Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-006 (Expository Sermon)

JESUS IS GOD – SO WHAT? Colossians 1:15-20; 2:9

by Rod Benson

In a previous pastorate I came to know a fellow minister who occupied a position of high authority in a mainstream denomination and who shared my vocation, but whose beliefs were not those of orthodox Christianity.

On one occasion, at a public meeting, he claimed that Christianity was merely one of many ways to God. On another occasion he gave a talk to a class of primary school children learning about world religions, and my wife Michelle, then a teacher, happened to accompanied them.

He waxed eloquent about the Gothic architecture of his historic church, and its position relative to the points of the compass, and the uses of the giant incense burner suspended from the vaulted ceiling.

But when Michelle asked him to talk about Jesus, all he said was that, like Confucius and Ghandi, Jesus was “just a man.”

JUST A MAN?

My clergy friend is not alone. Many people are greatly impressed by the ethical teaching of Jesus, but unwilling to embrace his spiritual teaching, and they stop far short of affirming the biblical teaching that Jesus Christ is God.

In doing so they stop short of affirming what is arguably the most fundamental and distinctive doctrine of the Christian faith. Our church [Blakehurst Baptist Church, 1998] clearly affirms the deity of Christ:

“We believe that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Self-existent and Almighty God (Jehovah), the Living Word, who became flesh through his miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and his virgin birth. Hence he is perfect deity and true humanity united in one Person forever.”

[Note: I completely rewrote the church’s statement of belief in 2000; the above words were replaced by a more comprehensive Trinitarian statement: “There is one God revealed as three persons: the Father, the Son (whose name is the Lord Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit. Each person of this Trinity shares eternal deity.”]

All of Christian faith and hope rests on the affirmation that Jesus Christ is God, and no other religious tradition shares this belief. Yet, perhaps for that very reason, the doctrine of the deity of Christ has been attacked and refuted from the earliest times up to the present day.

In fact, the belief that Jesus Christ is God was questioned even before the New Testament was completed. Writing to the Colossians, Paul battled against an expression of early Gnosticism in the Colossian church that sought to turn Christianity into a philosophy and to align it with other philosophies.

Put crudely, those fostering this movement believed that all matter was evil, and therefore a distant emanation of God, and not God himself, must have created the universe. In this scheme, Jesus was not God, and certainly not man, but merely one of a number of intermediaries between God and humanity. The key to finding the way to God was to negotiate these intermediaries, and the way to achieve that was the possession of secret knowledge.

Against this dangerous syncretistic teaching that sought to rob Christ of his rightful place, and rob the Gospel of its power and Christians of their hope, Paul quotes what may have been an early Christian hymn (Colossians 1:15-20). And, in case we missed it, Paul reiterates his main point in chapter 2:9: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”

The Bible clearly teaches the deity of Christ (John 1:1-2; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1). In Colossians 1, Paul demonstrates the deity of Christ in three ways.

THE REVELATION OF GOD

First, Jesus Christ is the perfect revealer of God to the world. “He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God” (verse 15a). I believe it is impossible to know conclusively whether God exists and what he is like unless he takes the initiative and reveals himself.

And that is exactly what he has done, first through the Scriptures (the Word of God written), and then most fully in the Word who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14): the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Christ the invisible has become visible; the pre-existent Son of God has made known to us his Father. As Josiah Conder’s hymn expresses it,

In thee most perfectly expressed, the Father’s glories shine; Of the full deity possessed, eternally divine.

God has clearly, fully and finally spoken to humanity. God has something good and crucial to say to you! If we ignore or reject his revelation in Jesus Christ, we turn our back on God himself and condemn ourselves to a destiny without Christ and without hope.

THE POWER BEHIND CREATION

Second, Jesus Christ is the ultimate reason, the unifying principle and the supreme ruler of the creation. The first part of verse 15 emphasises Christ’s relation to God; now Paul turns to his relationship to the creation: “He (Christ) is . . . the firstborn over all creation” (verse 15b).

If we isolate this phrase from its context we may think that Christ is the first of created beings, but the words immediately following discount this possibility:

“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. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (verses 16- 17).

The act of creation was not performed independently of Christ; he was its divine agent. Just as believers are chosen “in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10), so all things were created “in him.” Just as he is our Mediator, bringing us into a saving relationship with God (1 Timothy 2:15), so he was the Mediator of creation, the one by whom everything was created, and in whom the creation continues to exist.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that not only is the Son of God “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,” but that he is, even now, “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3).

Paul echoes this thought when he says that in Christ “all things hold together” (verse 17b). Not only is Jesus Christ the ultimate reason for the existence of the creation, and its supreme ruler; he is the sustainer of the universe and the unifying principle of its life! Could such a person be anything less than God?

Given the nature of the Colossian heresy, it is important to note that if Christ has created all things, he also created the spiritual powers that featured so prominently in the heresy, and they must be subject to him – either in willing worship or through their defeat at the cross (Colossians 2:15).

THE FOUNDER OF A NEW REALITY

Third, Jesus Christ is the founder of a new creation. In verse 18 the ancient hymn changes gears, moving from a cosmic to a salvation perspective. Not only is Jesus Christ the architect and sustainer of the creation; he is the source of the church’s life, its organising principle, and its Lord:

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy (verse 18).

By his resurrection, Jesus Christ is the founder of a new community, a new humanity. He is the “firstfruits” (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23), the pioneer of a new creation.

From his throne in glory he says, “I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5), and the sphere of this new work is the church, the new community of believers whose life and destiny are founded on his deity and on his victory at the cross.

Thus Paul asserts the central place of Christ in both creation and resurrection. He is Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, Lord of all! And if he truly is Lord, there is no alternative but to affirm that he is God.

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 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” (Colossians 1:19-20). With this statement, Paul clears the air of the distractions and deceptions of human philosophy.

Bruce Milne says, “The deity of Jesus Christ is the essential presupposition of the finality of Christian revelation and the validity of Christian redemption.”

F.F. Bruce notes, “The totality of divine essence and power is resident in Christ. He is the one, all-sufficient intermediary between God and the world of humanity, and all the attributes of God – his spirit, word, wisdom, and glory – are disclosed in him.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it perceptively: “If Jesus Christ is not true God, how could he help us? If he is not true man, how could he help us?”

If you have come to know Jesus Christ, you have come to know the one eternal God. Because Jesus Christ is God, you and I can experience God. We can immerse ourselves in divine revelation, and enjoy divine reconciliation, here and now, today!

Are you building your life, shaping your lifestyle, on this new reality?

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E110 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

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