Jesus is Lord of All
Several years ago, the noted historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book about medieval Europe. She called the book “A Distant Mirror”, and in it, she showed how people in the 12th Century had many things in common with us today. They were wrestling with the same kinds of issues and problems. Their society was like a distant mirror of our society.
And we could say the same thing when we come to the NT book of Colossians. We could call this book a “Distant Mirror’. Because the Christians who lived in Colosse were facing many of the same problems we face today—especially the same kind of spiritual problems.
You see, the world of the 1st century was a very pluralistic place—just like our world. The Roman Empire was a melting pot with a lot of different ethnic groups and cultures and ideas mingling together—just like America is.
There were all kinds of religious ideas floating around—many different philosophies and perspectives on what it meant to have a relationship with God. And most people were of the opinion that there was some truth in all of these various ideas. There were probably many ways to God—many avenues for reaching spiritual fulfilment. And so you could just pick and choose elements from all of these religions, and put together your own personal faith.
And that is amazingly similar to the way the average person thinks today. You can start with a little bit of Christianity, mix in a little Eastern mysticism, add a dash of New Age, and if it works for you—great. You believe your way and I’ll believe my way and we’ll get along just fine—we’ll tolerate each other.
But don’t you dare suggest that there might be only one right way to believe—only one valid spiritual truth—only one way to God. That’s intolerant, ignorant, fanatical, and dogmatic. And that is the worst sin you could ever commit in our society today.
So the world that the Colossians lived in was a lot like our world. It was spiritually confusing. And they found themselves asking—as we sometimes find ourselves asking— “Is Christianity really the ONLY way to God? Is there really only ONE true belief system that will get me to heaven; that will get me in touch with God?”
So Paul wrote this letter to them to answer that question. And the answer to that question is what we want to look at today, because the answer to that question really boils down to just one question: “Who is Jesus Christ?”. Everything about Christianity boils down to that one issue: Who is Jesus Christ?
In Colossians chapter 1, we have one of the most important passages in the entire Bible that deals with the identity of Jesus Christ. It’s important because Christianity stands or falls on the truth of these statements. So let’s look at this great Christological passage together, beginning at Colossians 1:15. Paul is going to tell us seven truths about Jesus here.
1. He is the image of the invisible God.
Now what does that word “image” mean? In Greek, it is the word “eikon”, and it means an exact representation; an exact likeness.
If you go to the copy machine and make a copy of a picture, the copy is never going to be as good as the original, is it? It going to lose some of the definition, the clarity, the detail. But an eikon—an image—is not like that. Because an eikon has all the characteristics, and all the quality of the original. It is a 100 % faithful representation.
From time to time you hear stories in the news about counterfeit works of art. Some art collector gets fooled into buying a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh painting, only to find out later on that it is a forgery. Oh, it looks real! The collector wouldn’t have bought it if he hadn’t thought it was genuine. But on minute examination it turns out to be only a copy—a forgery—not quite up to the original.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the exact likeness of God, with all the characteristics, and all the attributes of God. Now the only way that someone could be an exact likeness of God, is if that person were God himself. And you know what? That’s exactly what Jesus claimed to be. He claimed to be God.
Jesus said to his disciples “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
God is invisible—nobody can see him. But Jesus is visible—he is a likeness of God that we can see—because he’s God in human form. When he came to earth 2000 years ago, Peter and John and the other apostles all saw him. When they looked at him, they were looking at God.
Now there have been a lot of attempts down through the ages to disclaim the true identity of Jesus. Way back in the 4th century, there was a man named Arius who said that Jesus Christ really was not God. He was a great man—a superman even—but he was not God. He was just the greatest of all of God’s creatures. And Arius has some followers today—they are called Jehovah’s Witnesses. And that’s what they believe about Jesus—they believe that he was not God.
And all down through history, people have tried to get around the fact that Jesus is the image of God—the exact representation of his being as it says in Hebrews 1:3. They want to make him something less than God. Or they want to take away his uniqueness, as the Mormons do, and say “Well, Jesus was just one of many sons of God.”
That’s because the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Cor. 4:4) One of the key strategies of Satan is to keep people from seeing who Jesus really is. Because if they see who he really is, they’ll want to follow him.
1. He is the image of God
2. He is the creator of all things
Paul says he is “the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
Now you say “Wait a minute. It says here that Jesus is the firstborn. Does that mean that he was created—that he had a beginning? How could he be God if he was created?”
Well, you need to understand that the term “firstborn” here refers not to his origin, but to his rights. In the ancient world, if you were the firstborn of your family, you had special rights of inheritance, of ownership. All that belonged to your father belonged to you, because you were the heir.
And that’s how the word is used here. Obviously, Jesus was not created, because it says in the very next verse that he himself created all things. And because he is the creator, he is the owner, he is the master of all creation.
And that includes the visible and the invisible aspects of creation. That includes the spirit world; the world of angels—that’s what the thrones and powers and rulers and authorities are referring to. All the spirit beings in the universe—both good and evil—are subject to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he created them. That includes Satan and all his demons. They are all subject to the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. He is the image of God
2. He is the creator of all things
3. He is the sustainer of all things.
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Scientists are just now discovering the incredible power that holds the universe together. You know that all matter is made up of atoms. Now atoms are pretty small. There are more atoms in a single cubic inch of matter than there are drops of water in the Atlantic Ocean.
You probably know that an atom is made up of a nucleus and a shell of electrons that orbit around that nucleus. Well let’s suppose that you take a single atom and expand it so that the nucleus of that atom is the size of a volleyball. And let’s suppose that you take that volleyball and place it right here on the podium in the middle of the sanctuary. How big would the electrons be, and where would they be?
The electrons would be the size of golf balls and they would be five miles away. They would be traveling in a huge circle with a diameter of ten miles—they’d be whizzing on a big arc through Bethlehem and Northampton and Fogelsville, but they would be locked to this volleyball on this podium in the middle of our church. THere would be an invisible force holding them together. Can you picture that? And what is between the volleyball and the golf balls? Nothing—not air—just absolute empty space.
Now I ask you… How can we live in a universe where what we think of as solid matter is actually made up mostly of empty space? What’s holding it all together? Scientists talk about the strong force and the weak force that govern these subatomic particles, but where did those forces come from? How do you explain them? Why are they there?
The Bible says that Jesus, who is the image of God—the creator of all things—is holding the universe together. He’s the one behind it all.
Now does that take faith to believe? Sure it does. But does it take faith to believe that it all happened by accident—and it’s all holding together in magnificent organization—for no reason at all, and with no intelligence behind it? It takes even more faith to believe that!
1. Jesus is the image of God
2. Jesus is the creator of all things
3. Jesus is the sustainer of all things
4. Jesus is the head of the church
Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church
The church is made up of all those whose lives have been made new by Jesus Christ—who have been born again by faith in him. They are new creatures because they are in Christ. So Christ is not only Lord over creation; he is Lord over the new creation—the church. And the church is like a body, with Jesus as the head.
The Greek word for “head” here means “source” or “origin” as well as “leader”. Jesus Christ is the Source of the church as well as its Leader.
Recently I was talking with someone who said that the pastor is the head of the church. I said “No. The pastor is not the head of the church—Jesus Christ is the head of the church.” No pastor, no bishop, no pope can ever be the head of the church because that position is reserved exclusively for Jesus Christ.
And when we gather together for worship, we’d better remember that we are coming together—not to hear the pastor, not to meet with one another (although Christian fellowship is great)—we’re coming together to meet with our Leader, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is here today. Have you stopped to realize that? Have you taken notice of his presence this morning? Are you conducting yourself in a manner appropriate to being in his presence?
Christ is the head of the church
5. He is the firstborn from the dead
Look at verse 18… “he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.”
There’s that word “firstborn” again. And, once again, it is not talking about the order in which things happened—it is talking about the importance of what happened. Jesus was not the first person who was ever raised from the dead. But he was the most important of those who were raised from the dead, for without his resurrection, there could be no resurrection for any of us.
1 Corinthians 15:14 …if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
1 Corinthians 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
It seems odd that Paul uses the word “firstborn” in connection with death because birth is the very opposite of death. Ah, but in the great plan of God, the tomb was a womb from which Christ came forth in victory, for death could not hold him any more than a pregnant woman could continue to carry a child indefinitely.
Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead
6. He is the fullness of all that God is.
Look at verse 19… “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him”
The word “fullness” is a very important word in the book of Colossians. It is used eight times. Let me tell you why.
In Greek, it is the word “pleroma” and it means to be complete, to be fully operational. The Greeks used this word to refer to a ship that was ready for an ocean voyage—it was fully stocked up, fully provisioned, the crew was ready, and the ship’s rigging was in good repair. It didn’t need anything—it was ready to go.
Now there were many false teachers in that day who took that word “fullness” and gave it a theological spin. They said “Look, if you just follow our teaching, you’ll be ‘pleroma’—you’ll be full spiritually. You’ll know all you need to know about God. You’ll be as spiritual as you need to be.” This is what they were teaching in Colosse.
So Paul took that word that they were using and he applied it in a Christian context. He met them on their own ground. He tells the Colossians “Listen. If you want fullness—if you want ‘pleroma’—you can only find it in Jesus Christ. Because in Jesus you have all the fullness of who God is.”
The false teachers in Colosse were saying that God had sent out many spirit beings into the universe to represent him. Some of them were very godlike; very high angelic beings. But some of them were down on man’s level—they were a lot like ordinary human beings. And the secret was that you needed to get to know the higher ones, the ones that were more like God, if you really wanted spiritual fullness.
But Paul said “No. When God sent Jesus Christ into the world—it pleased God to have all his fullness dwell in him.” God was putting all his eggs in one basket. And there is no other basket. If you want to know God, if you want to have spiritual fullness, you have to know Jesus. There is no other way. Because Jesus Christ is the fullness of all that God is.
1. Jesus is the image of God
2. He is the creator of all things
3. He is the sustainer of all things
4. He is the head of the church
5. He is the firstborn from the dead
6. He is the fullness of all that God is, and…
7. He is the reconciler of all things.
Look at verse 20… “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
The deity of Jesus Christ is essential to his work of reconciliation. Because Jesus Christ is God, he is able to do what no mere man could ever do; what no angelic being could ever do. He is able to reconcile lost sinners to a holy God.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they declared war on God. But God did not declare war on them. He sought them out. And he provided a covering for their sins. But the natural mind of the unsaved sinner is still at war with God. A person may be sincere, religious, and even moral, but he is still at war with God.
How can a holy God ever be reconciled with sinful man? Can He lower his standards, close his eyes to sin, and compromise with man? If he did, He would no longer be holy.
Well, maybe man could reach out and somehow please God through his own efforts. And this, in fact, is the goal of all the world’s religions—to placate God, to somehow find a way to patch things up between us and God. But it doesn’t work! Because we are sinners, we are unable to do anything to please God. And in fact, the more we try, the more distant and alienated from God we get. We are creatures of sin.
If there is to be any reconciliation between God and man, the initiative and the action has to come from God. The Bible says that it was in Christ that God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them. (2 Cor. 5:19)
But it was not the mere coming of Christ that accomplished this reconciliation. It was not the exemplary life he lived that accomplished it either. No, it was the death of Christ that did it. God made peace with us through Christ’s blood, shed on the cross.
Once upon a time, a simple man came to his pastor for counseling. He and his wife were having problems in their marriage—they weren’t getting along, they were constantly fighting with each other. And this man had real difficulty with words. He tried to explain the situation to his pastor. He wanted to say that he and his wife needed a reconciliation, but it came out as “Pastor, me and my wife, we need a re-cancellation.”
Well, that was not such a bad choice of words. A reconciliation is like a recancellation. You can only have peace between those who are at war when the sin between them has been cancelled. And that is exactly what Jesus did in dying on the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
If Jesus Christ were any less than God Himself—if he were only a man, or even if he were an angel—he could not have made reconciliation between ourselves and God. As Bishop Moule said “A Savior who is not quite God is like a bridge broken at the far end.”
The true identity of Jesus Christ as God is absolutely essential in order for what he did on the cross to be absolutely effective.
There are three things I want you to remember about Jesus Christ.
1. He is the Lord of creation
All things were created by him and for him. He existed before all things, and he sustains all things—he holds creation together. That means that he made me, he knows me, and he is the one holding me together. He’s got the whole world in his hands.
2. He is the Lord of the Cross
He is the great reconciler, who “gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me”. And he rose again, the firstborn from the dead to be the head of the church. So when we—the members of His body—gather together, we do so to remember and worship our great Savior.
3. He is all we need
We have all of God’s fullness in him, and we are complete in him. We don’t need to add anything to the person or the work of Jesus Christ in order to be spiritually complete. In fact, if you try to add anything, you really take away from his glory.
That’s why the central question in all of life is: Who is Jesus Christ. And today, we have seen who he is.