The Christ-Hymn of Colossians

Father I thank you for your word.

Thank you for the truth Thank you for the book of Colossians and the Apostle Paul who wrote it and for you your Holy Spirit for inspiring it to be written and Superintending its writing and ensuring that it is free from error And I pray Lord that now as we seek to understand this great hymn to Christ of Christ in the book of Colossians That you would by your grace and mercy Lead us to a better understanding of it in Jesus name and for his sake Amen As I said last week in our introduction to Colossians Colossians has a very high Christology, but I what I didn't say last week And I want to begin with this week.

It also has a very easily misunderstood Christology Because there are certain phrases that is used in the book of Colossians That have been used by the cults and by the other Groups that are that are opposed to the deity of Christ to twist and distort what what? the nature of Christ truly is So what we are going to look at today in particular is Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 to 20 this is called the Christ hymn of Colossians and and it really does come across as a hymn as a poem as it were about the nature and the person of Jesus Christ and It is I believe just one of the more beautiful sections of of the New Testament because it really expresses who Jesus is and The very nature of his being but as I said, it doesn't do so without some complications in interpretation and so what I want to do and I'm gonna I don't know if the board will erase very well, and I don't even see that I have a marker.

I think I have one over there.

I want to Of course not because that would be too easy Is there oh Look at there what I'm gonna do.

I Would like us to make a list We're gonna read the Christ hymn Colossians 1 15 to 20.

We're gonna make a list of the parts that are easy to understand Then we're gonna make a list of the the few parts that are more difficult and easily Misinterpreted and we're going to use that as sort of the basis or the foundation of the lesson today And when we read it, I think you'll see what I'm talking about But Cody would you just come and sit here and erase this for me as best you can and and I'll I'm gonna read just listen up as I read.

Oh, if you don't mind here's some extra Here you go.

And what you'll notice what I did in your notes I gave you the English Standard Version, which is the version that I preach from I Gave you that the Greek because we have been studying the Greek language and And and I want to encourage also as you're continuing to study with Lee through first Peter If you want I can print it for you or you can go online and find it yourself Go in and look at the words as you're going through the book the Greek words and see which ones you know That really stand out to you.

Maybe do some word studies because it really undergirds what you're learning But these are this is the actual Form of the Greek and then under that is a literal word-for-word translation of the Greek and The reason why I put that in there is because the ESV while it is a literal translation is not a word-for-word translation because Word order in the Greek is very different than word order in English Go ahead.

Go ahead Okay, yeah, that'll work yeah So and actually the and I will tell you that third that third one is from Young's literal translation if you ever want to Read the Greek and English beside each other and know that you're getting a pretty much word-for-word Translation used Young's literal translation and it's and it is It is available free on online.

It is a horrible translation to read by itself It's really just for that purpose of studying sort of a word-for-word translation But by itself, it's very choppy doesn't have it doesn't make sense When you're reading it a lot of times because it's the literal Just sort of word per word and and that's not the way the Greek is intended to be To be read of course naturally, so this is what the text says beginning at verse 15 He and if we were in the text, we could look back and see that he is referring to Jesus.

He is the image of The invisible God the firstborn of all creation Verse 16 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 For though or excuse me for and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross and So ends reading of God's holy and inspired word Now just a cursory reading just as what we just did you can notice right away that there are parts of that that are very very powerful proclamations as to the who Jesus is it talks about him as creator.

It talks about him as sustainer, but not only are all things Created by him, but he holds all things together this this places upon the person of Jesus Christ a powerful Mark of of importance in the history of the universe and this passage denies Anyone who would say that Jesus Christ did not exist Until Bethlehem and there are people who believe that there are people in fact I would think listening back to the debate that we listened to with Joe Ventilacion and Dr.

James White I think Joe Would say that Jesus did not pre-exist The world that he did not pre-exist his own coming in Bethlehem and yet The Jehovah Witnesses wouldn't say that The Jehovah Witnesses don't believe that Jesus didn't pre-exist Bethlehem.

They do believe he pre-existed Beth Bethlehem they just believe that Jesus pre-existed Bethlehem in the form of an angel Jehovah Witnesses believe that the angel Michael or the archangel Michael became Jesus and actually what they believe is that the archangel Michael ceased to exist and was Recreated as the person Jesus and that when Jesus died he ceased to exist and he was recreated as the person Michael again, and he is Michael again today.

And what's interesting about that is that's what they also believe about us Jehovah Witnesses do not believe that when you die, you will be resurrected They believe that when you die, you will be recreated there is a difference between resurrection and recreation the idea of recreation is it's it's a new you and I've wondered and I and I don't know But I've wondered at times will the new me be me or another me If the Jehovah Witnesses are right, you know, I don't know if you've ever thought about this before but imagine Imagine there was a perfect clone of you You know, we can all imagine that we've all seen science fiction theater and we've all seen how they make clones How many have you ever seen the movie multiplicity? It's with Michael Keaton came out in the I think in the 80s and in the film There's a man who is really having difficulty with his life He's so busy all the time and he's any and he just he can't stand the fact that he doesn't have time for his kids He doesn't have time for his wife.

He doesn't have time for his job.

And so he meets a doctor who's Specialist in cloning.

He's a construction Manager, so he's managing the construction of the science facility He meets this doctor who is in charge of the cloning and the doctor convinces him to allow himself to be cloned and one of the one of the Neatest parts of the movie and I never even thought about this but in that one was neatest parts of the movie is when he's cloned you see him say Wow, look at that clone.

Look at the look at what he looks just like me.

He thinks just like me He he acts just like me and the doctor said you're the clone He's not you're the clone and that was like that's like a moment in the movie where you're like, yeah, that's kind of cool And this is not an Oscar winning film in any way but that part of the movie really caught my attention because I got the thing if somebody made a perfect clone of you with all your memories and all your thoughts and all your it would think it was you and The idea of Jehovah Witness theology sort of comes into my mind is the idea that you're gonna you're not going to be resurrected You're gonna recreate it as a new you and it may have all your memories and may have all your all but it wouldn't be you And that a powerful thought just that that's not what resurrection is in the Christian view I Raised God raises me as me.

He didn't make a new me, but I continue to live forever Thank you, son.

You've done a fantastic job.

Huh? Yeah, yeah, it's it's so Interesting it when you start really digging because Colts always begin with some small kernel But it but then it blossoms into Some really really wild and strange beliefs and ideas and the wild and strange belief idea of Jehovah Witness It's what they believe about Jesus that he was the Archangel Michael Which it is interesting if you read Daniel and you see the Archangel Michael come up You'll see some things about his power and influence and things and you get and you get to thinking wow that I can see how they Could make some parallels between Jesus and Michael But they are not the same person scripture doesn't indicate that at all It is a huge logical leap to say that just because there are some parallels That these two are the exact same being and doing the exact same thing and are of the same nature But you see what that does allow for them.

It allows for them to see Jesus as an angel created not as God the Creator So that it causes them is working Okay, great.

Thank you.

It causes them to have a foothold You didn't realize Jesus was Mark Michael the Archangel You know they can use that to to kind of see what Michael does here and see what this is this is Jesus and and they use that to influence and to can to to The word I'm looking for has escaped me confused.

Thank you confuse people's minds An angel wouldn't have become powerful it would have been Satan, but he was the number one.

Yeah, absolutely.

And he fell, so what makes Michael even more special is that he was number two or whatever.

Yeah, yeah What I'm gonna do now is I want us to take the parts of this and we're gonna have a right and left category we're gonna have a part that we would say are we would say I don't want to say good and bad because none of it's bad But we're gonna say easy and difficult.

All right, so we'll have the easy and the difficult Now why am I even doing this well because When you're faced with a Jehovah Witness, this is one of the passages that they may bring up But they're not going to bring up the easy parts They're going to bring up the difficult parts.

So what I like to do is I like to say, okay Well, what parts of it are are easy first? Because the he is the image of the invisible God I'm gonna put up here that that's difficult and I'll explain why in a minute, but I'm going to give you my thoughts I'm going to say image of image of the invisible.

God is Is under difficult? And I'll explain more later, but I'm because I've thought through these but I want you to And then of course the next one is also firstborn of all creation Now you might automatically realize what the problem is there for for Interpretation because when we talk about Jesus as creator, what is what are we saying? We're saying that he himself is uncreated.

He is himself not a creature But this would in a cursory reading Seem to indicate that he was at some point born Right, especially as it's translated to us in English.

And so that those two I would say are somewhat difficult Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely So the next thing I would say easy By him all things were created.

All right by him all things Were created that to me is easy Why is it easy because it agrees with my theology? No, that's not that's not really hard to understand by him All things were created and now later it will say That Let me see here I want to make sure I'm saying this correctly because there's a yes, it will say in the same verse all things were created through him Okay.

Now I'm gonna put that one over here Okay created through him the reason why I'm putting him under difficulty is that that's one of the ones they'll use and I'll explain why in a minute So by him all things were created and if you I would double underline the word by him all things were created All right.

Now it's we don't really have to go through in heaven on earth visible and invisible thrones rulers authorities Essentially, that's the all We can we can we can sort of sum up what what he's trying to point out Is that there's not a heavenly realm that wasn't created by Jesus and then just the earthly realm but all things whether they are visible or Invisible whether they are rulers or not.

They're all created by him and through him okay, and They were created for him this one.

I would say falls under At least in a sense the easy Okay, because that's not hard to understand created for him meaning the purpose for which they were created was Him now we could extrapolate that and add What does he get out of it because it's created for him? There's something for him that it's being created and the idea there is for his glory So but but but it doesn't say that so we that that does have to be an interpretive Addition but that's the the for him there Yes, yes that he's preeminent that yep, yep Now he is before all things.

I think that we can again go to the easy Before all things and And him all things hold together and you'll notice The two phrase all things are I'm gonna I'm just going to put a parallel there because the phrase all things comes up several times here All things were created by him Created for him.

He is before them and in them.

He holds are in him They hold together the all things is a huge Connector in these verses that's that's sort of a thematic part of this and that's why when we go back over here to explain the difficult We need to see that there is a theme that runs through that helps us connect the difficult and make it easy because it's not In the end, we're going to see the none of it's really difficult.

It only becomes difficult when we import English and modern ideas of what these phrases mean Into how they're being used.

All right, so next part He is the head of the body the church All right We're just going to put head of the church next He is the beginning firstborn from the dead.

There's that term firstborn again, but this time it's different because this time firstborn is not speaking of birth but speaking of Resurrection because when it says firstborn from the dead It's talking about the fact that he is the firstfruits of the resurrection as it says in the book of Romans He is the firstfruits of the resurrection.

Why do we call Jesus the firstfruits of the resurrection? He's not the first person that was raised That's right.

He's the first person who raised eternally because Lazarus raised and he died again.

Imagine that he had died twice You know, he's over there having coffee with Abraham and he hears Lazarus come forth.

Hey, what's up? Yeah, we don't know how it happened, but we got to think he died twice Jairus's daughter died twice the widow's son at Nain died twice There are a few people in scripture who are resurrected from the dead, but no one is resurrected like unto Jesus resurrected for eternity and So Jesus is called the firstborn of the dead because he's the first Fully resurrected for eternity one.

So we're going to just say firstborn of the dead Uh, let me go back real quick from the dead.

Yeah, thank you from the dead As I said, this is not hard to understand because we know now the firstborn has changed context even though the same word is used The context is changed okay, and He's the beginning first one from the dead and that in everything he might be preeminent And I want to just quickly Mention about the word might here the word might here doesn't mean maybe Like like like we would think of the word might it has more of a stronger sense of the idea of will that he will be preeminent Yes, so that he will be preeminent.

It's it's the the term Like the word if a lot of times the word if in scripture actually has the idea of the word sense rather So, you know if you believe on Jesus or since you believed in Jesus, you know there's a sense in which there's more than our terms if and might have have more of a sense of Possibility of not being but not so much in this in this sense Yeah that he shall be preeminent.

Yeah And I and I love verse 19 There's a parallel to it in chapter 2 in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell so we could say fullness of God Dwelled and again if you go to chapter 2 it actually says that in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily so there's those two passages that are parallel in chapters 1 & 2 of Colossians and Verse 20 through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven Making peace by the blood of his cross so we could say we could say reconciliation Now, why have I done this? Why have I done this? Well, I've done this for very very specific reason Which I want to show you now when you look at the difficulty and the easy Or the difficult and the easy passages, which I realize if you're listening to this via audio You're not seeing anything, but those of us who are looking at it in class.

You see that there's very little in this passage it's difficult and Much of this is so easy and you say well, what's when you say difficult and easy? What do you mean when we refer to the deity of Christ? Are there passages that are difficult regarding the deity of Christ? Yes Number one Jesus said I know not the day nor the hour Or no man knows the day of the hour only not even the Son only the Father and so people for him for Millennia have said well He can't be God if he doesn't know when he's going to return and yet they missed the part They missed the point that Jesus is speaking from his human nature and in his humanity There were limitations that self-imposed the scripture says that he grew in wisdom and knowledge and In favor with God and with men as God he doesn't have to grow in favor with himself but as man he grows in Favor and he grows in wisdom as a child.

He understood more than other other men We know at 12 years old.

He was teaching the teachers, but he still had a sense in which he was a child You know Jesus had diapers that had to be changed.

I believe that I believe Mary had to change his diapers because he was a child You know Heard Mark Lowry actually said Christian comedian.

He said if Jesus didn't have to grow up He was faking all them diaper changes, you know, and I thought that was kind of funny, you know, Jesus was a child he was a boy and he was a young man, and then he was a man and And and so there is a sense in which we have to talk about the hypostatic Union which is the fact that he carries both a fully divine nature and a fully human nature and That's what the the cults will not allow that they will not allow for the conversation of Jesus And that's why if you listen to their arguments It's almost always the argument that once you receive the the idea or not receive it but once you understand the idea of the of the the the dual nature of Christ that he is both God and man and With the manhood.

It's a fullness of manhood.

It's not just a veneer Like like like God put on a man's suit and went out and walked around like he was a man No, he took on the nature of humanity.

So as to represent humanity to himself And so there is that's that's essential when you start talking about Jesus, but that does create some difficulties See, well, how could God get hungry? How could God get thirsty? How could God die? These are the questions of difficulties They're not super difficult, but they are when you say what are the difficult and whether the easy well and when I say easy If if I were just talking about God the Father All of these are easy By him all things were created.

Nobody would argue All things were created for him to glorify him.

Nobody would argue right if I were talking about God the Father We just leave out the Trinity for a second Just talk about the Father and in it of him in his in himself if I talked about him being before all things Nobody would argue if I talk about him Being the one through all things hold together Nobody would argue if I said he's the head of the church Well in the sense of God being the head of all things that you know, you could argue about Jesus again There's some Trinitarian overlap here.

But if we're just talking about God None of these things would be difficult He's preeminent Fullness dwells in him and he is the one through whom reconciliation comes now over here If we said God is the image of God It Becomes an issue there is how God be the image of God.

So that's where difficulty comes and that's one God is firstborn.

Well, he can't be firstborn if he's God not in our sense of understanding the phrase firstborn and The through him wax, I'm gonna divide these because this phrase here actually needs to stand on its own So I'm gonna talk about that in a minute.

Where's what time are we don't make sure Perfect I have no time Because I because this is important Because when we start talking about the image of the invisible God in the first one of all creation These are the two passages that they argue with but I go back and I say this How can these things be said of anyone but God? Because not only can I apply these things to the father But I can't apply them to anyone but God I can't say that anyone created all things except God I couldn't say by him all things were created unless I were talking about God All right, so that's that that's essential the easy things help interpret the difficult things That's that's a basic rule of hermeneutics.

Actually, they said that which is easy to interpret helps you interpret that which is more difficult You always you don't you don't you don't read the difficult back into the easy you start with that Which is the easy to interpret so we have this by him all things were created You know what the Jehovah Witnesses do with that They add the word other they have to add a Word that is not in the Greek you have it in front of you the word other ain't there They say by him all other things were created.

Why? Because they know they can't say by him all things were created because if they say that It's saying he is the ultimate creator but they have to take a step back and say no the father Jehovah is the ultimate creator Jesus is his first creation and Jesus creates everything else, but it's actually Jehovah doing the creating He's just creating through Jesus, and that's where the word through becomes important But then I point back.

I said no it says by him not just through him.

It does say through him But it also says by him Right and that's that's why these two phrase these two terms are both saying a parallel thing Jesus is creator Created by him and through him Not meaning that God did something God the Father was using him as a mediator But that it was through him That the world was created you realize Jesus created you And that and that is a wild thought God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit in covenant chose to create humanity and It's all created now Image of the invisible God firstborn of all creation.

Let me just quickly give you an interpretation based on what I think is obvious from the easy parts and that is that Jesus is being described here as Deity and as I said, I don't think I don't think any of those phrases could be applied to anyone who wasn't deity First of all there are two Greek words a cone a cone is the word where we get the word image And Protota costs is where we get the word firstborn and You can see those if you want to underline them in your on your notes If you the third word on the first sentence Haas Esten a cone to say ooh That is he is the image of God the invisible that's a Rotu a rotu is the invisible God there and so a cone image and see the Jehovah Witnesses the the cultists will say see he's not God He's the image of God He's not God.

He is He's just a a carbon copy and I and in the response we have to ask first of all When we say he's a carbon copy Can God be copied in the sense that we think of like taking a piece of paper and and and putting it through a fax machine or through a Mimeograph or through a copier can God simply copy himself and we say well We can't limit God of course he could copy himself, and that's what some people believe he did God cloned Getting back to that he cloned himself.

I like what Wayne Howe says about this I don't know if you remember what we studied some of his theology book last year H.

Wayne house talks about this word He says a cone or the word image means more than mere likeness or similarity it includes the idea of representation and Manifestation this echoes Christ's own words found in John 14 9 he has seen me has seen the father and Matthew 2220 a cone refers to a ruler's image on the face of a coin Remember when Jesus held up the coin said whose image is on this right it was Caesar Christ is described as the radiance of God's glory and the representation the exact representation of his nature in Hebrews 1 3 How can he be the exact? I'm not this isn't Wayne house isn't me saying how can you be the exact representation? Yeah Yeah, and and and and as he goes on to say as the image of God Christ is the great and final theophany as the personal revelation of the living God Christ is the Projection of God on the canvas of our humanity and the embodiment of the divine in the world of men so what house is saying is that this phrase image is Referring not so much as to his Divinity houses argument is that this is referring to the fact that in his humanity.

He is the image.

He's what we see of God in referencing where Jesus himself said if you've seen me you've seen the father and it's not referring to his nature as Deity as much as it is referring to his nature as the God The the divine image of God in Humanity when we see Jesus we see God.

In fact, I've told people that I've said people I say if you really want to know what God is like look at Jesus Was when he is God, but that's what he came to do The Bible says no one has seen God the only begotten God That's a weird phrase, but it is in the in the in the Greek says the only begotten God Who is from the father? He has exegeted him that that where we get exegesis from is actually there in the in the in the first chapter of John Essentially saying that Christ is the one who shows us God So in that sense We look at image and we say this is speaking more of what he is to us than what he is by nature Now is he the image of God by nature? He is God by nature But to us we see him as the image of God.

We see him as it were that coin with the face on it We see him.

That's the face of God.

I I believe I'm gonna see the face of my Savior one day And I believe it'll be the face of Jesus Because he is that representation of God in the world So in that that's not denying his divinity In fact, it's it's expressly stating his divinity because no one else could image God except God himself No one could be God to man except God.

No one could represent him in his perfection except him himself But the problematic phrase is the phrase firstborn I would say of the two phrases image of the invisible God is the less problematic than the term firstborn because again in human or rather modern English terms firstborn always has the sense of there being a Starting point I talk about my firstborn child.

I talk about my firstborn of the of the cattle You know, we talk about the scripture, you know take from the firstborn of the flock and it's always in reference to that being the first Created or the firstborn of a family but in this sense Firstborn connects to a later word, which is hugely important Firstborn connects and you would say well it connects to the word firstborn here No Because these two as I mentioned are in different contexts.

This is talking about firstborn of creation This is talking about firstborn from the dead.

So this talks about resurrection firstborn here connects to Preeminent and the reason for that is because this is The reason for creation as you said earlier, Mike The reason why the world was created to us to glorify Christ and to show that he was the preeminent Overall creation.

So when it talks about him being firstborn It doesn't mean first in the line of created things what it means is the one who is the first or most important or the most Once a most powerful, but obviously that would be the sense he is the He is The leader the I'm gonna read this because I It does it's hard to say what what this is saying, but again, I want to defer to dr.

House.

He says Christ is the prototype cost of all creation The phrase the firstborn of all creation does not mean the Christ is created The first part of all that was created by God in the beginning This view of the Aryans and more recently the Jehovah Witnesses is clearly heretical when the title is seen in its context particularly in light of first 16 Firstborn suggests supremacy.

That's what I was looking for couldn't find in my mind supremacy not temporality Israel was designated as God's firstborn and yet many other nations existed before Israel as a nation Israel was chosen by God to be supreme over all the nations as his specifically chosen people As seen in Psalm 89 27, I will also make my him my firstborn the highest ranking of the kings of the earth Christ as the firstborn is the heir and ruler over all as Hebrews 1 6 refers to Christ as the prototype cost the supreme of all creation and so this speaks not of His place in time, but rather of his place in Authority he is like in any family The firstborn has a position of authority over the family Especially when the when the when the parents have gone and the in the in the children are left There's a there's a pre preeminency of age, but with Christ it's not about age, but it's about position He holds the position of preeminence among the world and we look at the world and we say who is he who is Preeminent it is he who is the firstborn of all creation not firstborn having been created but the firstborn supreme over all So I hope that was somewhat helpful.

I As I said, I love Colossians and I think in poetic terms Paul speaks the most clearly here about the the deity of Christ But not without passages that have to be understood in light of others And that's where we are in the danger of the cults as always is the dangers of the cults is that they will always Be willing to interpret These according to their system While denying what these Clearly say the question is why why do they not want to believe the Trinity? I Don't know that it's necessarily a want as much as it is a sense of a desire for being To garner a following uniqueness is Exactly uniqueness is necessary to garner a following and so if you're going to start a cult You're not going to start a cult as being that the you know First Baptist Church of downtown whatever you're gonna start a cult by saying everybody everything they're saying is wrong and I'm right and you got you garner people that's you know, that's That's what Arius did and he looked at the world and he said, you know, you're all wrong about Jesus.

He's not God, he gets people who don't want to think they're just like everybody else.

Exactly.

Yeah To look at it following their method of their beliefs is more simplistic and if their nature It's easier for them to control people with simplistic answers.

Don't go further Don't you know these mysteries that we can't understand they don't want that they want it It's nice simple like the one is Pentecostal the moment's and stuff like that.

Yeah is How can we get everybody to just believe this? Yeah, I've said many times that the simplest and probably most most Just just plain basic religion in the world is Islam God is one God one person don't have to think about anything regarding the Trinity God wants you to do this and not do that.