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Well, I invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to Colossians chapter 1. Our focus today is going to be on verse 20, but we are going to, when we read, read verses 15 to 20, so if you want to have your Bibles open and your finger on verse 15.
Luke's Gospel that we read earlier as our call to worship tells us that on the night that Christ was born, there were shepherds in the field watching over their flocks when all of a sudden they were visited by a host of angels and the angel spoke and he said that there was a child that had been born in the city of David and all of the angels cried out, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace toward whom he is pleased.
Now there is a slight translational difference there. The older King James simply says, on earth good will to men. This serves as a fulfillment of one of the messianic prophecies of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the prophecies about Christ came in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6 where it says, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace.
Christ entered into this sin scarred and sin fraught creation as an agent of peace but not in the way that many expected. In fact he even said himself at one point in his ministry, he said do not think that I came to bring peace but a sword which seems to be a contradiction because he says here he's the Prince of Peace but yet later he says I didn't come to bring peace but a sword and on behalf of me there will be those who are divided, father and mother and son and daughter and sister and brother, there will be divisions over me and yet he is called the Prince of Peace.
Well today in our study of Colossians we're going to examine how Christ brought peace and what it means when we say that he is the Prince of Peace and in fact we're going to address the very peace that he has brought and to whom it was brought.
So with that in mind I do invite you to stand again as we give honor and reverence to God's word as we stand to read verses 15 to 20. Now I have been preaching this, I preach verse by verse so if you are a visitor here you are coming in right at the end of a portion that I have been doing, five parts in verses 15 to 20, literally one verse at a time.
So if you're interested in the verses that I'm reading you can always go back and listen to those later but we begin in verse 15 where speaking of Christ it says that he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross.
May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word and you may be seated. It's important to understand the context of anything that you read in scripture and the context of Colossians is sometimes debated because it is apparent that Paul is dealing with an issue in the church but it's not readily apparent what the issue is and there have been many suggestions as to what Paul is addressing.
Some people are convinced that Paul is dealing with Gnosticism and that Colossians is a anti-Gnostic work and I see the argument there because there are words that he uses that are specific to the Gnostic heretics that were in existence at his time.
Words like Pleroma which is the Greek word for fullness was very popular among the Gnostics and therefore it's one that people say here is Paul taking that word and using it in this appropriate context and sort of robbing it back from those who had stolen it and used it for nefarious reasons and I think that all of that is legitimate and possible.
But ultimately what we do know is that the problem in Colossae, whether it be Gnosticism or Greek paganism or Judaism, whatever had influence, I tend to think it's a little bit of everything. I tend to think, as I've said the last few months, I think it's syncretism is the problem is that every different idea was placed forward as being possible and virtuous and good and that's a problem we still see today.
People still think that every idea is worthy of equal weight. I saw a thing the other day, it was so funny, this guy posted online. He said, I could drive 2 ,000 miles in a day. Somebody else wrote back and said, you'd have to drive, I think it's like 86 miles an hour for 24 hours straight to drive 2 ,000 miles in a day and he goes, I don't believe that.
He's like, dude, it's math, you don't have to believe it. Well, I don't agree with your opinion. Dude, this is not up for debate. You see, but people want their opinions validated no matter how ridiculous.
People want their beliefs confirmed and that's the problem is most of us are not looking to have our beliefs challenged, we're looking to have our beliefs confirmed and if we find someone who challenges us, we just go somewhere else.
We find somebody who's willing to agree with us. We find somebody who's willing to say yes when the rest of the world says no. So within Colossae, there were those who simply wanted to put forward their own ideas and there were all kinds of ideas, but the most nefarious, the most dangerous idea in Colossae was the idea that Christ was not enough.
That you had to add something to the gospel, whether it be some form of legalistic Judaism and he talks about that in chapter two, or whether it's some form of Greek philosophy or asceticism and he talks about that also in chapter two.
There's all kinds of things that are being added to the gospel and Paul is stepping back and he's saying understand this, Christ is supreme, Christ is over all and if anything is placed above or beside Christ, we have missed the gospel.
That we must understand that he is all and in all. And so we see beginning in verse 15, we have this great, what is sometimes referred to as the song of Christ or the hymn of the preeminence of Christ that says he is the image of the invisible God, which says that he is the exact imprint of his nature.
It says he is the firstborn of creation, firstborn there not meaning first created, but rather the one who is preeminent over all things. It says he is creator of all things, it says by him were all things created in heaven on earth and under the earth.
And it says invisible, visible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authority, all things were made by him and for him and in him all things hold together. Not only is he the creator of all things, but he's the sustainer of all things.
This is who Christ is. And then finally we see that he is the head of the church, verse 18. And then the grand climax in verse 19, he is in fact the one in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
And we spent all last week talking about that. What does it mean that the fullness of God, the fullness of deity as chapter 2 verse 9 says in the King James, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily.
And again, if you weren't here, I would commend that to your listening because if you do not understand Christ as the God-man, you don't understand Christ. And so we come today to verse 20 and I want to point this out in regard to verse 20.
Verse 20 begins with a conjunction, begins with the word chi in the Greek, which is simply the word and in English. And what that tells us is that verses 19 and 20 have a connection. They're connected by that conjunction and the connection is not just that they're part of this psalm or this song that is found here in verses 15 to 20, but there's actually a continuation of the idea of what was in verse 19 actually flows into verse 20.
And if we don't understand how they're connected, I don't think we'll rightly understand verse 20. So let me very quickly point you to what's being said. In verse 19, it says it pleased God that the fullness of deity or the fullness would dwell in Christ.
It pleased God. We talked about last week why it pleased the Father, why it would please God that the fullness of God would dwell in His Son. But that idea of God being pleased continues on into verse 20 because it says, and it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell, verse 20, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
You see, what pleased the Father was not just that the fullness of divinity would rest in Christ. It pleased the Father not just that the God-man would enter into the world. It pleased the Father not just that there would be this miraculous, miracle-working God-man in the world, but rather that through that God-man the world would be reconciled to Him.
That's what pleased Him. Not just who He was, but what He came to do pleased the Father. So it's not just who Christ is, but what He came to accomplish is what brought pleasure to the Father. So that's what we're going to talk about today.
We're going to talk about what He came to do. And what it says, it says, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace. Now I don't think any of your translations will say it just the way I just said it.
Perhaps if you have a more wooden, literal translation like Young's, it might say it the way I just said it. But I'm literally reading from my chart. You guys know I like to nerd out over the Greek, and I make these little Greek charts that help me to actually read it as best I can in the original language and look at it from sort of a picturesque way.
And the point I'm making is what we see is two main verbs in this sentence. The main verbs first is actually a verb and a participle which connects to the main verb. The main verb is to reconcile, and then the participle is having made peace, which connects back to the idea of reconciliation.
This is what pleased God. It pleased God that through Him, that is through Christ, all things would be reconciled because of the peace that He made, and He made that peace by going to the cross and dying.
And see that doesn't even make sense in a humanistic perspective. How do we make peace through death? How do we make peace through an ugly thing like a cross? How is peace made by that? But yet that's what it says.
It says, and through Him to reconcile. The word reconcile is an aorist verb, which means it's something that was accomplished and is finished. It means that it's done. And the Cambridge Bible says this.
It says the main notion is that the propitiation of an alien superior has happened, and He accepts the offending inferiors, who are thus and then reconciled to Him. The superior reconciles them so far as He acts on the provided propitiation, and the Father reconciles by constituting His Son, the all-sufficient and all-accepting Lord of Peace.
Now that's maybe a little long quote, so let me clarify it. Christ comes into the world. He comes into the world as the God-man. And He comes into the world in a unique way. We know that He came through a virginal conception.
And by that He comes as the Son of God. Not the Son of Joseph, but the Son of God. And He's brought up by Mary and Joseph, but He's brought up in a way that is unique because He never sins. Not even one time.
Not even as a child. And by the way, children do sin. Thank you. Yeah, I was going to say, you don't amen it, I will. I have six of them, and they're real good at sinning. So am I. But they sin, but Jesus never sinned.
He lived His whole life without sin. In fact, when it came time for His kangaroo courts, there were six different courts that Jesus went through. Well, not all courts. He was in the house of Annas and Caiaphas, and then He went before the Sanhedrin, then He went before Pilate, then He went before Herod, then He went back before Pilate.
So after six times, it was very obvious He was without sin. They couldn't find anyone to bring a judgment against Him. They had to make up accusations. He was absolutely sinless. Even the emperor, or rather the governor, I find no fault with this man.
So He's sinless. And yet He goes to the cross. He dies on the cross. He dies on the cross not for His sin, because He didn't have any. He goes to the cross, He's nailed to the cross, and He hangs there for six hours, eventually succumbing, as all men do on a cross, to asphyxiation, having His lungs collapsed by the weight of His own body, and being unable to continue to lift Himself up on the spike in His legs, He finally died.
But not as all men die. He didn't die like you or I would die. He died by Himself saying, He gave up the ghost. The Scripture says, He says, No man takes my life from me, but I give it up on my own accord.
So not only did He die for someone else, because He didn't die for His own sins, but He died on His own accord, not according to the hands of men. They were instruments, but they were not the ultimate instrument.
So He dies. And what happens when He dies? He dies having had all the weight of all the burden, of all the sin, of everyone who would ever trust in Him, from Adam all the way to us, and beyond as far as the world will go, all that have ever and will ever trust in Christ, the weight of their sin was laid upon Him.
And He bore it. And the Scripture says, He drank the cup of God's wrath down to the very last drop. And so we consider for a moment, just for a second, have you ever felt the overwhelming weight of sin in your own life?
Have you ever felt your own sin and the guilt that you have, and it almost crushed you emotionally, physically, in your heart, and Christ yet bore it all in a moment on the cross? We sing a song called, In Christ Alone.
And the second verse says, In Christ alone who took on flesh, fullness of God and helpless babe, the gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save, till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
For every sin on Him was laid. And here in the death of Christ, I live. See, that's what was happening on the cross. That was how peace was being made. Christ was taking all of our sin on Himself so that we would be given an absolutely free and clean slate before God.
But it's not only that. You see, propitiation means to satisfy the anger of someone. God is angry over sin. God's anger is satisfied through the blood of Christ. But that's only part of it. Because now, if that's all that had happened, we would stand before God only as neutral.
And neutrality doesn't bring peace. You might think it does. But get married. Spend 23 years in a marriage and find yourself in a place with your wife where you're just neutral over something. Probably not a good place to be.
You want to both be on the same page. Not just give up and be neutral. No, we want to have an advancement towards one another. Neutral people just walk past each other. They don't have a relationship.
There needs to be a bringing together. And that's what reconciliation is. Reconciliation is not neutrality. It's bringing together. And that's why it says here, it's He came to reconcile us. Not just make us neutral, but to bring us back to God.
And the way that He brings us back to God is He doesn't just take away our sins, but He gives us something. He gives us righteousness. You see, Christ not only lived a sin-free life, but He lived a righteous life.
Everything that He ever did was righteousness. We talk about this in theological terms as the active and passive obedience of Christ. And throughout His 33 years, if that's how many it were, it was that many years of active obedience to the Father.
And then we have the passive obedience of Christ where He undertook the weight of the penalty of men's sin and took upon their death. And in that, in His passive obedience, He gives us forgiveness. But in His active obedience, He gives us righteousness.
And therefore, we stand before Him, as Paul says, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but a righteousness that comes how? Through faith in Jesus Christ. Martin Luther called it an alien righteousness.
Alien meaning something from outside. It's not a righteousness that I build up in myself. It's not like the Roman Catholics who believe that the righteousness is infused in me and I thereby become righteous because of the righteousness infused in me.
No, it's a righteousness that is declared de fide. And that is what justification means. It means to be declared righteous. It is a righteous standing that I receive from God whereby I now have peace with God.
Union with the Father through that peace. Reconciled. Fully reconciled. Completely reconciled. Absolutely reconciled. Done and done. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Romans 5, verse 1.
That's the way Jesus made peace. And that's why He said, I've not come to bring peace but a sword because for those who have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, they will always be at odds with men who do not.
There will always be division with those who don't. Because those who do not have peace with the Lord Jesus Christ are actively in hostility toward Him even if they don't know it. You hear your unbelieving friends and family, maybe even today when you go off to family and have your lunches and your time, you'll hear people say, oh, well, I just love Jesus.
And then you start talking about Jesus. Who's that? Because they don't love the Jesus of the Bible. They love the Jesus of their imagination. The one who acts like they want Him to act. You see, the way we come to love the Jesus of Scripture is by God changing our heart because by nature we are hostile to God.
God changes our heart. We learn to love Him through that work of regeneration. Now, I've gone a little... I went a little long on that. I didn't mean to, but I was trying to point this out because this text, it says, through Him, He has reconciled us.
He's reconciled all things to Himself having made peace by the blood of His cross. That's what this means. It's the perpetuatory work of Christ having made peace with the Father through this. But I want to challenge one thought and I want us to consider this today.
There are those who use this passage to argue for a false teaching called universalism. If you're not familiar with universalism, universalism is the idea that everyone ultimately will be saved. Now, there's different versions of it.
There's universalist unitarianism. There are different forms of universalism. But the idea ultimately is this. No one is going to undergo the wrath of God. Everyone eventually will go into the kingdom and therefore the idea of Christ's reconciliation is that He reconciled everything and everyone and therefore no one is going to be punished.
Now, they use this verse. By the way, this is probably not what y 'all thought we were going to be doing on Christmas. This is how we do it. Look at the word. But this is what it says. It says in verse 20.
It says, through Him to reconcile Himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of His cross. And the argument is, well if He reconciled all things in heaven and on earth that means everyone and that's the argument that everyone ultimately is going to be saved.
But for the sake of allowing Paul to speak for himself I want you just to read on just a bit because this is what I'm going to preach on next week and I'll give you a little preview. Look at what he says in verse 21.
And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds He has now reconciled in the body of the flesh by His death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him if indeed you continue in the faith stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of I, Paul, have become a minister.
You see what he just said? He says there are those who are not reconciled. He says you are reconciled and you have been brought forward and you will be reconciled if you continue in your faith because there are those who have rejected Christ after having first proclaimed Him and we say they were never saved to begin with but there are those who proclaim Christ and later reject Christ.
And so he says we must continue in this faith and that's going to be my lesson for next week why continuing in the faith is necessary. Continuing in the faith is part of what it means to be in faith. But the point is he's saying in the very next three verses that there are those who are not reconciled.
And so you go back up to verse 20 and people have a fit and they say well here it says he reconciled all things but then you get to verse 21 to 23 and it says there's those who are not reconciled so how do you reconcile that?
That's probably the most time I've ever said reconcile in one sentence. Paul has I believe in verse 20 the idea of the already and the not yet. And I do believe that there is an eschatological view that he has in verse 20 that we must recognize.
Because he says that Christ by the blood of His cross has reconciled all things to Himself. And he goes on to say all things in heaven and earth so he's expressing all things and if you want to know how he uses that go back just three verses earlier when he says Christ made all things in heaven and on earth visible and invisible whether they're thrones or dominions.
So that's how he's using the term heaven and earth. He is saying all things. But understand this. There are two ways that men are going to bow the knee to Christ. They're either going to bow the knee to Christ in willing obedience to His lordship here or they're going to bow the knee at judgment under the weight of His mighty hand.
But at the end when all is said and done everything will be under His command. And under His lordship. And in that sense He will bring peace by the destruction of His enemies and by the exaltation of His elect.
And in that point all things will in fact be reconciled. Nothing. No one gets to escape. You know you hear people say somebody does something evil and then they go out and they get killed or something.
They say, oh that man escaped justice. No, no. There is no escaping justice. You may escape justice on this side of the veil. But no one will escape justice beyond the veil. For either our sins will be bore in the sun or our sins will be paid for by us in eternal perdition.
But not one will ever be put away and forgotten. And therefore all things are reconciled in the sun. So today I ask you on this blessed Christmas morn as we consider the birth of the God-man do you understand what the God-man came to do?
He came to please the Father in reconciling the elect to himself and one day to gather all things under his feet and present a kingdom to God so that God would be all in all. So today are you one who lives at peace with God or are you one who is still hostile to God?
It's easy during the season like this to get wrapped up in all of the emotion and sing away in a manger no crib for a bed and hark the herald angels sing. But has Christ changed your life to where not just twice a year at Christmas and Easter but every day do you recognize Him as Lord and Savior?
Because if not you stand in a precarious position you have yet to bow the knee but one day you will. And my prayer for you my earnest and sincere prayer for you is that you will bow the knee in joyful obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ who has made peace with God by the blood of His cross.
Let's pray. Father I thank You for Your Word. I thank You for Your Son. And I thank You Lord that we have in Christ the blessing of knowing true peace. Peace that passes understanding. Peace that surpasses comprehension.
Peace that is true and genuine. And Lord we thank You for that peace. May it now be what drives us to the table. Lord that we might sup with You having been reminded of the peace that we have with You through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And it is in His name and for His sake we pray. Amen.