“If God were to come into the world as a man, he would come out Jesus Christ”.

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Reference Text: Colossians 1:15-20

Well, the apostle Paul wants to help us understand who Jesus is. And I want you to look at your Bible to Colossians chapter 1. Among all of the passages of scripture that we might have looked at to see the reality of the child who was God, none is more grand than this one in the first chapter of Colossians. I want to read to you starting in verse 15. Listen to what the Bible says about Jesus Christ. “He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him. And he is before him all things, and in him, all things hold together. He is also head of the body of the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead so that he himself might come to have first place in everything. For it was the father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him.”

Every one of those statements that were made from verse 15 through verse 19 is absolutely exclusive. They are true of him and nobody else. And the sum of them all is at the end of verse 18 where it says that he is to have the first place in everything. No one else is the image of the invisible God. No one else can be the firstborn of all creation. No one else can be the creator of things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible. No one else sits over the thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, no one else is before all things and holds all things together. No one else is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the first-born. No one else has all the fullness dwelling in him to the pleasure of the father. Those are all absolutely exclusive statements. And what they tell us is, that Jesus Christ is utterly unique. There is no one like him. He is beyond everyone else He is infinitely beyond everyone else.

Paul is writing against this background and he simply says to them, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. And in verse 16, by him, all things were created. Get rid of this ridiculous system that you have developed and understand this, there is one God and he created and that one God came into the world in the form of Jesus in human flesh, that’s true. In relation to God then, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the replica, the Iconian. He is the reproduction (of God). In Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3, it says this, making really the same point, Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his nature. He is the radiance of God’s glory. That is to say, he is the shining forth of God. He is the exact, says the writer of Hebrews, representation of God’s person. He is not only the brightness, but he is the essence, the substance.

This term, ‘image’ is the classical Greek term for a die or a stamp. He replicates God. He’s the exact reproduction of God. As John tells us in his account of the birth of Christ, we beheld his glory, and what glory was it? The glory as of the only begotten of the father full of the same attributes that are characteristic of God. Paul writing in Philippians 2 says, Christ in one point was in the form of God. But divested himself of that and came in the form of a man. He is the precise copy, reproduction, a replica of God. He is the very substance and essence of God. He is the radiance of God’s shining glory in human form. That’s why he could say in John 14:9, if you have seen me, you have seen the father. In fact, he is not just a sketch of God, verse 9 of chapter 2, in Colossians it says, in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And back in verse 19 of chapter 1, all the fullness is caused to dwell in him. In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says, Christ who is the image of God. He is a full manifestation and revelation of God. Paul wants it crystal clear that there is no equivocation as to the identity of Jesus Christ. He is God in human flesh. That’s not unreasonable if you look at the life of Christ. Think of it this way, if God were a man, what would we expect him to be like?

In the book of Revelation, John has an amazing experience in chapter 5 as he is taken by means of a vision into the very throne room of heaven and the presence of God. He sees God seated on a throne and in the hand of God is a scroll. That scroll represents the title deed to the universe. The universe at the present is in the hands of a usurper, Satan, the archenemy of God, and the destroyer of souls. And Satan now is the God of this world. The ruler of this age, but God is seen in the picture of Revelation 5 holding a title deed to the earth and to the universe in his hand and saying, who is worthy to take the title deed and to open its seals and to take back the world and the universe. And as John looks, all of heaven and earth is scanned and no one is found worthy, absolutely no one. No great intellect, no great academician. NO great military leader. No great monarch, ruler, king, emperor, no great religious man, no one is found and John begins to weep and he is weeping because no one has the authority or the ability to rise to take back the universe from the usurper. And in the midst of his tears, he can discern one stepping forward from the throne who is both a lamb and a lion, none other than Jesus Christ and he reaches to the father’s hand and he takes the scroll.

In all the universe, He alone is worthy. In all the universe, He alone has that authority and that ability. There is none like him. And if ever there is a celebration for anyone, there should be a celebration for him. And to exclude him from the celebration is the most profound kind of blaspheme. He is God in human flesh come to save. But to see the greatness of his person, one needs only to go back to the text, which we read. Now, I must admit to you that I had a little struggle in my heart between this text and Hebrews 1:1 to 3, so I’m going to throw Hebrews 1:1 to 3 in along the way, okay? Because they are so parallel. And I want you to see a portrait painted by the apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that gives us a series of strokes that reveal Jesus Christ and each of these five strokes represents a particular relationship. We see Christ and his relationship to God and then in his relationship to the created universe, then to the unseen world, then to the church, and then to all other revelations. Let’s start with Jesus in his relation to God. Verse 15, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Now you need a little bit of background. I won’t take a long time on this, but just to help you know the setting, the church in Colossi was confronted by typical religious error at that time as churches are today, there were false teachers then as there are now. People purveying lies as if they were religious truths. And there was a group of these religious teachers and they thought that they had the super knowledge, the superior knowledge. They were the supposed spiritual intellectuals of their time. And they thought that Christianity was a common mundane low-level kind of religion and they had elevated themselves to a much higher one.

Well, if God were a man, I would expect him to be sinless. Jesus was. He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Even Pontius who sat as his judge after all the hullabaloo that had gone on, came to this conclusion, I find in him what? No fault. The Roman centurion came to the same conclusion and so did the thief on the cross. Nobody could ever bring an accusation against him. A trial before Annas, a trial before Caiaphas, a trial before Herod passed back to Pilate, nobody could come up with anything. If God were a man, I would expect him to be sinless. The record of history and the affirmation of apostolic testimony and the truth is, Jesus was sinless. If God were a man, I would expect him to speak the most profound and greatest words ever spoken, wouldn’t you? Jesus did.

I would also expect that if he were God he would have that kind of influence. Now if God were a man, I would also expect him to do miracles. Jesus did, repeatedly, publicly, unarguable, dramatically, prolifically, and if God were a man, I would expect him to know the future. Jesus did. He predicted things about himself, things about the nation of Israel, details about the future, the end of the world. If God were a man, I would expect him to show us what God was like. He did. We saw in him love and kindness and mercy and grace that was absolutely and utterly and beyond anything any human could ever experience.

And we saw in him a level of virtue, fairness, wisdom, the likes of which the world has never seen. Any way you look at it, if God were to come into the world as a man, he would come out Jesus Christ and that’s the case. Jesus Christ is the exact reproduction of the invisible God he makes the invisible God visible. If you trivialize the birth of Christ, as I said earlier, that is a monumental form of blasphemy because that is a striking of a blow against the revelation of the eternal God in Christ. Furthermore, verse 15 identifies Jesus as the firstborn of all creation. That is not a reference to time. He wasn’t the first person born in creation. Adam was made and then Eve was formed out of his rib and then they started having babies. There were plenty of them before he was born. It doesn’t mean that he was the first person ever born in all of creation. What it means is that of all of creation he is the prtotokos. That is to say, the ranking one. In ancient one, the first born meant the heir. The supreme one, the superior one. The one with the right of inheritance. The one with the rights of privilege and prestige and honor. Jacob was not born first, but he was the prtotokos. He was the heir.

Perhaps you can understand it if you can understand Psalm 89:27, God says, I will also make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. Firstborn being defined as the king of kings, the supreme one. Hebrews 1 also speaks of this, verse 2, his son whom he appointed heir of all things. That’s the issue and that’s why in verse 3 at the end he sits down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He sits down on the very throne of God. And Paul is saying in relation to God, he is the exact representation of God and of all who have been created, he is the heir, he is the supreme one. He is the ranking one. He is the ultimate one. Paul declares then that Jesus is God, the exact replica of God. The supreme being of all who have ever existed.

Some people may be confused about whether Jesus claimed this, certainly the Jewish people of his time weren’t, they wanted to stone him for blasphemy, John 10:33 says, because they said, you being a man, make yourself God. Indeed, he was God. Thomas had it right when he reached out his hand and commented my Lord and my God. Look at the second relationship in verses 16 and 17, not only do we see Jesus in his relationship to God, but in his relationship to the world or to creation. Verse 16 says, for by him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth. Visible and invisible. And then at the end of the verse, all things have been created by him and for him and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. We are dealing here not with a man, not just with a great man, we are dealing here with the creator and the sustainer of the whole universe. Whatever is in heaven and in earth. Whatever is visible or invisible. It is all crated by him. It is all created before him. He is before all of it and in him, all of it hangs together. He is the creator and again, that is exactly what we read in Hebrews 1:2, through whom also he made the world. Or literally, dia by whom he made the world. The whole universe, the whole cosmos. The whole material universe was made by Jesus Christ.

The very angels who said that night, glory to God in the highest, were the servants of the baby in the manger. They had been created by him. Angels, whether elect angles, holy angles or fallen angels are subject to Christ. They would not exist apart from his creative power and they could not continue to exist apart from his sustaining power. In Hebrews, again, chapter 1 verse 7, it says that it makes his angels wins. It’s talking about a creative act. And his ministers a flame of fire, but of the son he says, thy throne, oh God is forever and ever, when God made angels, by his creative act. When Christ made angels by his creative act, he made them minsters. That’s word for servants. But when God sent his son, he wasn’t a servant. He said, they throne, oh God is forever and ever and the angels worship him because he is the sovereign. Verse 6, when he again brings the firstborn into the world he says, and let all the angels of God worship him. Angels are servants. He is the one to be served. He is the king. He is the sovereign. There is a fourth relationship here that I would point out to you.

Look at verse 18. We have seen Jesus in his relation to God, to the created universe, and to the unseen world of angels. Now Jesus and his relationship with the church. He is also head of the body - the church. He is the beginning, the first born of from the dead so he himself might come to have first place in everything. Some tremendous truths here. He is the head of the body, the church. Biblically the metaphor of the body is often used. The church is like a body and Christ is like its head. That’s comprehensible to us. It means what we would assume it means, the ability to produce growth in your brain, at the base of your skull is a small cavity. In that cavity is contained a gland that is called the pituitary gland, that is related to growth. It carries the growth hormone among others that stimulate growth; and growth of the body is directly related to the power provided by the head. Our cerebrum controls parts of the body; the cerebellum has been called the harmonizers of muscle action. All the functions of the human body are under the control of the brain, both voluntary and involuntary. They are stimulated by what goes on in the head, growth, guidance, and certainly, all the thought process are contained in the mind and the head, that gives the direction to all that we do and say and think.

And that simply illustrates the fact that Christ is the source of all truth, all knowledge, all wisdom, all growth, and all guidance in his church. He is the head of the church. Secondly, he says, he is the beginning. He is the beginning of the church. He is the source of the church. Matthew 16, Jesus said, I will build my church. That is the idea here. The church is the creation of Christ. He is the source of its existence. And truthfully, it’s the most prominent member by virtue of resurrection which we shall see immediately in a moment. He is the arch, He is the pioneer. He is the forerunner. He is the leader. He is the source of the church. Not just its head, but its creator, its source. And then follow along in verse 18, he is also the firstborn from the dead, there is that prototokos again. It’s not that he’s the first person ever resurrected. There were people in the Old Testament resurrected. There were people that Jesus raised from the dead before he himself was resurrected. We are not talking about first in time, but of all who have ever been raised or ever will be raised, he is the prototokos He is the supreme one. Here Paul zeroes in on the resurrection. He was born, but he was raised from the dead. The firstfruits of them that slept. His resurrection is a guarantee of the ultimate resurrection into eternal life of all men. He is not a dead hero. [b]He is a resurrected God-man. And of all who have ever come from the dead, he is the supreme one, the superior one[/b]. You can’t dismiss Jesus as some dead historical figure, he is alive. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the source, the imitator of the body, the church, and he has given birth from death to the whole church by his own resurrection.

As a result of all of these things, as a result of being the very reproduction and replica of the invisible God, the most ranking individual of all those created, as a result of being the creator himself, who made everything in the universe visible and invisible, as a result of being the sovereign over all the spiritual world, as a result of being sovereign in leader and authority and source and life for the church, the end of verse 18 says, he himself has come to have first place in everything. He is absolutely preeminent. And it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that one who is first to rank in the universe, who is the point of reference, who is agent, goal, forerunner, sustainer, the governor in the sphere of creation, one who is head of the church, beginning and first in rank of those resurrected would be the preeminent one.

And then just to make sure nothing gets left out after having said it all in verse 19, Paul adds a word about Jesus in his relationship to all other revelations. It was the father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him. All the powers of deity, all the attributes of deity, verse 3 of chapter 2 says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, verse 9 says, all the fullness of deity, everything is in him. Everything is in him. He is the fullness of God’s essence, God’s glory and it’s in him and him alone. And that is to say, if somebody comes along after this and says, I’m God, don’t believe it he needs no supplement, he had no rivals. There are no more revelations. It’s in him and him alone that God has put all the fullness of his own deity because it pleased him to do that. Now the closing question is why? And the answer comes in verse 20, listen, and through him to reconcile all things to himself having made peace through the blood of his cross, from him I say whether things on earth or things in heaven, and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind and engaged in evil deeds, yet he has yet reconciled you in His fleshly body through death in order to present you before Him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Why did Christ come into the world? To save sinners. To go to a cross, to shed his blood through death, pay the price for sin in order that he might present you to God, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

It’s a tremendous truth, as Joab you remember in the Old Testament pleaded for Absalom the wayward rebel’s son, and brought him to David and David kissed him. So Jesus Christ brings us to the kiss of God so that we might be reconciled.


John MacArthur

Cc: Prettygirl27

God's only begotten SON! Matthew 16:16-17

MaxInDHouse:
God's only begotten SON! Matthew 16:16-17

Yes. God is One. In the One God is a multiverse of expressions. In God-kind, is the Father, the Begotten Son and The Spirit; each of the same essence.

Thanks for the verse.

GENESIS CHAPTER ONE.

GOD IN GOD'SPHERE IS CHRIST-SAVIOUR-GOD.

LORD GOD IN HEAVEN'S SPHERE IS HOLY SPIRIT ALWAYS IN TRANSIT IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

JESUS IS THE LORD ON EARTH, THE FIRST EXAMPLE OF THE SON OF MAN WHO OBEYED ALL INSTRUCTIONS FROM ABOVE WAS CRUCIFIED DEAD AND BURIED. WE SEE HIM RESURRECTED THE THIRD DAY TO HEAVENS TO BECOME GOD, OUR INSTRUCTOR, DIRECTOR AND DISCERNMENT FOREVER. HAVEN EXPERIENCED THE WORLD, CHRIST IS ALSO OUR WISDOM KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING AND THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. BLESSED BE GREAT GOD KING OF THE UNIVERSE. MAY ALL HONOUR, GLORY, MAJESTY AND WORSHIP BE HIS FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN !!!

orisa37:
GENESIS CHAPTER ONE.

GOD IN GOD'SPHERE IS CHRIST-SAVIOUR-GOD.

LORD GOD IN HEAVEN'S SPHERE IS HOLY SPIRIT ALWAYS IN TRANSIT IN THE ATMOSPHERE.

JESUS IS THE LORD ON EARTH, THE FIRST EXAMPLE OF THE SON OF MAN WHO OBEYED ALL INSTRUCTIONS FROM ABOVE WAS CRUCIFIED DEAD AND BURIED. WE SEE HIM RESURRECTED THE THIRD DAY TO HEAVENS TO BECOME GOD, OUR INSTRUCTOR, DIRECTOR AND DISCERNMENT FOREVER. HAVEN EXPERIENCED THE WORLD, CHRIST IS ALSO OUR WISDOM KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING AND THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. BLESSED BE GREAT GOD KING OF THE UNIVERSE. MAY ALL HONOUR, GLORY, MAJESTY AND WORSHIP BE HIS FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN !!!

Nice composition but I wish you didn’t capitalize everything . Could you explain what God’s sphere means?

You're welcome Sir!

I can only quote and relate with what Jesus' true followers say about his identity, to them he is the son of God!

Acehart:


Yes. God is One. In the One God is a multiverse of expressions. In God-kind, is the Father, the Begotten Son and The Spirit; each of the same essence.

Thanks for the verse.

MaxInDHouse:
You're welcome Sir!

I can only quote and relate with what Jesus' true followers say about his identity, to them he is the son of God!

Yes, He is the Christ, the Son of God.

Praise the Lord