The Source of Spiritual Reality

The world of the 1st century was a pluralistic place—just like our world. The Roman Empire was a melting pot with many different ethnic groups and cultures rubbing shoulders together—a lot like Canada is today.

The Roman Empire was enjoying a time of relative peace and prosperity, and so it was possible for people to travel. Ideas and viewpoints circulated widely and mingled together. In particular, there were all sorts of religious ideas floating around the Roman Empire—many different views on spirituality.

People were searching for spiritual answers then, just as they are today. And they were confronted with many belief systems, each of which proposed to be the way to spiritual reality. So what the average person living in the 1st century tended to conclude was that there was probably some truth in all of these religions.

And that is amazingly similar to the way the average Canadian thinks today. As we look at our culture at the beginning of the 21st century, there are two “rules of thumb” that most people live by:

• 1. that truth is relative

• 2. that tolerance is compulsory

Most Canadians believe that truth is relative; it is not absolute. Truth is not something that is objectively measurable “out there”; it is subjectively determined “in here”. Truth has no independent existence; it is always filtered through someone’s personal grid. So what’s true for me may not necessarily be true for you—it all depends on how we process it from our personal perspective. So that means that if there are 27 million people living in Canada, there are 27 million different truth systems, or worldviews, in Canada.

Given that reality, the second rule of thumb becomes obvious: if we’re going to get along together; if we’re going to be able to live together in community, tolerance is not only necessary, it’s mandatory, it’s compulsory.

Tolerance says: You believe your way and I’ll believe my way and we’ll get along just fine, because we agree beforehand that no one belief system is true in an absolute sense. To say that one belief system is true would be to imply that other belief systems are wrong. But we have no basis for saying such a thing because we believe that truth itself is subjective, and relative to each individual.

Now suppose, as a Christian, that I come along and say “Wait a minute. This idea that truth is relative is wrong. There is an absolute standard of truth and it is not determined by us—it’s determined by God. And God has told us that there is only ONE way to spiritual reality. It’s His way, not our way.”

How would I be received? I would be labeled a crank. A crackpot. A religious bigot. A fundamentalist. I would actually be regarded as a danger to society. I would be accused of preaching intolerance.

In Canada today, you’d better not suggest that there might be only one true way to believe—only one valid spiritual truth—only one way to God, or you’ll be labeled intolerant, ignorant, fanatical, and dogmatic. You will have committed the worst sin that you can commit—the sin of intolerance.

This is the same dilemma that faced the Colossians in the first century. They had received a message that said that Jesus Christ was the only way to spiritual reality. They had believed that message. But now they were having second thoughts: “Is faith in Jesus Christ really the ONLY way to God? Is there really only ONE true belief system that will get us to heaven; that will put us in touch with God? What about all these other people who believe other things?”

The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Colossians to help them answer these questions. And the key to all of these question boils down to just one issue: “Who is Jesus Christ?”. If Jesus is just one more holy man; just one more religious teacher; then he isn’t unique. World history is full of spiritual gurus, philosophers and rabbis. Why should we believe that Jesus is so special?

In Colossians chapter 1:15 (page 1233 in pew Bible), we have one of the most important passages in the entire Bible. It deals with the identity of Jesus Christ. And we have to realize that Christianity is going to stand or fall on the truth of these statements. So let’s look at this great passage together, beginning at verse15. Paul is going to tell us seven things about Jesus here.

1. He is the image of the invisible God. - v.15

Now what does that word “image” mean? In Greek, it is the word “eikon”, and it means an exact representation; an exact likeness. When you look into a mirror, you are looking at an “eikon” of yourself.

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 what he thinks is 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 tells us that Jesus Christ is the image 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 that is exactly what Jesus Himself claimed to be. He claimed to be God.

Jesus said to his disciples “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus said “I and the Father are one.” When the Jews heard him say that, they picked up stones to stone him because they knew that he was claiming to be God.

Don’t ever conclude that Jesus was just a great man, a holy man, a prophet who came to point people to God. And don’t assume, as some people have, that his later followers put these sayings in his mouth. No. Jesus claimed to be God Himself. He said “When you’re looking at me, you’re looking at God.”

God is invisible—nobody can see him. But Jesus was visible—he was a likeness of God that people could see—because he was God in human form. When he came to earth 2,000 years ago, Peter and John and the other apostles all saw him, they talked to him, they hung out with him. When they did that, they were in the presence of God.

There have been a lot of attempts down through the ages to water down 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 a great man, but 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. People want to make Jesus into something less than God.

But you cannot get away from the fact that Jesus claimed to be God Himself, and the NT Scriptures, such as here in Colossians, affirm that claim. To be a Christian means to believe that Jesus is God, who visited earth in human form.

1. He is the image of God

2. He is the creator of all things - v. 15-16

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. Doesn’t that mean that he must have been created—that he must have had a beginning? How could he be God if he was created?”

Well, you need to understand that the term “firstborn” here is referring 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, of authority. 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 also 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 in verse 16. The Colossians would have immediately understood what Paul was referring to because there was a popular belief in their day called Gnosticism which made a great deal of the existence of spirit beings and they even called them “rulers and authorities”.

So what Paul is saying here is that, yes, there are spirit beings in the universe—there are angels, there are demons, but all of the spirit beings in the universe—both good and bad—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 - verse 17

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

The phrase “he is before all things” refers not only to Christ’s position in time, but to Christ’s position in rank. He is supreme over all creation. And in him, all creation holds together.

Scientists have been pushing back the threshold on 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 sugar cube 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 8 kilometers away. They would be traveling in a huge circle with a diameter of 16 kilometers—they’d be whizzing on a big arc through Etobicoke, Malton, Brampton, and Oakville, but they would be locked to this volleyball on this podium in the middle of our church, because there’s an invisible force holding them together. Can you picture that?

Now remember, nothing lies between the volleyball and the golf balls. Nothing—not air, not other molecules or atoms, not electricity—just absolute empty space. But that force somehow holds the two together.

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 atomic 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 - verse 18

Paul is shifting gears here. Thus far, he has spoken of Jesus’ relationship with nature—with creation. Now, he talks about Jesus’ relationship with people.

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 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 considered that? Have you taken notice of his presence this morning?

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, Paul is not talking about the order in which things happened, he 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.

It seems odd that Paul uses the word “firstborn” in connection with death because birth is the very opposite of death. But in the great plan of God, Jesus’ tomb was a womb from which Christ came forth in victory. Death could not hold him any more than a pregnant woman can 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. Paul uses this word eight times.

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 prepared, and the ship’s equipment was in top shape. 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 set spiritually. You’ll know all that you need to know about God and spiritual things. You’ll be ready for eternity. You will have fullness” This is what they were teaching in Colosse.

So Paul took that word that those teachers were using and he filled it with Christian content. 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 closer to man’s level—they were a lot like ordinary human beings. And the secret was that you needed to bypass the lower ones and 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.” When Jesus came to earth, God put 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.

Jesus is not only Lord of creation, He is not only Lord of the church, He is the Lord of the cross. And the cross is the instrument by which he reconciled us to God.

The word reconciliation speaks of two parties that are separated. There is a breach in their relationship. They need to be brought back together—they need to be reconciled.

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 man is still at war with God. We may be sincere, religious, and even moral, but we are still at war with God because we insist on going our own way. And that is the essence of what the Bible calls sin. Our sin is an affront to God’s holiness.

How can a holy God ever be reconciled with sinful man? Can He lower his standards, close his eyes to sin, and compromise with us? If he did, He would no longer be holy.

Well, maybe the answer comes from our end. Perhaps we could reach out and somehow try to please God through our own efforts. 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 through our own efforts.

But it doesn’t work, because we are still sinners, and we are therefore unable to do anything to please God. We cannot change our own condition before God.

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 reconciled the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them. (2 Cor. 5:19)

How did God do this? Well, it was not the mere coming of Christ to earth 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.

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.

The deity of Jesus Christ is foundational to his work of reconciliation.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 truth that Jesus is God is absolutely essential in order for what he did on the cross to be absolutely effective.

So we have learned three things about Jesus Christ from this passage.

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 Lord of the Church

Jesus triumphed over death and offers eternal life to those who receive him. He wants to have a relationship with us—a relationship of trust and intimacy. He is to us as your head is to your body—integrally and intimately connected.

3. He is the Lord of the Cross

He is the great reconciler, who “gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me”. What he did 2,000 years ago on that gruesome hill in Palestine is all that needed to be done to bring us to God.

We have all of God’s fullness in him. 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.

And there is no other worldview, there is no other way to God, there is no other answer to our spiritual needs than Jesus. And if someone says: “Oh dear, that’s awfully exclusive.” you can say “No, it’s not exclusive, it’s inclusive, because the Gospel is for everyone everywhere.”