Colossians 1:15 - Who Is The Son? Pt. 2

Good morning, everyone. It's been a good service already, so let's get right into the Word of God this morning. I believe we're going to talk about the deity of Jesus Christ, not much better subject than that.

So let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for our service already. Thank you for calling Ben to be a gospel preacher and for putting in his heart to be here in this church and bless his ministry here, Lord.

Thank you for Matt's leadership over our music program and for everyone that helps with that. Thank you for our deacons, our elders, and all of our individual parts of this body, each one special, each one with special gifts.

And so help us to be a light across this country. Bless Tradeway and all the people that work there that help us spread the gospel to maybe millions of people across the country. And Lord, we just ask you to bless that as well and protect us and give us the right words to say to each individual.

We ask it in Jesus' name and amen. Let's see. We've got some of our lights fixed. Does everybody notice how brighter it is? And the baptistry now matches the glory of God's light out there almost. We've got to put four more new ones of those in Monday and then those will be right.

And we really appreciate it. I think they're going to put little lights in all those and maybe we can clean those up a little and get them sparkly again and then we'll be ready to go. Then we can argue over the color of the carpet after that.

All right. We're in the book of Colossians and man, last Sunday was amazing, wasn't it? It really was. But how many of you think it's nice to have a rest today and just have us home folks? You know, we need that.

We need just us. And I've said it a million times, but sometimes my favorite Sundays are just when it's us. I got to get over that if God's going to make the church grow, but I'll get over it. But I do like it.

Yes. Yes, sir. I know he's not in here so we can talk about him, but since he was a little boy, he said he thought he was called to preach. Now he's sort of forgotten that now, but I haven't. So we'll see.

Maybe the Lord will notify Emily first or something. Yes, he is. He is very special with people. He just has a knack for loving people and everybody sees it. He's very special. Thank you, Virge. I'm glad he was able to come over.

Colossians 1:13-14 and the Son’s Kingdom and Redemption

Well, in Colossians chapter one, we spent, you know, the first 12 or so verses talking about recently talking about God the Father. And that led up to this book about to start talking about Jesus Christ more specifically and who he is.

And that's kind of where we are right now. So if you remember last time we covered one point, I think, on who Jesus is, and that was in Colossians chapter one, verse 13. And I'm going to add verse 14.

So let's look at those with me. I'll read them and we'll go from here. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. That first who is God the Father.

We know that from the context up in verse six and some other verses up higher where we see that it's talking about God the Father. So he translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. But what we learn there about the son of God is he is called his dear son.

And if you remember last time in the Greek, the word dear is not really the word dear in English. It's really the word agape in Greek, which means love. So it means his loved son. And that's with a special godly type of love.

So Jesus is the loved the son is how it reads literally in Greek. He is the loved the son. And it's it's important that in Greek it has the little article the in front of it, because it doesn't mean he's a son of God or a loved one of God, the loved son of God.

And so that's the first thing we learned last week about him. Now, if we add verse 14, it says in whom we have redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. So that adds a little bit to it.

So I would word it this way. Last time we said Jesus is the king of God's kingdom, right? He is the king of God's kingdom, because it says in verse 13, that he placed us into the kingdom of his dear son.

So Jesus is the king of all kings. He's the king of God's kingdom, and he is God's the loved son. And then I would add this. He is the savior of the world. And I get that from verse 14. He is the savior of the world.

So we know those things just from a couple of verses, and we haven't even gotten to the main verses yet. So that's kind of what we talked about last time. So if we if we look at verse 13, it says, Colossians 1 .13, who has delivered us from the power of darkness.

Now, remember that that who is God the father, we get that from Colossians 1 .3 and 6. But what's interesting, it's about to change to a different who. So let's watch it. Who that's God the father, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son, who.

So in verse 15, the who there is talking about the closest noun to it, which is the son. So now we're talking about the son of God. And this is where we really get into a lot of what this book says about Jesus Christ and who he is.

So in verse 15 says who, that's his dear son, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. Now, some of what we have to talk about today is somewhat technical. And next Sunday, the Lord willing, I won't be here next Sunday, though, will I?

OK, when I get back, the Lord willing, we will get into something that's less technical, where we go into some scriptures that talk about the deity of Jesus Christ. When you ask who he is, we know that he's fully man because he was born of a virgin in the manger and walked with men for 33 years.

Right. And when he ascended into heaven after the resurrection, he was still fully man. He's a glorified man, though, now, isn't he? Like we will be when we die or get raptured, we will our bodies will be changed and we'll have a glorified body, which God says is as different as the moon is from the sun.

I mean, you can stare at the moon, can't you? I like to stare at it with a telescope. Who else likes telescopes? I'm the only three of us. OK. You have several of us, actually, about four or five of us.

You can stare right at the moon, but you don't dare try getting a telescope without a special lens anyway and staring at the sun, because what would happen in about six seconds, you would go blind for the rest of your life.

So do you see there's a difference in glory between the moon and the sun? Right. Paul, use that as an example to show you the difference between the body that you're living in right now and depending on like if what age you are, if you're, you know, basically beyond teen years, something hurts.

Right. Like your body, it's it starts roughly about the year of 30 years old from there on, it starts degrading slightly every year and gradually you stop playing basketball. Sooner than that, you stop playing football, which I don't know is 35 or something.

The last football tackle football game I played and it was waited too long because I got hurt in that game a little bit. Not bad. But then eventually you just switch to golf. Non-contact usually. You hear somebody say four, you better duck.

Right. But so we begin to degrade. But the glory of this body is like the moon compared to what this body and your body will be like after we're glorified. It'll be more like the sun. You see the difference?

That's hard to contemplate, but it's that different. But you'll still be you. God will make that glorified body out of the same material this body is made out of. He will put it all back together. He will drop off the fleshly part in the bad sense.

The part of us that pulls against God will be gone. That part of our mind will be cleansed away where we don't have anything pulling against God. We'll just pull with him towards him forever. And the difference in that body in this one is like the difference between the sun and the moon.

So thanks be to God for that. Right. For any of us past 30, we're glad that's going to happen someday. And really, it's like a friend of mine was saying last night at your party that, you know, things are getting so bad in the world now.

We should, for our kids and grandkids, we should just be praying, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Right. So anyway, so we see here that this sun is the who, verse 15. So let's read it together. It says, Jesus or his dear son, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

The Meaning of “Image” in Colossians 1:15

Like I said, this will get a little technical. And then when we get into the next batch, it won't be. Hey, come on in, guys. Thanks for making the drive. I'm also glad someone heard you at the door. We try to lock out bad people after, I don't know, 10 or 15 after.

Good to see you. So we're in Colossians chapter one, verse 15. Now, so let's take a look at this. Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature? Now, some people have a little bit of problem of the last phrase in verse 15, the firstborn of every creature in the English.

And I'm not saying it's a bad translation. I love the King James. I think the translators, multiple group of men who translated this were godly and prayerful people and did a great job. It's the most accurate English Bible in the world and always will be, I think, until the Lord comes back.

But and the truest to the original Greek and the Hebrew of any English Bible. But it is an English translation. The Bible wasn't written in English. It was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament, obviously.

So it's a little cumbersome there, maybe, especially considering it's old English. But it says the firstborn of every creature. I think when we take a look at that in Greek, it's going to clear some things up.

It doesn't. Some people make that sound like, in fact, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons use it to try to teach that Jesus was created, that he was either born or created, and therefore he is not God. And this verse doesn't say that.

We'll see that as we get to it. But anyway, the first part of it says he is the image of the invisible God. And it's kind of interesting that God put that in the same verse. So now they got a contradiction.

If they want to believe that the last part means that they have a contradiction in one verse, because the first part says he is the image of the invisible God. Well, let's take a look at that for a minute.

This word image, and this is kind of interesting because from the time of my youth as a minister, which goes back 45 years now, senior pastor for 35 at least years, but as a minister 45 years, I would look at this word icon in the Greek, and that is the Greek word for likeness, where it says he is in the likeness of God.

And if you just look, most of you have a strong concordance. Like if you look it up in Blue Letter Bible, or if you use even Lagos, the first choice would be Strong's, or if you own the book, The Strong's Concordance, which is a great book and always has been since it came out years ago, decades ago.

It simply defines it as a likeness, a statue, a profile, or a representation, a resemblance, or an image. And if you really look at the little word that icon comes from, I've told you so many times, it's like if you had a stamp with an image on the end of it, and you put it on top of some leather and hit it real hard, it would put that image in the leather.

Well, that image in the leather would be the same image that's on the stamp, wouldn't it? And I've taught that that's what this means, because that is what the surface level in the Greek of this means.

But you can also get Greek dictionaries that are this thick, where it might actually have two pages in tiny print on this one word. And sometimes, at least if we're in the ministry, we have to study a little further.

Sometimes you guys don't have time, because you're making a living for your families and all that too. But we have to study a little further sometimes to really get the true meaning of some of the Greek words.

And sometimes you can go back to what we call profane Greek, which means, you know, like Iliad and the Odyssey, some of the books written in Greek and see how they use those words. And that's good to do.

I believe in doing that. But biblical Greek is even different. So sometimes you will see a word and see what it means in Greek. And then you look at how it's used in the Bible and it's not used to mean that.

It means something different in Bible Greek, because of how the Holy Spirit used the word in the Bible. And you can tell by the context and the many times it's used, it has a slightly different biblical meaning than in profane Greek.

Does that make sense? So it requires a good deal of study sometimes to deal with the words. And you have to start with the words if you're going to teach or preach. So I have found just this year that, and I have to blame maybe laziness in my youth for not seeing this sooner, but the word really doesn't really mean, the usage of the word here doesn't really mean like a stamp, stamping something onto something else.

And it looks like that. It doesn't mean that. And so let's talk about what it does mean. Now, I went into a book called Elliot's Commentary for English Readers. And he says this, this is all important clause, this all important clause needs the most careful examination.

And I can see why. And he goes on and says, we note accordingly that the word image, like the word form in Philippians 2, 6 through 7, but also in this verse here in chapter one, it is used in the New Testament.

Now listen to this very carefully to mean this, a real and essential embodiment of something. Now, do you see how that's a little stronger than a stamp or an image? So image in English is kind of a weak word for this.

Embodiment is a better word for it. Now, words are important. Some of you may be thinking, well, that kind of means the same thing. And it kind of does. That's why I'm okay with the translation. But I think this is a better word, a real or phrase, a real and essential embodiment as distinguished from a mere likeness.

Do you get that? So the word itself on the surface level can just mean a likeness or a stamp of something that looks like the other thing that was on the end of the stamp. It can mean that in profane Greek, but in biblical Greek, and I'm going to give you some examples here in a minute that'll show you how this word is used in other places in the New Testament.

And it doesn't just mean a likeness. What it means is a real and essential embodiment of something. All right, so keep that in mind. And that actually is distinguished from the idea of a likeness. You can contrast the two.

They don't mean the same thing. So this is a better, I think, English translation. So here's some examples. In Hebrews 10, verse one, it says, the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things.

In other words, not the very embodiment of the things is a better translation there. In 1 Corinthians 15, 49, it says that the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly. Now this is in that portion of scripture where it talks about the sun and the moon and the difference of our glorified body from this body.

This is the passage it comes from. But look at the use of the word image here. When it's talking about the human body, the difference between us now and how we will be one second, a nanosecond, I like that word better, right?

A nanosecond after you are glorified, after the rapture or your death, if that comes first. A nanosecond later, the difference between that glorified body and the one you have now is talking about that.

And what it says is the image, it uses this word icon or image, the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly. And so what we see here is that it doesn't just mean an image of your earthly body because it's talking about your body, the real thing.

It's talking about the embodiment of your body. Do you see that? It's not talking about an image of your body or a likeness. It's talking about your body. So the word in the biblical Greek does not mean just an image usually.

It normally means an embodiment, a real embodiment of something. And so then when it says the image of the heavenly, that's talking about your glorified body. And it's not talking about some image of your glorified body.

It's talking about your real glorified body. Do you see the difference? The embodiment of your glorified body, the real body. It's not just an image of it. It's the real thing. Do you get that? It's really important to understand that word in this verse we're studying today in Colossians.

So 2 Corinthians 3 .18 is another example of the same thing, changing us from glory to glory into the image of the glorified Christ. So we will actually, you know, when we are saved, we should walk around not as an image of Jesus, but as an embodiment of Jesus.

Jesus lives in my body, doesn't he yours? So when I walk around, I'm not just a little Jesus. How many times I've even said it? Because a cool old preacher said it, Ben, sorry. I don't know who, but I copied him.

And it's not biblical. And I just discovered that in the last months when I've been studying this word anew. So we're not just little Jesuses. How many preachers have you heard say that, including me?

So I apologize. I was wrong. It's not right. What we are is the embodiment of Jesus who lives in us. We're the body that he works in now. That is way stronger. And that is a way more important job than being a little Jesus.

We're the only Jesus they see in our generation. And how we live is a louder witness than what we say with our mouths. So we have to live it first. And then as the Holy Spirit leads us, tell people about how he changed our lives and so forth.

So this word is a very important word in the Greek to get it right. So the true key to understanding what it means when it says that Jesus is the image of God, the true key to this passage is in our Lord's own words in John chapter one, verse 18, no man hath seen God at any time.

The Invisible God, the Son as Revelation, and the Trinity

Now we're gonna move into this second part of the verse where it says that it talks about he is the image of the invisible God. So the invisible God is an important part of the verse too because also, because most people, so many people view God the father as a little old man sitting on the throne.

And they'll say, well, in revelation, it shows the throne in heaven and says God's on it. And, you know, but if you think about what you see, what John saw was just resplendent light over this mercy seat.

It wasn't a person in a body. It wasn't a bodily form because the Bible said, well, and we'll get into it more when I told you, maybe next time I speak, it won't be so technical. I'm gonna give you some, a lot of verses that deal with this, especially with this.

So I probably won't do it today. But the point is God, the father is invisible and no man had seen him at any time, nor ever will the Bible says. Only the only begotten son of God has seen him. Jesus came out from him and he has seen him.

And he is the only bodily form of anything physical that's ever seen God. Now I was uncomfortable with that a little bit. And I remember asking brother Otis one time when I had someone like that, that I can ask questions to.

And I thought he'd give me an answer, a really good answer. And I said, so brother Otis, does it ever bother you that the Bible says we might not see God the father ever? And he said, oh, brother David, you will see God.

You'll see him through the eyes of Jesus. And I thought, doesn't make much sense, but somehow it comforts me. It's an authoritative answer and I like it. I like it. But anyway, so let's think about this just a little bit here.

So in John 1, 18, Jesus himself said, no man, excuse me. No man has seen God at any time other than the only begotten son. The only begotten son has seen him. That's Jesus, right? And then it goes on.

It says the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father, he has revealed him. Now I want you to think about this. You've heard me say it recently, but I shall say it again, is that if we didn't have Jesus and if God did not, if God was not a person or one God who subsist in three distinct persons is if you want to say it, I like Dave senior's way to word that better.

He says, God is one God who subsist in three distinct personas. If it weren't that way, you would never know the father because he is invisible. And no man has seen him at any time. And only Jesus has ever revealed him to a human being.

You say, well, what about the old Testament? Well, Jesus was in the old Testament. He wasn't called Jesus. He was called Jehovah, but he was in the old Testament many times. And so Jesus is the revelator of the father and the only really are the first revelator of the father.

Why is he called the word? Now the Holy spirit is not called the word. I do believe the Holy spirit wrote the word, the written word, but he's not called the word of God. Jesus is why? Because what is a word?

It is like a truck, a pickup truck. You don't think of it that could take something from John's mind. If he spoke a word to me, he could take something spiritual from his mind and send that to me and put it in my mind.

And I'd understand what's in his mind. That's what a word does, right? We couldn't understand each other without words. Or at least if you couldn't talk sign language or some way to use words. And so Jesus is that between us and the father.

He brought the father's mind to human beings for the first time in the early chapters of Genesis and has continued to do so ever since. He does it through the Holy spirit now, doesn't he? Because he said, when I leave, I will send another comforter like myself and he'll teach you things you don't even know yet.

But that's what he said to the apostles and he said, you'll write it down. And so now we have it. So the perfect is come. The perfect word of God is here and we have it. And these are the words of Christ and they reveal God the father to us because he's invisible.

You never could have known him without Jesus. You would have known something was up there, but you wouldn't have known him personally without Jesus Christ. So he says of himself, it's interesting to hear people say, well, show me where Jesus ever claimed to be God.

Well, how much time you got, okay? Because Jesus said here, now maybe sometimes it's a little subtle, but it's not so subtle when you spent 40, 45 years as a minister studying the word every week, week in and week out for 45 years.

It's not so subtle. It just kind of screams at you. But look at this one. He says, no man has seen God at any time except the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father. He has revealed him. That's talking about revelation.

You know what humanism is? Humanism is what's taught in all the college and universities you'll go to. Every one of them. You send a kid to college, you just send him to learn Satan's doctrine. I'm not saying don't send them.

If they want to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, they pretty much got to go to college, but you better have them well-equipped before they step into that arena. And our Christian school does equip our kids well, but it's a dangerous place to send a kid nowadays.

So what they teach humanism, what is humanism? Humanism believes that a human being in and of himself from his own mind can just come up with all the knowledge of everything in the universe, including beginnings of the universe without any revelation from a God they don't believe in.

So it's as if everything emanates from the brain of a human. Try it sometime. Why don't you try it? Get out by yourself in the backyard where no one's bothering you and just invent something totally new in your brain.

I mean, we have algebra and calculus. Come up with some new form of math in and of yourself. Come up with more scripture that you could add to the Bible just out of your brain. Now see, that's what the Mormons did.

That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses do in cult groups, but you can't do it. You can't, listen, I'll be honest with you. You can't learn anything new about God really without the Bible just by going out in your backyard and thinking or even praying.

Now you can learn new things about him through the experiences of life that are backed by the knowledge you got from this book, right? I mean, we get the knowledge first and then we start living and we see God doing the things he said he would in our lives and we do learn from that.

But you see what I'm saying. You're not gonna learn any new revelation in and of yourself. It has to come from the Holy Spirit or in this case, Jesus Christ, who is the word. So this is what humanists don't understand.

Without the word of God, they know nothing about beginnings. They know nothing about themselves. They know nothing about God. So he revealed the father and this is really a great starting point because when it says God is invisible, that is really important to understand you could not know him without Jesus Christ.

So in a scripture, I threw a page away too early before I need it. In a scripture that says, Jesus, his dear son, who is the image, the embodiment of the invisible God. So if God is invisible and no man can see him at any time and I have evidence I'll share with you next time I preach that you won't ever, you won't ever see.

No man will ever see. And so if that's true, how could you know him without Jesus? You could not because he's the embodiment of an invisible spirit being that has no body, which is the father. What is the embodiment of the father mean?

Well, Colossians is gonna tell us when we get to it, he is all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body. So Jesus is God. Now people say, well, I don't know about that. Well, unsaved people don't know about that, but saved people learn about it very quickly.

And so he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. Now, so I love what Elliot said about this word. Mayer wrote a really interesting commentary that deals with this word. And because I don't wanna get too technical, I'm gonna leave his out because I think you got it.

It's not just a stamp, it's the embodiment of God. All right, now Hebrews chapter one, verse three says that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person. So here's our word image again.

So I'm gonna read it with a better translation. Who Jesus, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express embodiment of the person of God, the father. Wow, think about that. Now we talk about God being subsistence in three persons.

It's kind of interesting theologically that's been discussed since the oldest I can find it is around, I mean, other than the apostle Paul and Jesus and the other writers of the scripture, the oldest I can find is about 200 AD where early church fathers talk about the Trinity.

I've got some of that too, but for next time, or maybe never too technical, but just trust me, it's there. They talk about the father, son, Holy Spirit in the church is as far away as just 200 years after Jesus walked on the earth.

So they were teaching the Trinity long before the Roman Catholics came along somewhere around 300, at least a hundred years before that we see evidence of the Trinity. And so many people today, especially Jewish believers who wanna get, they always tend towards legalism and they want to say that the Trinity was invented by the Catholics.

Well, the problem with that is I can give you evidence where early fathers talked about it before the Catholic church existed. So they're lying when they say that. And when you show it to, I had one individual, I said, if I can show you that, would you change your mind?

He said, yes. And when I showed it to him, I had to dig it up. I didn't know where it was in my study. And I found it, showed it to him. I said, there it is. What do you think? He said, I don't go with that.

So he's not intellectually honest, right? So I'm done with him. I hadn't talked with him about the Bible since, not one time. And I owe him a lot. Cause he's the one that got me to re-examine the end times and helped me see that better.

But anyway, I don't think he's, I don't think he was honest about that. So when it talks about that, Jesus is the brightness of God's glory and the express embodiment of the person of God. So think about that.

If you have three personas, Dave, I really like that. Maybe it's table talk that I brought forth too early. We usually, like when we come up with something kind of new like that, we'll talk about it for about a year and try to shoot it down.

So this could get shot down. Maybe person is the best word. All theologians for 2000 years have used person. Maybe we should use it, but you got to understand they weren't speaking English. They were speaking Latin and Greek.

So I don't know that English person is the best. Maybe Dr. Dave down here gave us the best, but isn't it interesting? Let's just call it persons for today. You got the father, son, the Holy spirit. And you would say that the father is one of the three persons.

The son is the second and the Holy spirit is the third. But you do see where the English word person is a bit problematic because when we think of three people, we're like three different people, right?

Like we're three different people. There's no way you can take that and understand that God is not three different people, right? I mean, how confused are our friends when we tell them, well, they say, well, tell me about the Trinity.

I don't get it. You say, well, God is one God subsisting in three distinct persons, which is straight out of every theological book in the world. They all say that. And they're saying, well, so he's three people.

And you say, no, no, he's not three people. Well, you just said he was, do you see the problem? So I like persona because the point is, they are persons in the sense that they have what a person has. All three, the father, the son, the Holy spirit have everything that an individual person has, such as emotions, intellect, vision, creative abilities, and see the Holy spirit has that.

So you could call him a person, right? He's not just a, he's not just a, how could I say it? Like a spirit thing that he's not just God in the spirit form. He is his own person. He has a personality of his own and he has ministries to us that the other two don't always do that he always does.

Jesus is the same way. He has intellect, he has creative ability. In fact, he created everything that's physical. So, and everything invisible. So everything, right? So as creative ability, so he is God, but he also has a personality of his own and deals with us in individual ways that the father and the son don't, right?

He is the word. And it doesn't say the other two are, but he is the word. And then the father, my goodness, we wouldn't know anything about him without Jesus, but we know a lot about him because of Jesus and the Holy spirit.

So he has a personality, obviously creative abilities. Everything that Jesus created came out of the mind of God, the father, and he didn't make or do or say anything. He didn't see the father do already.

So think about that. So, but don't you find it interesting that theologians like to talk about the three persons and so do I, I mean, we have to, because the scripture indicates it that way, but here it talks about that Jesus Christ was the express image of the father's person.

You see what I'm saying? Do you find that interesting? Jesus, who is one of the three persons of Godhead is the embodiment, the express, which is a big Greek word. It means total, like the total embodiment of the person of the father.

So when Colossians later is going to tell us, I think when we get to chapter two and other places, that Jesus is all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body, it's correct. Now, how can you say he's not God when we understand these things?

You see, but so many people that even in churches around Corsicana that are Christian going there every Sunday and maybe they're getting a little sermonette. I don't know what they're getting. They don't know that Jesus is God.

Charlotte, I can tell you a cute story about when we first got saved and this other young couple was discipling us and they really were in their home. The first, I believe it was the first night we went to their home to have Bible study.

You're going to help us grow. And he was a deacon and he said, wow, I think this verse is saying Jesus is God. You remember that? They had not seen it yet. Deacon in a Baptist church and he figured it out with us.