Now, we really didn't get finished
with the portion from last week, had to kind of give it short
shrift, so let's look at verses 13 and 14. For He has rescued
us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom
of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness
of sins. Now I've often mentioned that
a good modern word for save, as applies to our salvation in
Christ, is the word rescue. And it's good to change words
up once in a while, because we get to where we're so accustomed
to the thing being said the same way, when it's said, we just,
oh yeah, and it really doesn't have any effect on us. And so
I like it that our translation uses the word rescue, because
that's what salvation is. A rescue always presumes someone
who is beyond their own help. You don't need to rescue someone
who can take care of themselves. Rescue is like a person drowning
or drowned, already stopped breathing. And they go out there and pull
them in, start breathing again. That's a rescue. And that's what
our salvation was. And we were rescued from the
dominion of darkness, the kingdom of darkness, and brought into
the kingdom of the Son, He that is God loves. Now, there are
only two kingdoms. Notice this. There is the kingdom
of the son that God loves. Remember he said of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Now to this son, he is given
a kingdom and kingdom consists of the entire universe, but especially
the kingdom made up of the redeemed. There is that kingdom and then
all else is the kingdom of darkness. So no matter what you were in
before God rescued you, you were in the kingdom of darkness. Now,
sometimes people equate the church with the kingdom. And certainly
there are parallels. But the fact is there are many
people who are part of a local church, and I mean a faithful
local church that preaches the gospel, And they are still in
the kingdom of darkness. Why? Because they're lost and
don't know it. Our children, as they are raised,
we don't presume that they belong to God. We pray that they do.
And we're certainly going to use the means that God has put
in our hands to instruct them, for through such instruction,
God calls his elect to himself. Even though they're raised up
in this church or some other faithful church, they are part
of the kingdom of darkness until God rescues them and brings them
into the kingdom of His Son. And here is the reason or the justification for
them being rescued. In whom we have redemption, that
is in the Son we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Now
why do I say it's the justification for salvation when salvation
involves being justified? Well, God justifies us and justification
is simply a decree. It's being declared not guilty
or being declared righteous. That's all that the word means.
And a person could be unjustly justified. For instance, if he's
brought into a court of law, charged with a crime, but for
whatever reason, even though he actually did the crime, he
is found not guilty. Well, he's been justified, but
it wasn't a just judgment, was it? He was declared not guilty,
but he really, in actuality, was. guilty. Well, God can't
do that. When I say he can't, I don't
mean that he is restrained by some outward force. His own nature
would not allow him to be unjust in justifying us. So it says
in the book of Romans that he set forth Christ to be a propitiation,
that is a sacrifice of atonement so that he might be just and
justify them who believe in Jesus. Henry used to put it this way.
He said, before God can do anything for sinners, he's got to do something
for himself. He's got to satisfy his justice
against the sin that those justified sinners committed. And so that's
why that's brought in. In order to bring us into the
kingdom of his dear son, We must be justified in order to do that,
and in order for God to justly justify us, we must be redeemed
by the work of Christ and our sins forgiven. Now in the next
section, which goes through verse 19, 15 through 19, we have one
of the richest descriptions of Jesus Christ that could be given. Paul wades in, as it were, Even
though there's a good many words here, it's simply because there's
such riches in Christ that even as many words as this is still
considered refined gold. This isn't like ore that you've
got to search through it to find the little nuggets of gold in
it. This is just like pure gold. a rich vein of truth. And he
begins by saying in verse 15, he, and this is obviously a reference
to Christ, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
over all creation. Now, as we go through the study
of this book, one of the things will become evident if you're
familiar with the heresies of the church in the first and second
century. Paul was writing this in response to, well, some theologians
call it proto-Gnosticism. In other words, the early stages
of Christian Gnosticism. Now, there isn't anything Christian
about Gnosticism, You know what I mean if I say Christian Gnosticism.
There was Pagan Gnosticism as well. But the Christian version
of it is the version that grew up in the church and troubled
the church early on, tried to combine the truth concerning
Christ with some Greek philosophy, in particular the philosophy
of Plato, who divided everything into flesh and spirit. Well you
can see how easy it would be to twist Paul's words when he
talks about flesh and spirit and think it's the same thing
that Plato was talking about when he said flesh and spirit.
But Gnostics, their basic presumption about reality is that all things
material, what we would normally classify as material, are by
that very nature evil. And all things spiritual, or
immaterial, are good. In fact, Plato believed that
we all existed in some spirit, perfect spirit form, before we
were born. And when we were born, the shock
of being born was so catastrophic, it made us forget everything
before. But we have all these perfect ideals in our mind, which
he considered spirit, and those perfect ideals only find imperfect
expression in the natural world. Now I say all of that to try
to give a sense of what was rising up in the church. And what they
did was apply this to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now they called
themselves Gnostics or were called Gnostics because they thought
they had some secret, mysterious knowledge that others did not
have. Now it's true that all believers
have a knowledge that the rest of the world doesn't have, but
these Gnostics thought they were special among professed believers
because they had knowledge, had entered into direct contact with
God or other spiritual beings and received this mysterious
secret knowledge that other common believers didn't have. And one
of the things they believed is that Jesus Christ, and I have
various versions of Jesus Christ, but one of them was that he was
just a normal man who the Christ Spirit entered at his baptism
and left just before his suffering. Therefore, in fact some of them
even went so far as to say that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ
was just an apparition. It was just there so we would
have something to look at. But it wasn't even real because
they couldn't accept the idea that anything physical was good. So what does Paul do? He is the
image of the invisible God. Now the word translated image
is where we get our word icon. He is the icon of God. Now God is called the invisible
God. Why is he invisible? Well he's invisible because he's
not part of this creation. We can see whatever is in this
creation. That is whatever is of the natural
and, shall we say, material world. If there is light shining on
it, we can see it. But God isn't part of this creation.
He made this creation. Therefore, if he is going to
reveal himself to us, make himself known to us, he must enter this
creation. Or we'll never be able to see
him. And that's what our Lord Jesus is. He is the visible manifestation
of the invisible God. Now, you really could not declare
the deity of Christ any more powerfully than that. Now I do all I can to try to
explain the person of Christ, but I also realize that I'll
never be able to give an explanation of that mysterious person that's
going to fit well into our way of thinking, because he is a
combination of the infinite and the finite, the uncreated and
the created, the omniscient and yet the one who grew in wisdom.
So how can you put all of this together in one person? You've
got to be God to do that. This is the essential mystery
of the Christian faith. It's the person of Christ. And
we don't understand who he is. We know who he is, but we don't
understand who he is. We don't understand how he can
be who he claimed to be, but we believe that to be so. He
is the image of the invisible God. Therefore, he is the only
person of the Godhead. And we have to use that kind
of language because it's the only language we've got. But He's the only
one with whom we have contact. Now we pray to the Father, but
we don't hear from Him. If we're going to hear from God,
we're going to hear from Jesus Christ. You say, well, the Spirit of
God comes and takes the things of Christ and shows them to us.
Yes. And that Spirit of God is also called the Spirit of Christ.
And the Spirit of God, when he speaks or when he teaches, he
teaches with the voice of Christ. Christ is what we know of God. And he is the image of the invisible
God. Remember when God made man, he
said, let's make man in our image. And what I believe that he meant
by that in general is that he created man who is a physical
being. That is, he was, he's an animal
like the other animals, but God made him also a spiritual creature. God is spirit. Therefore to make us in his image
is to make us with spirit. But everything God said about
the creation of Adam, or man in general, finds its perfection
in Jesus Christ. Jesus is not just made in the
image of God, he is the image of the invisible God. And everything
we know about God, we know about him through knowing Christ. That's
why Paul says that I may know him. That's the only way to know
God, is through him. He's the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation. Now that can be taken two ways,
meaning that he holds the title of firstborn
over all creation. Remember, the firstborn in any
household was special, got a double portion in the inheritance and
all. Many believe that what's meant
by this was, and it can be translated this, he was born or brought
forth before all creation. Some theologians talk about that,
the eternal generation of the son. They say he was not created,
he was begotten. And this certainly makes sense
in what Paul's trying to say here. He's setting forth Christ,
our Lord Jesus, as one who existed before the world began. And he was the begotten son of
God before the world began. Verse 16, for by him all things
were created. Now I know that the body of our
Lord Jesus Christ is created. It says, a body hast thou prepared
me in prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. But his person as the
word, the eternal word, that wasn't created. Rather, everything
that was created was created by him. Now that's what John
says in his opening salvo there in the Gospel of John. All things
were made by him and there's not anything that is made that
was not made by him. Consequently, he is not created
because he is the creator of all created things. And that
means, and that applies to things in the heavens and on the earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities, all things were created by him and for him. Now Paul here is beginning to
get into this complex entangled theology of the Gnostics. And he talks about things that
were in the heavens and things that are on earth, things that
are visible and invisible. And then he talks about thrones
and powers and rulers and authorities. Now, that list of things there, he's not saying that such things
actually exist. And some try to, you know, they
take scriptures like this and they say, okay, then who are
the thrones and then who are the powers, you know, and this
kind of creature is the authorities and all that. These were words
the Gnostics used because they believed in this hierarchy of
spiritual beings. And one went through this entire
hierarchy of these beings and Jesus Christ was the top one.
And then the next thing is God. And you went through all of them
to get to God. And so Paul lists these things
simply because the Gnostics talked about them. And he said, whether
they're visible or invisible, whether they're in heaven or
on earth, whether they're all these things, whatever you talk about,
whatever you think about, Christ is the creator of it. And therefore,
all these things are subject to him. And he is above them
all, not above them simply because he is the top of the ladder.
Rather, he's above them all because he is the creator and they are
merely created things. Again, using that illustration
of Romeo and Shakespeare. It doesn't matter how imminent
someone in the story of Romeo and Juliet may be. And in that
story, you've got Romeo and Juliet, each of them daughters of relatively
prosperous families there in Italy, I believe it was. And,
you know, there were kings and nobles and all of that. Not a
character in that play comes even close Shakespeare. You say, well, yeah, Romeo and
Juliet aren't even real. Well, they're real, they're just
real characters in a book. Shakespeare is a real author
of those characters and they can never approach to being like
him, no matter how high they are. And that's what Paul is
saying. Jesus Christ is the Creator. Everything else, all those things
you look to and trust in and think are so powerful and big,
He made them. If they exist at all, they exist
only because Jesus Christ, the Son of God said, let there be,
and there was. He is. Oh, I forgot this phrase. All things were created by him
and for him. Now he's the creator of all things.
And now in a sense, he exalts them even more. He exalts Christ
even more because he says everything that is created was created for
him. Now, it's one thing to own a
lot. In fact, even if you could lay
claim to owning the whole universe, that'd be quite a claim. It's
better yet to say this whole universe was made for me. It
was created for me. so delighted in his son that
he created a universe through his son in order to glorify his
son. And he gave it to his son and
said, here, you run it. I made this for you. can see now how Paul is exalting
our Lord. Then he goes on and he makes
one of those statements showing the unique nature of the Lord
Jesus Christ by turning temporal statements on their head. He
is before all things. See you can't talk about the
Lord Jesus Christ and keep your grammar correct because you can't
be before all things. It would have been grammatically
correct to say He was before all things, but even the Jehovah's
Witnesses believe that. They believe Jesus Christ existed
before this universe, but they don't believe that He's eternal
with the Father. But Paul says He is. before all
things. Therefore, he's relating our
Lord Jesus Christ back to that one who spoke from the bush and
said, my name is I am, the eternal I am. He always is. It's not
that he was and is and ever shall be, even though that's a reasonable
way to express it and it's expressed at least on one occasion in the
book of Revelation that way. But the very essence of Christ
is this, he is. And before there was ever anything
else, he is. And in him, all things hold together. The word strictly means to stand
together. Now this could be applied several
ways. It could mean that he's the one holding the universe
together. And that's true, he is. In fact, it says of our Lord
Jesus Christ, upholding all things by the word of his power. This
universe came into existence because he said the universe
exists. That's the word of his power.
Let there be light. Let there be this, let there
be that. And that's why it came into being. And it stays here
because his same powerful word says stay. But I believe that also this
indicates that all things find their meaning and significance
in him. If there is no Christ, then whatever
is is simply chaos that only appears
to have meaning and significance to us. If there is no Christ, there's
no reason for anything. Nothing serves any purpose. Nothing
in this universe serves a purpose. It didn't come from anywhere,
it's not going anywhere, and there's no reason for it to be
here. It just is. Except that Jesus Christ is the
reason. for this existence. He is the
purpose and significance of it. And nothing can be rightly understood
until it is understood in relation to Jesus Christ. He's the key
to the riddle of our existence. Verse 18, and he is the head
of the body, the church. The church is considered or likened
unto a body made of many parts. And the more that medical science
advances, the more is seen of how many, what a complex machine
these bodies are. But these bodies are run and
organized by the brain, by the head. A body without a head soon
loses all of its organs or organization. It can't live apart from the
head organizing all things and Jesus Christ is the head of the
church and from him the church comes into being. From him the
church is organized and fed and carries on its work. He is the
beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. Again, it's referring here to
our Lord Jesus Christ to be truly the first one raised to the new
life that cannot die. Now, you know, Adam was the first
representative of the human race, the first head of the human race.
And while Adam, looking at it from our viewpoint, it was possible
that he would live forever, it was also possible that he would
die. And he did. Jesus Christ came
into the world as a new head of the human race, and he came
under the old order of things, and therefore he could die. And
he did. But when he raised from the dead,
he raised not as one who is part of that old creation. He raised
as new creation. He's the first one. Now, there
have been others raised from the dead, but they were just
raised back to old creation life. Lazarus was raised from the dead,
but then he died again, didn't he? Why? Because Jesus Christ
did not raise him in the same way that God raised Jesus Christ. Now, I don't understand everything
I know about our Lord Jesus Christ after he was raised from the
dead, but I know several things about him that the scriptures
indicate. He could go through doors without
opening them. He could be wherever he wanted to be with a thought.
He was on the road to Emmaus and then he just disappeared
and he was somewhere else. So he rose from the dead and
he's the first one and thus far in reality the only one who has
been raised in this fashion. Now the time will come when he
shall return, and he shall call everyone out of their graves,
and some shall be raised to eternal death. But his chosen, his redeemed,
he shall raise them, and they shall be like him. They shall be essentially immortal. Not only will they never die,
they won't be able to. Why? They will be raised to be
like Him. He was the first one, the only
one so far and yet eventually all who are in Him shall be like
Him. And why is this? So that in everything
He might have the supremacy. It was God's intention and you
know that God always fulfills his intentions. It's his intention
that Jesus Christ be seen as supreme over all. Nothing can be compared to Jesus
Christ. It said God has highly exalted
him and given him a name above all names, that at the name of
Jesus, and what a name that is. I've heard people say, we don't
call him Jesus because that's the name of his humiliation.
All through the Bible they called Him Jesus, or all through the
New Testament they called Him Jesus. Why? Jesus means Savior. Jehovah is salvation. That's an honorable name. It's
a glorious name. And He brought glory to the name. God has set him forth and at
the name of Jesus every knee will bow, things in heaven and
things in earth. Now this is coming from the book
of Philippians but you can see Paul in Philippians is dealing
with some of the same things he was in Colossians. He talks
about heaven and earth and below the earth all these various levels
of existence that some people believed in. He said every one
of them, every knee is going to bow, every tongue is going
to confess what? That Jesus is Lord. Like it or not, He is. He has the supremacy. For God
was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. Now this may be
a play on words that Paul is using and by declaring that everything
that it means to be God is found in Jesus Christ and that's the
reality. That would be the fullness of God in Christ, wouldn't it?
But remember the Gnostics believed that there were a lot of mediators
between men and God. And you went through all of them.
They are kind of like a ladder. You know, each one getting you
a little closer to God. Jesus Christ being the top rung
on that ladder. That was their view of it. And
they called that ladder of intermediaries the fullness. Well, because the
fullness of what it means to be God is in Christ, then the
entire fullness, the entire mediatorship between man and God, is Jesus
Christ. I like the way Paul played on
those words. Because of who Christ is, he is the one mediator between
God and men. You don't need anyone else. That's why bothered me a little
bit when I was in India and after each service people come up and
they might not even speak English but they made it clear they wanted
me to put my hands on their head and pray for them and I so much wished I could
have spoken their language and said I'd be glad to pray for
you but understand this you have every bit as much access to the
Father as I do my prayers don't mean any more to God than yours
do if you're a believer We all come to him through the one mediator,
Christ Jesus. God was pleased to have all his
fullness dwell in Christ and through Christ to reconcile to
himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Through Him
and Him alone, all things are being brought into reconciliation
to God. That is, they're being brought
in submission to Him, made to operate as He wants them to operate,
so that in the end, there shall be no contention. There will
be peace because of Jesus Christ. Now we rightly give honor to
those who can make peace between warring nations in this world. And we give them some respect
even though the peace they create sometimes it consists of nothing
more than they quit shooting at each other. Doesn't mean they like each other,
they just got them to quit fighting. What must it be, what glory must
be given to the one who could make peace, real, everlasting
peace between God and men. Never was there a war so fierce
as that one. And Jesus Christ made a peace
where the minds of rebels are actually reconciled to God. And
they aren't subdued simply because they're overpowered. They are
subdued because their minds and hearts have been changed, and
they've switched sides. And there's peace because now
there's only one side, and it takes two sides to make war.
All right, we are dismissed until the regular service.