The Preeminence of Christ

This evening I'd like to talk to you about the radical nature of the Christian faith. If you'd turn in your Bibles to Paul's epistle to the Colossians. Now I will, I don't know, it's the professor in me, it's the apologist in me that always wants to make sure, at least the people in my church, and when I have opportunities of trying to bless others and help others, to help them as well.

Most of the time when the enemy attacks the faith, the attacks will be based upon our own ignorances, either of our own faith or of the standard criticisms of our faith. So for example, a lot of Christians are surprised and are somewhat befuddled and are pushed back and don't really know how to respond to the fact that there are many people today who would have what's called a reduced Pauline canon.

Ooh, reduced Pauline canon, what in the world does that mean? Well, people like Bart Ehrman only believe that we have seven genuine epistles from Paul. So they don't believe that Paul wrote the pastoral epistles, 1st 2nd Timothy, Titus.

They don't likewise believe that he wrote Ephesians or Colossians, that these are forgeries, basically in Paul's name. Now why is this? Well, the problem is, when you deal with liberalism in our day, liberalism spreads not by force of argument, but by repetition.

And so what happens is, you go to a seminary and the professors there say X, Y, and Z. And it's taken that if you want to be in the forefront of theology, you need to agree with what these people are saying.

And so it's just accepted. I went to a seminary that is much more liberal now than it was in the 1980s when I went there. But even then, it was way off to my left. And basically, when I would challenge things, a lot of times people were like, well, I'd never thought of that before.

It's just simply said, scholars say, and then you believe it. And so scholars say that the early church looked like this. And Ephesians and Colossians seems to be addressing a later situation. And therefore, it must have been written at a later time.

And so they've taken a theory, their own theory, and read it back. And then you do with the Bible what you need to do to fit your theory. Well, that doesn't really work. But as long as it's repeated over and over again, that's what's happened.

So I've often said, by the way, that one of the most dangerous places, if you listen to The Dividing Line, you've heard me say this many times, one of the most dangerous places spiritually for a Christian is a Christian bookstore.

Do you have Christian bookstores? Okay. Now, are they bookstores or are they Christian trinket shops? Sometimes it's difficult to know. They're both? Okay, yeah. If it's got Jesus soap on a rope, that's not really what we used to call a bookstore.

But the store shelves, especially the commentary section, in a Christian bookstore, mentally what you need to be thinking of are coiled vipers. Okay? You down here, or since we're in Australia, whatever those crazy spiders are, okay, that you've got all over the place that can, like, eat your face and things like that.

I've heard all sorts of stories about that. And they really, your chamber of commerce needs to do some damage control, because outside of Australia there's all this stuff about how, you know, even in the airport there's stuff that can kill you as you walk by and things like that.

So you might want to work on that. It doesn't help the tourism industry at all. But anyway, that's what you need to be thinking, though, in the Christian bookstore, because those commentaries, especially Old Testament commentaries, we sadly gave up most of the Old Testament field liberals a long, long time ago.

And you think you're just buying a good commentary on a book of the Bible, and you get it home and you start reading it, and oh, my goodness, there's all this stuff in it that you had absolutely no earthly idea about.

And so whenever I even turn to, like, Colossians or something like that, I want to sort of take a moment to warn people, by the way, there are people out there that will hit you with, well, you know Paul never wrote that.

I mean, if you want to stop a conversation, just have somebody say, well, you know, it says right here in Colossians, well, you know that that's forgery. And if you've never heard of that before, you're just left silenced.

You don't even know what to say. You know, the response would be, well, that's a very modernistic idea based upon certain theories that have been put forward, but there's really no historical basis whatsoever for rejecting the Pauline authorship of Colossians.

I mean, it's consistent with every other book that you accept as being Pauline. It was accepted by everyone in the early church in that way. You have absolutely no attribution of any other authorship whatsoever.

You have a circular argument there, and then they're left going, ah. So it sort of works both directions along those lines. So when we look at the book of Colossians, I need to give you a little quick historical background thing here before we can actually look at the one text I want to look at and put it in its proper context.

I would think that one of the most, and I'm sure that you all probably already know all about this because Brother Craig has made sure that you would have this. And if I recall correctly, I think it may have actually come up in the debate, and everyone remembers everything that was said in the debate five years ago.

Because I'm sure you watch it at least once a week just to keep it fresh. But I've actually never even watched it. So don't feel bad if you didn't. Because I was there. I went through it once. Didn't want to necessarily go through it again.

But anyway, the background of the book of Colossians, I think is important for you to understand, especially this first chapter. Because scholars have looked at this, and if you read through it, you see that Paul's talking about this worshiping of angels and people who think that they sort of are doing something that's religiously good by denying their physical bodies.

And there's something going on. And what's going on here? Well, most people believe, and I think it fits accurately, that what's going on is coming into the churches. And remember, Paul didn't found the church of Colossians.

This was sort of a second-generation church. He had found the church in Ephesus. The gospel goes up the Lycus River Valley. And lo and behold, a church is founded there. And so this is sort of how the church is going to be spreading.

And it's off more to the east. And coming out of the east, you had something that eventually would be known in its fullest form as Gnosticism. Now, Gnosticism, if you want to insult somebody in a really cool scholarly way, you go, hey, man, you sound like a Gnostic.

And they'll go, what? And in seminary, it's really cool to do that. It's almost never accurate. But we do have a few Gnostics running around. Oprah Winfrey gets into Gnosticism every once in a while. But anyway, she gets into pretty much everything at some point or another.

But Gnosticism, I'll have to be very brief about this, but Gnosticism is basically a dualistic system. That which is physical is evil. That which is spiritual is good. And so man's problem is you are good on the inside.

Your spiritual self is good, but you're trapped in this evil body. And salvation is to get out of this evil body and to be that spark of the divine within you to be absorbed back into the one. Sort of sounds a little bit Star Wars-ish and a few things like that.

So there's elements to that. But to be absorbed back into the one. The Greeks were dualists, and that's why when Paul on Mars Hill talks about the resurrection of the dead, he uses the term anastasis, that which died coming to life again.

They mock him because the whole idea of salvation is not that which died coming to life again. If it died, you want to keep it dead, and you want to let the spirit get out and be absorbed back into the one and find its true self in the one great being, etc., etc.

And so by the 2nd century, there was this fully developed Gnostic concept where you had the idea that people had said, well, if God's all good and matter's all evil, then how did the world get created?

And so they came up with this idea that there are all these intermediary beings that come down from God. And as each one gets a little bit farther, a little bit farther, a little bit farther away from God, finally you get down to a being called a demiurge that's still divine and still has divine power, but it's far enough removed from God now that it can become evil and create the physical world.

And so the Gnostics eventually would believe that the God of the Old Testament was an evil God because he was the creator of all things, and that the God who created the world was very different than the God, the Father of Jesus.

And so they had this, all these intermediary beings, by the way, were called the pleroma, the fullness. And you'll notice that Paul uses the term fullness a number of times, even in Colossians chapter 1.

He's using their language against them. And they were also, because they also had to ask the question, well, if that which is physical is evil, then how could Jesus have been a good, a fully good person, and yet he was physical?

And so that actually, very early on, people developed the idea of what's called docetism. From the Greek term docein, it seems. They were the ones that would tell stories about how Jesus would be walking along with the disciple along the seashore, and the disciple turns around and there's only one set of footprints.

It's not that corny poem about, well, it's because it was a tough time and Jesus carried me. No, that's a whole different, weird, unbiblical thing. But anyway, it was because Jesus doesn't leave footprints in sand because he only seems to have a physical body.

Docein, seems. Seems to have a physical body. And so you'll notice, for example, that John is very concerned about this. That's why in 1 John, that which we have seen with our eyes, which we've handled with our hands concerning the word of life.

And what does he say is the antichrist in 1 John? Anyone who denies what? That Jesus has come in the flesh. And so this is a very early heresy, an early falsehood that is being taught, and that the church had to struggle against.

And it had its roots within this dualistic, Gnostic type of thinking. And it would become one of the primary enemies of the Christian church in the 2nd century. In fact, a guy around 150-ish flourished in Rome by the name of Marcion.

And Marcion was a Gnostic heretic. And for the next 150 years, if you were a Christian writer, you wrote a book against Marcion. I mean, we've lost track of how many books were written against Marcion.

He was the most popular guy to write a book against for a very, very long time. And that's what the church was fighting against. Well, Paul is warning against an early form of this as he writes to the Colossians.

And so notice in chapter 1 that he is giving thanks, chapter 1, verse 12, to the Father for what the Father has done, that is, in strengthening us, literally, that we might have a part or a share with the saints in light.

And then verse 13, who delivered us from the, literally, the authority of darkness and transferred us or translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. And so you've got the Father. He's redeemed us.

This is what He has done. And now we're talking about the Son in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And so we have gone from the one who's the root of our salvation into the one who has accomplished our salvation.

We have in Him the redemption, that is, specifically, the forgiveness of sins, who is, and now you have the description of this one, who is the icon, the image of the invisible God. So there is, you've heard of icons in Eastern Orthodoxy, for example.

And here the Son is being described as the image, the icon, the one who reveals the invisible God. Now, in Colossians chapter 1, in Hebrews chapter 1, in John chapter 1, interestingly enough, in each one of these opening sections of these books, we have an emphasis upon the fact that it's the Son who is the revelation of the Father.

We know the Father, but what does John 118 tell us? No one's seen God, specifically the Father, at any time. It is the monogamistos, the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father. He has made Him known.

So what we know of the Father, we know because we know the Son, because He is the perfect revelation. Here He's described as the image of the Father. In Hebrews chapter 1, He's the exact representation of His person, is the type of language that is used.

So this invisible God, which from the... Now, keep what the Gnostics believe in mind. This invisible God is known because this one, Jesus, has come and revealed Him. Now, immediately the Gnostic goes, No, wait a minute, no, no, no, no, no.

He's one of the lesser beings. Notice how Paul is going to use their terminology and very specifically close the door upon anyone believing what these people are saying. He does not leave open the possibility that in the church we can have all these different views of who Jesus is.

You can have a divine Jesus, a semi-divine Jesus, a not-divine Jesus. No. It's one thing to talk about having the ability to discuss non-definitional things within the church and to have different points of views on things.

But there are certain things you simply can't have different perspectives on and still have something called Christianity. In our day, we're being told, Well, you know, whether you believe in the deity of Christ or the Trinity or the Atonement, the Resurrection, you know, it doesn't matter.

Let's just all be one. One what? Massive confusion? That's pretty much all you're going to be if you don't have any definition to what the faith actually is. And so Paul is going to be closing the door.

What fellowship can darkness have with light in this situation? So he is the image of the invisible God and then one of Jehovah's Witnesses' favorite phrases in all the Bible. You do have Jehovah's Witnesses here, right?

Ever been woken up on a Saturday morning by Jehovah's Witnesses and you just weren't quite in your theological mode of thinking at that particular point in time? Well, it is the term, Prototokos posses tisos.

It's a hard word to say, especially when you're feeling just a little bit jet-lagged in the evening. It is the firstborn of all creation. And Jehovah's Witnesses understand firstborn to mean first created.

The first created thing of all the creation. So Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is the first thing Jehovah created and then really the only thing Jehovah created directly because then through Jesus everything else is made.

So he's the master worker and then everything else is made through him but he himself was made directly by Jehovah. That's their understanding. And so when they see this phrase, Prototokos, firstborn, they understand it to mean first created.

The problem is if you trace the term back into the Old Testament, especially as it's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint, that it doesn't mean the first created thing.

Israel is God's firstborn but it certainly wasn't the first thing that God created. And the firstborn, of course, everyone understood, the firstborn had preeminence over all the others who were created.

So when you talk about someone who is the firstborn of all creation, it's the one who has preeminence over all of creation. And so in talking about him who is the image of the invisible God, he is the one who has preeminence over all creation.

Why? Because, you have the very next word is because, why does he have preeminence over all creation? Because in him all things were created. So he has preeminence over all things because he is the very one by which all things created, which is why the Jehovah's Witnesses in their Bible don't have all things, they have all other things.

Because they have to leave the door open for Jesus himself to be created. The problem is that, have you ever heard of pantheism? There are different words in the Greek language for all. And they have very subtle shades of meaning to them.

And the term that Paul uses here is the form that would refer to creation having reality and each thing that exists having its own concrete existence. Rather than just sort of a nebulous idea of the all, sort of like what you get in Eastern religions where the all is one and one is all and you go and so on and so forth.

This is a very concrete idea of taking all things, but all things actually have real existence. And the reason that he has preeminence over all things is because in him all things were created. Or literally, the in him would be by him.

He is the one who actively is involved in bringing all things into existence because by him were all things created. Now what all things do we have in view here? Well, Paul gets rather exhaustive in his language here.

He refers to the things which are in the heavens and the things upon the earth. Well, heaven and earth, that's pretty much a description of the entire physical creation from mankind's viewpoint. The visible and invisible.

So that's a fairly wide swath of things right there. Whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. And so these are terms and a lot of commentaries will go into all sorts of very dreadfully deep detail as to how these terms have been used.

But basically it is making sure you understand that any type of spiritual authorities, any type of governmental authority, anything along those lines are subject to this one who is the preeminent one.

And all things have come into existence through him. End of verse 16. All things through him. So before we had in him. Now we have through him. And for him were created. Now that starts to... It would be one thing for you to be talking about Jesus as a master worker and talk about in him and through him.

But for him all things were made. So he was made for himself? No, that wouldn't make any sense. There's only one for whom all things are made. And that is the creator himself. The creator himself. So all things were made through him and for him.

Now stop right now. Because you've probably already forgotten the background. Think about what the Gnostic is saying. The Gnostic is saying, well, you have these eons. And what they were doing, it seems, was they wanted to plug Jesus into one of these spots where he could be an intermediary being.

Sort of like what Jehovah's Witnesses do. But if he's the creator of all things, they can't do that. And remember, eventually, now we don't know the exact theology of the people that Paul's warning about in Colossae, but eventually the writings that we have would reveal that, remember, the creator god for them was this evil god.

So he's saying, whether it's physical, non-physical, visible, invisible, thrones, lordships, rulers, everything's created by him, for him. And then it says, he is before all things, and in him all things sunestaken, which means to consist, to hold together, the entire universe is held together in him.

Now, there is no way to understand these words in any other way than as a description of the creator himself. He's exhausting the language to say that there is nothing outside the realm of his power, there is nothing outside the realm of his creatorship.

And so there's no way for the Gnostic to go, yeah, we want to find a place for Jesus, and we want to say that Jesus is a cool dude, and we can sort of make him a part of our play Roma. No. All things are made by him, for him.

He is before all things, and all things sunestaken, including all the physical things, they hold together in him. And there's no way that any Gnostic could agree with what Paul said here. In fact, he's going to go on and on, and eventually in Colossians chapter 2, he's going to slam the door on any possibility of allowing a Gnostic to have fellowship in the church, when he says, for in him is dwelling all the fullness of deity in bodily form.

He uses the term theatetos, which means that which makes God, God. And he says the fullness of deity is dwelling in him, somaticos, soma is the body, in bodily form. Now, I mean, that is like walking up to a Gnostic and absolutely giving them a right hook to the jaw.

I mean, that's it. There's no compromise here. They're out for the count. It's done. There's no way that a Gnostic could ever accept, especially because it says, in him dwells all the fullness, the play Roma of deity is in Jesus.

That's what he says. He's using their very language against them. And hence, there's no way, there's no place for them to hide. This has been something the church has had to struggle with a lot because one of the, when I teach church history, one of the dates that you have to memorize to be able to pass the final is the date of the council of Nicaea.

Now, before anyone can whip out their phone and Google, which ruins a lot of really good illustrations anymore. How many of you are absolutely confident that you know the year in which the council of Nicaea took place?

One, two, three, four. Now, what does that mean? How is that absolute confidence? What's that? There's more on the line for you. Yes, there probably is. And I'm going to show you great mercy by not asking you what the date of that is.

325 A .D. Okay, 325 A .D. And that's exactly what you were going to say, right? Oh, you bet. See? So, in 325 A .D., you know what's going on. The church was racked by a division called Arianism. And Arius and his followers were saying there was a time when the sun was not, that the sun was a created being.

And so, to try to find a way to expose them, because they have a way of explaining almost any biblical passage to be given to them, the church used a non-biblical term that represented a biblical truth, but it was a non-biblical term, called homoousios, of the same substance.

Because the Arians were saying he was of a different substance than God, because he's created. And then there were some compromisers in between that were saying homoousios, he was of a like substance, but not the same substance.

And so the demanded confession was homoousios, there's only one being of God, you can't divide God's being up into parts and pieces and things like that. And that's the terminology they used. Trying to detect heretics has always been a bit of a challenge, and even to this day, it can be a bit of a challenge at times, given how practiced man is in coming up with ways of defending his false teachings.

So, the point is that what you have in Colossians chapter 1, just at this particular point, is the beginning of Paul laying a foundation that is going to absolutely close the door to a false teaching.

But I want you to think for a moment how radical the meaning of these words is for us. Because Paul then uses this as the foundation to go on and say such things as, for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Now what does that mean? How could Paul say something like that? How could Paul say that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Does that mean you can read the New Testament and come to a full understanding of nuclear physics?

No, that's not what it's saying. But what it is saying is that nuclear physics are what nuclear physics are because of what? Did you hear that description? All things through him and for him, he is before all things, and all things hold together, consist, cohere, in him.

Every fact that is a fact is a fact because Jesus made it that fact and defined it as such. If it's true, it's true because Jesus made it that way. Now, some of you, when you hear a statement like that, automatically go, don't you think that's a little radical?

Don't you, you know, we're all told today to be moderate and inclusive and accepting, right? And if you say something like that, well, that's extreme. And that closes the door on so many other equally wonderful religious perspectives.

And that makes you a hater and a bigot. Isn't that how our society works now? I think that's how it works. But if Jesus is what Colossians 1 says he is, then it follows logically that if he makes everything, he gets to define everything.

That's why all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him. In him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And yet from the world's perspective, that's just too radical. That would change everything.

Because if Jesus, I mean, you're really saying that an itinerant preacher in the backwaters of the ancient Roman Empire that got himself crucified under Pontius Pilate was the creator of the universe?

Is that what you're really saying? And all God's people said, Good! It's one thing for us to say that here. But when we say it, and then here's the part that the world, then when we live in light of it, that's where the problem is.

Because, you see, the problem has always been what's the Christian confession? Jesus kurios. Jesus is Lord. Doesn't the Bible teach us that no one can say that except by the Holy Spirit, right? Now, anybody who can move their lips and expel air can say Jesus is Lord or Jesus kurios.

But we know what Paul's talking about. To truly bow the knee in confession that Jesus is Lord requires the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Why? Well, to be able to understand what that means, to be able to live in light of what that means is a spiritual thing.

It takes spiritual enlightenment. It's taking out that heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh and opening the mind and all the rest of that stuff. But you also need to understand that this was the period of time of the rise of the cult of the Caesar.

And the Caesar also claimed to be kurios. And isn't it interesting that one of the greatest periods of persecution in the history of the church was when the Roman Empire demanded that you offer a pinch of incense upon the altar.

And you know what you had to say? You had to say Kaiser kurios. Caesar is Lord. And no Christian could say that because they had already said Jesus kurios. Jesus is Lord. It's always been for the Christian the conflict between the demand of Caesar that you bow the knee to Caesar and the reality that every Christian has bowed the knee to Jesus.

That's why the teaching of non-lordship salvation is so pernicious. Because that is the idea that you can say I believe in Jesus without bowing the knee to him as Lord. No Christians had ever come up with that idea before.

That's a new one. The reason that Christians died in droves under Roman persecution is because they didn't believe what is taught so often today in many churches that call themselves Christian churches.

And so it's a radical claim. It is offensive to the world system. And it's certainly offensive to the secular world around us. You will be mocked if you actually not only believe but then live in light of the idea that an itinerant preacher in the first century who never wrote a book who didn't even travel to Rome the great city of his day or Athens the great philosophical center that this backwards Galilean itinerant preacher was actually the creator of this entire universe and in fact by his power holds all of that vast universe together.

You've got to be kidding me. That is offensive to any thinking person. Starting to sound like 1 Corinthians chapter 1. The preaching of the cross is to them that are perishing what? Foolishness. The Greek term Moronos from which we get moron.

It's moronic. It's foolishness. From the perspective of the wisdom of the world this is ridiculous. How can you ask anyone to believe this? And folks here's where you get here's where you got to understand all of these isms and movements and programs that the church has come up with to try to make the gospel acceptable to people.

What's the end result? It's always something other than the gospel. Because the gospel to be the gospel must always be offensive. It has to be that stone which crushes and breaks before there can be healing and regeneration.

The very message which to those who are perishing is foolishness is to those who are being saved what? The very power of God. The very power of God. It's not about the intellectual furniture up here. The whole message of 1 Corinthians chapter 1 is hey look at y 'all.

It says the Corinthians not many of you are well born. Not many of you are the high browed powerful people of the world. God hasn't chosen to use the high browed elite of the world. He's chosen the foolish things the weak things, the things which are not so that he might demonstrate the foolishness to the things that are.

That's his whole point there. And that's why he can say the message of the cross is to the Jew what's he called it? He calls it a scandalon, a stumbling block something you trip over. And to the Greek it's foolishness.

It's just so ridiculous you could ever believe something like that. But then what does he say? But to those who are what? The called. The elect. The ones that God chooses in his mercy. To raise them to spiritual life.

To open their understanding so they might see the glory his glory as the creator and what he's done in the incarnation. To those who are chosen Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. But you see that takes a spiritual activity in the heart and the mind.

And if we no longer trust the tools that have been given to the church in the gospel and the spirit of God then we're always going to be looking for something else to try to basically trick people in.

To try to rough to shave off the rough edges of the gospel so as to not offend people. The gospel is offensive to anyone who has not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ. And it needs to remain that way to be the gospel.

We are so concerned that our society is now about offending anyone. But the one person we don't care about offending at all anymore is the one who made us. He can be offended and nobody cares. Think about the offense to God when you deny what he has done in sending his own son in the person of Jesus Christ.

You think that might be offensive? When you use his name in vain and mock his gospel and mock his cross and mock his resurrection you think that might be the one thing we might be concerned about offense about?

Instead we are all concerned about offending the rebel creature. Cannot do that. That's the one thing in our society we'll make you pay for that. You see that's why we are talking about the future and talking about paying the price of being faithful to what?

The gospel itself. That very message. Because it's all that's been given to us. The only power the church has. What's the power that changes hearts and lives? It's only the gospel. There's nothing else.

All the programs we can come up with are worthless. They're worthless. But the true gospel offends. Because you have the rebel sinner coming up against his very creator and what his creator has done in his self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

And so yes my friends we have an amazing message. And it is astounding and it's offensive and the world says no no no no no. And this is we are seeing the re-paganization of Western civilization. We are seeing the re-paganization of it.

Because if you study church history and I this sounds like an advertisement but we don't make any money off of it or anything so I'm just letting you know. But I've taught the first class I ever taught after I graduated from seminary was church history.

And I love teaching church history. People always ask me what were the two classes you took in Bible College or seminary that have helped you the most in doing Christian apologetics. And it's real easy.

Greek church history. Greek and church history. Because knowing the original language of the Bible and it's great to know Hebrew too but most of the time even when the Old Testament is quoted it's being quoted from the Greek translation of the Old Testament anyhow.

So if you have to know one of the two I think knowing Greek is the most important. But so much of the problem is misrepresenting the Bible and knowing it's original language is extremely helpful. But then the other place is church history.

Man, most of us don't know where we came from. And as such we are deeply influenced by those who have come before us but we don't know how we're influenced by them because we don't know anything about their lives or the conflicts that they lived through.

And it's also so incredibly encouraging to see how God has worked with imperfect humans in the past because he's still stuck with us. And that means he can still keep working with imperfect humans even now.

And to recognize how faithful people have been in the past even in midst of persecution and all these things. But when it comes to church history it is so helpful to recognize that the things we're facing now, we're not the first generation of Christians to face them.