THE SUPREMACY OF JESUS
Introduction
We,
as fallen human beings, are by nature idolatrous people. The Apostle Paul tells us that “claiming to
be wise, [we] became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things” (Rom.
1:22-23).[1] It was the French reformer, John Calvin, who
said it so well: “The human heart is a factory of idols…Every one of us is,
from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” We are prone to position people, things, and
ideas into the place of preeminence in our lives. We seek our comfort, security, approval, and
identity in idols that we fashion for ourselves rather than in the one person in
whom we find all of those things. In
spite of our idolatrous tendencies and the lies that we tell ourselves in those
moments of temptation and unbelief, there is only one person in the universe
that ultimately deserves our affections, attention, and allegiance; one being that
truly satisfies the longings of the human soul, namely the one true and living
God, who has chiefly revealed himself to us in the person of his Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ.
If you have a
Bible this morning you can go ahead and turn to the book of Colossians. We are going to spend most of our time this
morning in Colossians 1:15-23. The
Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the local church in Colossae probably around A.D. 62
while he was a prisoner in Rome. From
the introduction to the conclusion, this letter seems to have one main point
and it is the point of this morning’s sermon, namely that Jesus Christ is Lord
of all. Or to put it a little more
provocatively, Jesus Christ reigns supreme over all nature, religions, philosophies,
ideas, nations, peoples, cultures, subcultures, ethnicities, and social classes.
Indeed, he reigns over all things
everywhere, seen and unseen.
So this morning, as we look at this familiar text
in the first chapter of Colossians together, I pray that this would be a time
of worship and adoration for all of us. There
is primarily one way in which you and I are changed, and that is by beholding
the glory and beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ. You can here Bible verses behind that
sentence. “And we all, with unveiled
face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same
image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of
darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Let’s behold the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ this morning as we look at Colossians 1:15-23 together.
15He [that is, Jesus] is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16For 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. 17And he is before all things, and in him all things
hold together. 18And 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. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell, 20and through him
to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace
by the blood of his cross.
21And you, who once were alienated and hostile in
mind, doing evil deeds, 22he
has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you
holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and
steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been
proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a
minister.
The Supremacy of Jesus Displayed through
Creation (Col. 1:15-17)
I will give you a
brief outline of where we are going to sort of guide you through the way that I
am handling this text. First, we will
look at “The Supremacy of Jesus Displayed over Creation” by seeing 1) His
Supremacy Displayed through His Divine Nature; 2) His Supremacy Displayed through
His Sovereign Authority; and 3) His Supremacy Displayed through His Meticulous Providence. Second, we will look at “The Supremacy of Jesus
Displayed over the Church” by seeing 1) His Supremacy Displayed through His
Resurrection; 2) His Supremacy Displayed through His Atonement; and 3) His
Supremacy Displayed through the Gospel’s Saving Power.
His Supremacy Displayed through His Divine Nature (Col. 1:15-16)
The first way that we
see the supremacy of Jesus Christ displayed over creation is through his divine
nature. Paul sets up this portion of the
text by writing that “[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of all creation.” When we see Jesus
Christ, we see God. When we look at
Jesus, we are looking at the very God that created the universe and everything
in it. To use the words of the author of
Hebrews: “[Jesus Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3). As
Christians, we believe that there is one God who has eternally existed in three
persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Again the writer of Hebrews helps us to
understand that the ultimate revelation of God the Father to mankind was
performed in the second person of the Trinity, namely Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus “is the image of the
invisible God.”
Jesus himself taught this same truth to his
disciples. In John 14:8 we read Philip
speak these words to Jesus: “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus responded to Philip this way: “Have I
been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John
14:9). If we have seen Jesus Christ, we
have seen the Father. However, it is not
because Jesus and the Father are the same person, but rather, because Jesus and
the Father have the identically same divine nature. They are two distinct persons of the one
Godhead. Jesus Christ is the image of
the invisible God; the radiance of his glory and the exact imprint of his
nature.
I won’t spend a lot of time on the next issue
in this text, but it’s worth mentioning.
In verse 15, Paul refers to Jesus as “the firstborn of all
creation.” In spite of some of the false
teaching that exists pertaining to this verse, this phrase does not mean that
Jesus Christ is a created being. Using
the title of “firstborn” shows that Jesus Christ, as the eternal Son of God,
has all the rights and privileges of a firstborn son. This kind of usage of the term “firstborn”
was applied to Israel and David in the Old Testament, showing their position in
the eyes of God the Father. Rather than
being created, the testimony of all the apostolic writers of the New Testament
remains clear: “All things were made through [Jesus], and without him was not
anything made that was made” (John 1:3).
His Supremacy Displayed through His Sovereign Authority (Col. 1:16)
The second way that we see the supremacy of
Jesus displayed over creation is by seeing his sovereign authority over
everything that exists. When we move on
to verse 16, we see that all created things, visible and invisible, were made
through Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ.
And then Paul gives us examples of some of the things that were created
for Jesus: “thrones…dominions…rulers…authorities” (v. 16). If you are at all familiar with Colossians 2
and Ephesians 6, you know that Paul uses these same terms to speak of demonic
forces. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul tells us
that we wage war “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly places.” In Colossians 2:15,
Paul tells us that Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to
open shame” at the cross. So if we take
Ephesians 6 and Colossians 2 to our text this morning, we see that even the angels
that Christ created good, and knowing that they would rebel against him, be
conquered at the cross, and eternally condemned for leaving for their own
position of authority were made in order to display his glory.
Everything that has been created has an
appointed end, namely to bring glory to Jesus Christ. Both good and evil will bring glory to his
name. The good that has been created in
the universe will glorify Jesus for his grace.
The evil that God has ordained to exist will glorify Jesus in his
triumph over it: “All things were created through him and for him” (v. 16). Jesus being brought glory by all things is
not some sort of option or preference for God.
It is the reason that the universe exists.[2]
His Supremacy Displayed through His Meticulous Providence (Col. 1:17)
The third way that the
supremacy of Jesus is displayed over creation is by his meticulous providence
of it. In verse 17, Paul writes that Jesus “is before
all things, and in him all things hold together.” In a sermon that Charles Spurgeon once
preached on Hebrews 10, he said “That [Jesus], who once hung on Calvary and
there expired in agonies the most acute, now on His Father’s throne, exalted,
sits and sways the scepter of Heaven – nay, devils at His presence tremble, the
whole earth owns the sway of His providence, and on His shoulders the pillars
of the universe rest.”[3] God’s Son, Jesus Christ, has existed
eternally before all things, he ranks above all things, and as the Lord of
creation there is not one thing in the universe over which he is not sovereign.
We serve the risen Christ who commands demons and they obey him:
And they were all amazed, so
that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching
with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
Mark 1:27
We
serve the risen Christ who commands the wind and waves:
And they were filled with great fear and said
to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4:41
We serve the risen Christ who
commands and sustains everything in the universe:
He is the radiance of the glory of God and
the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his
power.
Hebrews 1:3a
I bring up these verses
about the meticulous providence of God over all things because there is a real
tendency for people in the church to not see God as absolutely sovereign over
everything. We hear people in our
churches pray things such as, “God, we know that you are in charge and that you
are in control,” but do they really believe that when we are dealt hard
providences? Do they believe that God is
sovereign when a tsunami kills 16,000 people and injures 27,000 people in
Japan? Do they believe that God is
absolutely sovereign when a child that is born with a disability?
This portion of the text that drove me to
expound on God’s providence has been very personal for me. My wife and I just recently had our first
child. Her name is Delilah Jane. She was born with Down’s syndrome and two
congenital heart defects, requiring that she have surgery in about four
months. God has given me the opportunity
to practice what I preach. I am that guy
that annoys everybody by always talking about reformed theology and the sovereignty
of God. And only by the grace of a
merciful God, have I been able to fall on my face before him in this situation and
say: “You are good, holy, righteous and merciful, even in this God. I know that you do all things for your glory
and the good of your people, even this God.”
We serve a sovereign Savior who commands the wind and the sea and they
obey him. Tsunamis do not take God off
guard. We serve a God who knits us
together in the wombs of our mothers.
Babies born with disabilities do not cause God to fall back on his
heels. Jesus Christ “is before all
things, and in him all things hold together.”
He reigns supreme in his providential governance of the universe.
The
Supremacy of Jesus Displayed over the Church
So we
have looked at the supremacy of Jesus displayed over creation. Now we are going to switch gears and begin
looking at the supremacy of Jesus displayed over his Church.
His Supremacy Displayed through His Resurrection (Col. 1:18)
The first way that his
supremacy is displayed over the church is through his resurrection from the
dead. In verse 18 Paul writes, “And
[Jesus] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Jesus Christ’s supremacy over the church was
so vividly displayed in his resurrection.
He has conquered Satan, sin, death, and hell in that he bore the wrath
of God at the cross and then rose victorious from the grave three days later. I imagine most of us are familiar with Paul’s
discussion of the resurrection in First Corinthians chapter 15. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ has taken
away the sting of death and sin by swallowing it up in his victorious
resurrection.
Moreover, First
Corinthians chapter 15 also provides an explanation of the phrase that we read
in Colossians 1:18, that Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead.” Jesus Christ, as head of the church, was the
first to experience the final step of our salvation, namely glorification. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the
power of the Holy Spirit and given a glorified body. The Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven in a
physical body that has been glorified and made perfect in every way; an
immortal, physical body. And because of
our union with Jesus Christ, on the last day, we too will receive resurrection
bodies like his. We will be glorified
with Jesus as we are raised at his coming to reign with him for eternity. Jesus Christ reigns supreme and has the place
of preeminence in his Church because he is the head of the body and the
firstborn from the dead.
His Supremacy Displayed through His Atonement (Col. 1:19-20)
The second way that we
see the supremacy of Jesus displayed over the Church is through his atoning
sacrifice at the cross. In verses 19 and
20 Paul writes, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.”
So through the cross of Christ, God was pleased to reconcile all things
on earth and heaven. This text has been
used to teach the doctrine of universalism for hundreds of years, going all the
way back to the third century. We have
seen it as recently as last year with popular authors such as Rob Bell,
endorsing a doctrine that teaches that the love of God means that eventually
all people and things will be reconciled to God and that no one will suffer
eternally for their sin.
We know that this
verse is not teaching some form of universalism because we, by the grace of
God, have the rest of the Bible. We know
that Jesus taught very plainly that people who do not repent and trust in his
redemptive work to be saved from the wrath of God will suffer what he called
“eternal punishment.” The very writer of
Colossians, the Apostle Paul, wrote to the church at Thessalonica telling them
that those who do not repent and believe the gospel will “suffer eternal
destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at
among all who have believed” (2 Thess. 1:9-10).
Rather than
understanding this verse to be teaching universalism, we should understand this
verse to be speaking of the cosmic transformation and reconciliation that will
take place when God creates the new heavens and the new earth. The atonement of Jesus Christ accomplished
more on the cross than the salvation of rebels like us. At the cross, Jesus Christ purchased not only
the salvation of the elect, but also the redemption of creation. When Adam, our first father and federal head,
sinned, he plunged the human race into ruin, as well as the creation in which
he lived. Death entered the universe
through Adam’s sin and the effects of that sin were catastrophic. Death and decay entered into the universe
through this one man’s transgression against God. But through the cross, Christ has purchased
redemption. The entire cosmos will one
day be renewed, and this too, like every other good thing that God gives to his
people, was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.
His Supremacy Displayed through the Gospel’s Saving Power (Col.
1:21-23)
The third way in which
the supremacy of Jesus is displayed over the church is through the gospel’s
saving power. In verses 21 through 23
Paul writes: “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil
deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to
present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you
continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the
gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven,
and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
The Church of Jesus Christ has been entrusted
with a message; a message of reconciliation.
We who have repented and trusted in Jesus Christ to save us from the
wrath of God have experienced the power of this message. This message is the gospel. Paul thoroughly details in these verses the
saving power of this message. He
describes our state prior to belief in the gospel. We were once separated from God due to our
sin. We were alienated from him. We hated God and were hostile in mind toward
him. We reveled in the desires of our
flesh and sought only to gratify our lusts.
And then, we heard the gospel.
We heard of God sending his Son in order to
take upon himself the wrath that we deserved.
We heard of him dying upon the cross, being buried, and then being
raised on the third day by the power of the Holy Spirit. We heard of him ascending to the right hand of
the Father and calling all men everywhere to repent and believe. And God, in his grace and mercy, through the
preaching of that message has saved us and called us to himself. Paul tells us that he has done this “in order
to present [us] holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (v. 22). The powerful gospel of the living Christ was
preached and we responded, by the grace of God, in faith.
All
of you, as believers in this gospel of grace, have been entrusted to carry
forth the message. This message is not a
message of self-help or self-improvement.
It is not a message about obtaining prosperity, health, or wealth. It is not a message about morality. It is not a message about social
justice. It is a message about
forgiveness. It is a message about
sinners being reconciled to a holy, righteous God through the sacrificial,
substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
It is a message about Jesus Christ being raised from the dead to conquer
death and sin for his people. It is a
message that says Jesus Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
Scripture, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in
accordance with the Scriptures. This is
the gospel and it is the message that we are to take to the nations to display
the glory and worth of Jesus Christ.
Paul says in Romans 1:16 that the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation for all who believe. This message
has the power to transform the most violent, wicked men into the greatest
missionaries in the world. It has the
power to turn lust-filled, sexually driven men into masterful preachers and
gospel-proclaimers.
God has reconciled us
to himself and has granted us the amazing privilege of calling others to know
him through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We
have been given the hope of the gospel; hope that because of our union with
Christ we will one day see him face to face.
I pray that we, for the glory of Jesus and our joy in him, proclaim this
gospel to all nations, in order that Christ might be made to look glorious and
be known as the one who reigns supreme over all things.
[2]Almost
everything written in this section is dependent upon Dr. John Piper’s
exposition of Colossians 1:16, which can be found in his book, Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 33-35.
[3]Charles
Spurgeon, The Essential Works of CharlesSpurgeon: Selected Books, Sermons, and Other Writings, ed. Daniel Partner
(Urichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 2009), 330-331.
No comments:
Post a Comment