steve. It goes to great lengths to show that we are one or the other and there's nothing in any of these passages and, as we're going to see, there's a. There's a absolutely massive amount of teaching here about this transfer from a lost state to a safe state, from a part from God, to being in fellowship with God. There's a huge amount of teaching here and it's all in either or there's nowhere in here where there's a halfway in between, partially done. He got us part of the way and we have to finish it. No, we're either in Christ or not. We're either in the dark or in the light. We're either a child of God or a child of the King. That's how it's presented in the Word of God and I didn't write that. Somebody doesn't like it. All we're doing is explaining what the text says.

Speaker 2 3:41

If we look at 115, 115 starts off with he is the image of the invisible God. He is the image of the invisible God. So what do we learn from that? One of the first things we learn is God's invisible. And if he's invisible, then he's not made of matter, he's not located in a space. He's spirit and doesn't have a body. He's not made of particles that can be seen and he's not a white-haired old man sitting on a chair on the top of a mountain somewhere. If anybody comes along and says, oh God, the Father appeared to me, which some people have done over the centuries, you can know that they're not telling the truth, simply because God is invisible, he doesn't have a body, he's not made of matter. That's the first lesson, correct? Steve?

Speaker 1 4:35

Yeah, and the word image here it's another way you can put it is a representation.

Speaker 2 4:41

In verse 15, he is the image of the invisible God. One question I have, steve, is how can you be an image of something that's invisible? Well, it's obviously a very profound thing. What it's saying is that Jesus has made manifest things that can't be seen by us. He revealed the things of God. He made them known to us.

Speaker 2 5:07

The word here for images in Greek is icon, which means the exact representation of, or the same form as, or. It means all the attributes of the word. Image here means the exact revealing of his being, all of his attributes. When it says the image of God, it is not saying that it is some sort of a lesser quality copy of like if you take a photograph of somebody, the photograph is a lesser quality copy of the real thing. That is not what this is saying. The word icon is the revealing of his attributes. It is the exact representation. Chapter one, verse three it says a very similar concept. It says there that Jesus is the exact representation of God's nature. So Jesus is the exact image of God's nature, with all the attributes.

Speaker 2 6:07

What it's saying here, when it says all the after the image of the invisible God, that he is the revealer of the things that we can't see. All of the attributes of God were made known, were made manifest by Jesus Christ. That's what it's saying. It's similar to in the ancient days. The king would have a signet which would either be a small cylinder with an image on the end, or sometimes it was a ring, and when they wanted to make an official proclamation or official letter, they would heat wax and then they would put the king's signet into the hot wax so that the image of the king's signet was in the wax and it was the exact representation, the exact image, all the same attributes of the signet, the exact image was revealed. What it's saying in these passages is that Jesus made physical, he made where we could see God's invisible attributes. That's what it's saying and it's quite profound. It is a claim for the deity of Jesus Christ. If you have all the same attributes of, then you are that thing.

Speaker 1 7:20

And in your example, that signet seal in the wax also carried all the thoughts that might have been in whatever document that it was talking about. It carried all the decrees that might be in the document of what the king decreed, the law, whatever it might have been. And that signet was a representation of what he agreed with and it was his thoughts, his decrees. And when people saw that they said, oh okay, the king has signed off on this. Therefore, we can take this, whatever document it is, and treat it as if the king himself were here and had actually conveyed those thoughts or decrees himself. Same thing with Jesus Christ. He's here on earth, he's the image of the invisible God and he has all the attributes. He has all the authority here. He is the image of that invisible God.

Speaker 2 8:16

John 14.9 says this is Jesus speaking. He says quote anyone who has seen me has seen the father. Unquote. So Jesus is claiming there that he has revealed the father. If you've seen me, you've seen the father. That's because he is the image of the invisible God. He has all the attributes of it. He's the exact representation and characteristics of God's nature. Anyone who has seen Christ has seen God. John 118,. No one has seen God at any time. Jesus has revealed God or made him known. So what this does is it establishes the doctrine of not just the deity of Christ, but the unique deity of Jesus Christ. He is the Almighty God. He's not some lesser quality copy or some sort of a cheap invitation. He has all the attributes and characteristics. He is the exact representation of his nature.

Speaker 2 9:15

Hebrews 1.3. He is the image, the icon of the invisible God. He has made it manifest. This is again Paul just hammering away at this concept of who is this person, jesus? Well, he is the image of the invisible God. That's the first half of the verse. And then the second half of the verse says he is the firstborn of all creation. Firstborn over all creation is proper rendering. And at the end of verse 18, or at least the middle of verse 18, it says he is the firstborn from the dead. So these two verses, 15 and 18, firstborn over all creation and the firstborn from the dead, to deal with this concept of firstborn. And the context here means that Jesus is firstborn over creation, not in or part of creation. He is preeminent over creation, that's what it's saying here. Over all creation, he is the preeminent one. The firstborn can't be part of creation and we'll see that in verse 16. Verse 16 says by him all things were created, and we'll get into that in just a bit.

Speaker 2 10:33

But let's deal with this concept of firstborn, because there have been Bible students over the years that have got all tangled up in what this word firstborn means. And first we have to understand that Firstborn can mean first one born, but it doesn't always mean that, nor is it intended to always mean first one born. For example, in Exodus, chapter 13, verse 2, god says quote Consecrate to me all the firstborn, whatever opens the womb, close quote. So in that instance it's quite clear that the firstborn opened the womb. It's the first one born. So yes, that concept out there is that firstborn means first one born, but that is not always what it means, and there's many places and I will show a few here where it really just means preeminent one.

Speaker 2 11:30

For example, in Genesis there was a man named Joseph and he had two sons. The older one was named Manasseh and the younger one was named Ephraim. And there said that specifically in Genesis 48, 14, manasseh was the oldest, he was the first one born. But if you look over at Jeremiah 31, 9, god says quote Ephraim is my firstborn. So God chose the second one born to be the firstborn in Jeremiah 31, 9.

Speaker 2 12:06

Firstborn means preeminent one. Another instance in Genesis Isaac had two sons, esau and Jacob. Well, in Genesis 25, 25, esau was the first one born and Jacob was the second. Well, if you remember, jacob's name was changed to Israel, israel. So Jacob and Israel, same person.

Speaker 2 12:29

In Exodus 422, god says Israel is my son, my firstborn. So the second one born is the firstborn. The man Israel was not the firstborn, his brother, esau, was firstborn. But God is obviously using the term firstborn as a selection of preeminence of which he has divine sovereignty over. So the right of the firstborn could be taken away. First Chronicles 5, the firstborn son of Israel was Reuben. But because Reuben sinned, his birthright was taken away and given to Joseph's sons. The birthright normally went to the first one born, the preeminent one, the firstborn, but in that case the first one born sinned. So God took away his birthright and gave it to somebody else. This idea of the firstborn rights can be given. Psalm 89.27 says that God will make David to be the firstborn. Now, david was not the first one born, he was the younger son. He had a series of older brothers, but in Psalm 89.27, I'm going to make David to be the firstborn. So this concept is over and over again.

Speaker 2 13:45

Jesus in verse 18 is called the firstborn of the dead. Well, he was not the first one resurrected from the dead. Elisha raised the widow's son back in 2 Kings 435. Elisha raised a dead son back to life. Jesus raised a widow's son at the man's funeral and in Luke chapter 7, walked into there having a funeral for this guy and Jesus raised him from the dead right there in front of his Mother. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in the Gospel of John. So that's at least three instances of people that were raised from the dead prior to Jesus.

Speaker 2 14:26

But it calls Jesus in verse 18, here in Colossians, firstborn from the dead. Well, that's because he is the Preeminent one. He was the first one born in a glorified body. He's the first one that matters. He's the first one that is our example, because he conquered death. He is the first one in an immortal body 1 Corinthians 1520. So firstborn does not mean that Jesus had a beginning, and that's what some of these false teachers are trying to say. They say see, firstborn, he's the first one born. He was born, he had a beginning point. And this is not what this is saying. It's just saying he is the preeminent one. That is obvious in all these other Bible passages.

Speaker 1 15:07

And this is another teaching point of our inductive studying method I say ours, it's a general method, but context is is king context. So when you hear pastors or teachers quote versus including us, go look and see what the context is of those verses. We use that here because while it says firstborn of all creation in verse 15, if you continue reading in verse 18, it says firstborn of all the dead and, as Glenn just explained both of these, that it means preeminence. It doesn't mean the first of you got to read the context and then the other thing is keep reading. So many times people don't keep reading. That's another teaching point. Look at what the context is and many times scripture is going to interpret scripture itself.

Speaker 2 16:01

You mentioned the context, and that's exactly important, because the context, the Apostle Paul, was dealing with, this false teaching, this, this version of Gnosticism that had a creator, god, and then a series of demigods, a series of demiurgas, if you will. That's what he was fighting against. When he says here in verse 15, that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation, what he's saying is that everything that was ever been made, Jesus is the preeminent one. Jesus is the most important one. He is the one that is the best, the most important, the preeminent one over all of creation. Everything that has ever been made is lesser than Jesus. That's what it's saying here. That's what it means when it says firstborn of all creation. He is the preeminent person in all the universe. Firstborn from the dead just means now that he's preeminent over a new order, a new classification of people that have been raised from the dead. Jesus triumphed over death, so he's preeminent over death.

Speaker 1 17:06

And this is just one point that Paul is making of many points. So that's why we need to continue reading and not just stop and look at one particular item. You can only make things one point at a time. You can only write one sentence at a time. It's important to be able to keep reading the text.

Speaker 2 17:24

What a lot of false teachers do is they'll turn to a word, a phrase, a verse and they don't read the entire passage, the entire chapter, and look at the context. Look at verse 15. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Verse 16, for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and the earth, visible and invisible, and it goes on to talk about that. So by him all things were created. That's what it says there and it says at the end of that verse. It says all things were created through him and for him. So in verse 16, it's saying that all things were created by, through and for Jesus Christ. He made all things visible and invisible. That's what it's saying in verse 16.

Speaker 1 18:15

Wait a minute, glenn, let me stop you right there. I thought over in Genesis one one. It says in the beginning God created.

Speaker 2 18:22

Absolutely true. So therefore, what can we conclude?

Speaker 1 18:26

Well, it's clear that Paul here is equating Jesus with God, because he's saying that Jesus, the second part of the Trinity, the Son, is actually the Creator that's spoken of in Genesis one one.

Speaker 2 18:40

So here's a question, steve how can something be by him? The first part of verse 16. And at the end of verse 16, say all things are created through him and for him. How can it be by him and through him and for him? And I'll give you a little clue of what I think, which is, I don't know, maybe you can enlighten me.

Speaker 2 19:06

All I know is that's what the text says, and it's no wonder that we don't understand all this, because we're dealing with an infinite being, and an infinite being is not going to fit in my fight. Fine.

Speaker 1 19:18

I'm not going to be able to explain it, that it seems to me, though, part of what it's saying is is that he created for him to be able to have a relationship with man and we were actually told that there in Genesis but he created for a relationship, and it was through him that the creation came about, and it was by him that it was as well. But, yeah, this is something that's bigger than both of us.

Speaker 2 19:43

In here. This is so profound when it says that all things, all created. Universe was created by, through and for Jesus Christ. He's obviously lifting Jesus up to the highest position available, which is the Lord, god Almighty. He's saying he is the preeminent one over all creation and I feel very inadequate trying to describe what this means. But if we think of creation, think of all the beauty in creation.

Speaker 2 20:15

Jesus made that. He made the mountains and the sunsets. He made the vastness of space. He made all the beauty of a snowflake Ever see a picture of a snowflake? He made all the complexity in biology. He made the wisdom of the ages, the things that are invisible. I can't see wisdom. I can see wise acts. He made invisible things like wisdom and justice. He made the design in mathematics.

Speaker 2 20:47

Jesus made chemistry and physics and you know what. He also made you and he made me and he made us able to love each other and to love him, and he wants to have a loving relationship with each one of us and he made a way for us to be reconciled back to him. And that's what he made when he made all of heaven and earth. He made all those things. Think of it the Creator, the preeminent one over all the universe, who made all these things, the complexity that's in the world, the beauty that's in the world. He made all this stuff. All we did was sin and mess it up and created the evil in the world. But he still loves us and he made a way to get back to him. That's the beauty of this passage.

Speaker 1 21:32

And the way that he made to get back to him is to have a satisfactory sacrifice. That $10 word is propitiation, the satisfactory sacrifice. It says so that God in Romans, so that God could be both just and the justifier. It makes sense that in order to reconcile and redeem mankind, the earth and the nations, that God would be that satisfactory sacrifice. And it's Jesus that we see, who takes that upon himself to do that. And that's another point of a deep understanding, of trying to understand how a God would do that. But yet here we see, we see God does that.

Speaker 2 22:16

Since he made us and he made the universe and he's preeminent over that, is he worthy of worship?

Speaker 1 22:24

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know it's creation itself that shows who God is. Paul talks about that in Romans, chapter one. None of us have any excuse because we can see through nature or through creation of that there is evidence of a God.

Speaker 2 22:44

Verse 16,. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. There's a very similar concept over in the first part of the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 3, says quote all things were made through him and without him. Nothing was made that was made, close quote. So that means that Jesus was not a made thing. Jesus is not a created thing. He made everything that was made. If he was made, then he would be in that and he can't make himself. It means Jesus is uncreated. He is the eternal one, he is the preeminent one and that's what it's saying here in Colossians. It's lifting Jesus up to the highest of the highs.

Speaker 1 23:38

And don't overlook these two words in verse 16, visible and invisible. Paul is dealing with these false teachers that talk about this hierarchy of a God and then lesser gods that were created, but even their chief God was created by something else or someone else. Why Paul putting in here this invisible? He's clearly saying even these other gods that you supposedly gods that are out there, that you worship, that are in the spiritual realm, and these different levels. Well, jesus would have even created them if they're there. While it's just a word that's, in this string, visible and invisible To me, it speaks a lot about God and Jesus in that he has also created other things that we don't even know about. Maybe the false teachers say that they know about it, but they really don't and we won't really find out until we've passed over, until the other side. But even those invisible things, whatever they are, jesus created those as well.

Speaker 2 24:45

I don't know of a way that Paul could have lifted Jesus up any higher than he did here. Look at the next verse, verse 17. It says he is before all things, he is before all things and in him all things hold together. So if he in verse 16, made all things and then he is before all things, then what can we conclude from this, these ideas? If he is before all things, then he's eternal, and if he's eternal then he's God. He didn't have a beginning. He's before all things, then he is the eternal one. He is the first and the last. It says over in the book of Revelation, and you can't have two firsts. He is the first means he is God Almighty, and in John 1, 3, there's nothing made that was made apart from him. He is the Creator of all things, he is the Lord of all things, he is the God Almighty. The teaching here is like an iron vice. There's no way out of this idea that Jesus is the Lord, god Almighty, and if we just take up what it says, we'll believe that. So not only did Jesus in verse 17, did he make all things, but look at the end of verse 17, in him all things hold together, or some of the translations. In him all things consist. So he is not only the Creator, he's the sustainer. He sustains everything, he keeps it going. He is the one that sustains the universe. If God were to withdraw his hand from sustaining the universe, then every particle in the universe would fly apart, because he is the sustainer.

Speaker 2 26:27

You know, steve, one time I was listening to a lecture from a physicist. He was a subatomic particle physicist. He made the claim that if you look at the atoms, they're made of particles. There's electrons and neutrons and protons, and there's even subatomic particles that are smaller than those particles. This physicist said is that if you get down to the lowest level, there's nothing physical down there, it's just energy. No particles, just energy. Now, I don't know about that. We'll leave that to the particle physicist to decide.

Speaker 2 27:05

But I can tell this I know you can go down there as far as you want to go and I can tell you what you're going to find. You're going to find the Lord Jesus Christ sustaining it all, because that's what it says in Colossians 1.17,. In Him all things hold together. How many things Steve hold together? All things, all things. So if he is sustaining the universe, why has the universe not fallen apart. It's because he is sustaining it. Why do we still have an opportunity to come back to the Lord? It's because he is sustaining us. He is the sustaining force. He is the creator of all things. He was before all things and he is the sustainer of all things. That makes Him the firstborn, the preeminent one of all creation. I wish I could describe them to you.

Speaker 1 27:53

As we go through this, I just become more and more. I'm so grateful that Paul didn't start this church at Colossae, you know, because what I'm getting a sense of this is stuff that Paul taught. This is his teaching, this is what he taught in person. And because he hadn't started this church at Colossae, they had not heard this particular one, they had heard the gospel and they had spread the gospel and other things. And here they are, they're getting a full dose of Paul in this and all of his teachings and through that, then we have it. We have it documented as some of his great, great teaching that he was having in these other areas. You know he stated Ephesus for over two years. We really don't have things that he taught there, but we have something like this that went to a church that he didn't even start. Now I'm just so grateful for that.

Reasoning Through Powerful New Testament Passages

Speaker 2 28:52

These passages are quite dense and hard to digest. The mental picture I have, steve, is if you look at the Old Testament, there's these long stories and they're very easy to understand, very easy to digest, and to me those stories, you can read these chapters. It's sort of like a cold drink of water on a hot day. You can just drink this giant glass of cold water because you're thirsty. And you can drink chapter after chapter of the Old Testament, just right down, because it just goes down so easy. When I see these passages over here in the New Testament, I think of this really small little bottle and it's got a little bit of stuff in it, but boy is it powerful and you can't take more than a drop at a time, simply because it's so strong that we can only take a little bit at a time to digest it. That's what we're doing here, trying to reason through these passages. Paul just has given us so much information. It's wonderful.

Speaker 1 29:54

A concentration that you add water and fizz to in order to make a delicious drink.

Speaker 2 30:00

So this is how we reason through the Bible. We still have a lot to go. We're still wading through some deep water here and we're breathing rarefied air in this section. We're going to be back here next time, reasoning through this section, and we trust that you will as well.

Speaker 1 30:17

Thank you so much for watching and listening, and may God bless you.