Christ is our Freedom – Colossians 2:8-23

Posted on September 27, 2026 by dkoop

A parent’s worst nightmare is their child not coming back from school. Unfortunately, kidnapping statistics show that this nightmare turned into reality for many families, as they suffered such a worse-than-death fate not to see their beloved kid ever again.

Top Kidnapping Stats and Facts (Editor’s Pick)

  • More than 460,000 children go missing every year
  • 12+ years old children are the kidnapping victims in around 80% of all cases that include minors
  • Girls from 12 to 17 years of age are the most typical victims of abduction
  • Human trafficking is a $150 billion-worth industry
  • 99% of sex trafficking victims are females
  • The United States, Mexico, and the Philippines were the three worst countries for human trafficking

I want to do everything in my power to make sure to protect my family from being kidnapped.

Using the same language our passage today issues a warning of being kidnapped spiritually.  No one can snatch us away from the love of God, but we can allow ourselves to be taken away into captivity and lose our freedom.  How does this happen?

Let’s look at our text together:

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.  Colossians 2:8 (NIV)

The words “take you captive” means, abducted, kidnapped, bound and carried away causing you to lose your freedom.

Paul says don’t let false teachings do that to you.  Don’t let false teachings and false teachers grab hold of you, kidnap you, carry you away and hold you hostage.  Because just as certain as physically some one was held hostage their freedom was taken from them, if you are taken by false teachings and false doctrines Paul says your freedom will be taken from you in that exact same way.  He warns these people not to be taken by false teachings.

What were the philosophies that threatened the Colossians?  A whole bunch of them.  Most of them mixed Judaism and Gnosticism together.  But there were three that are mentioned in this passage, three philosophies that threatened to kidnap the Colossians.

  1. The first is legalism.  Following man made rules V. 16 “Don’t let anybody judge you by what you eat or drink.”  Evidently the Christians there were being judged by exactly that.  He says don’t do that.  That will kidnap you and take you away from the truth.  He says “Don’t let anybody judge you in regard to what you eat or drink or in regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day.” A new moon celebration, the Jewish calendar was tied to the moon and a new moon celebration was every 28 days there was a new moon and there was a celebration that went along with that.  It had to do with the calendar.
  1. The second philosophy that threatened to take the Colossians captive was mysticism in verse 18.  He says, “Don’t let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you from the prize.”  Worship of Angels Gnosticism was a system of beliefs that felt like man was not good enough in and of himself to talk directly to God.  We needed intermediaries between us and God.  They felt that there were angels and they were arranged in an hierarchy and that the angels got better and better and more and more powerful as you moved up the line until you could eventually get to God.  They felt like these angels all had names like Wisdom, an angel called Power, an angel called Reason.  You had to acknowledge these angels and you had to placate them to get anywhere in your spiritual life.  They felt that every single person starts in a state of total ignorance of spirituality but as you talk to these angels and have more and more contact with them you can eventually find the oneness that is in all.

Does this sound at all vaguely familiar to something that comes down the pipes these days?  It’s exactly the same.  This is the kind of philosophy that the Gnostics propagated.  Contact with angels.

This kind of New Age teaching is what was permeating the church at Colossae.  This was the threat they were facing, this concept of a philosophy that was manmade and promises to move you above yourself.  Doesn’t New Age philosophy promises to move you out of yourself?  Move you to the god within you?  It sounds so humble.  It sounded humble when the Gnostics talked about it.  “I can’t go to God.  I have to go through angels.  I can’t possibly approach God.  I have to go through an angel.”  It’s the ultimate form of pride because it says God in His revealed word doesn’t tell the truth.  God in His revealed word says there is one mediator between Him and man, the man Jesus Christ.  No angels, no spirit beings, no spirit guides, No looking deep inside.  It’s you going to Jesus Christ and making a connection with God.

The truth is that Jesus is the mediator.

  1. The third gospel that was threatening them was asceticism. Verses 20-23 has the concept of Don’t touch, Don’t handle, Don’t taste. Don’t do anything that has to do with the physical world.  There were some people in that time who felt like the way to please God, the way to really get on God’s good side was an extreme form of self-abuse.  That the body was bad.  The body was evil.  So if you hit yourself with whips, if you starved yourself, if you slept on beds that were cold rather than putting a blanket on yourself somehow you were earning spiritual brownie points and this made you more acceptable to God.  Asceticism was one of those philosophies that threatens to kidnap us and still today if we think that we can get God’s favor by harming ourselves.

Paul says in those verses 20-23 that it looks real good on the outside and other people who see that you do those kind of things, practice that form of extreme self denial Paul says it looks so good on the outside.  People will think you’re so super spiritual.  But what little you gain by that is completely lost in the end because in God’s eyes it means nothing.  So really you don’t gain anything by practicing asceticism.

God answers to man’s deep longing to know truth is only found in Jesus Christ.  It’s not found in punishing yourself.  It’s not found in angels.  It’s not found in following man made rules.  It’s only found in Jesus Christ.

The true teaching is the contrast that goes with these.  No matter how elaborate or complex these philosophies were they all had one thing in common.  They were very empty and hollow.  He says back in verse 8 “These philosophies are hollow and deceptive.”  *It’s like those chocolate Easter Bunnies.  They look so cute on the outside and you take a big bite and there’s absolutely nothing but air.  What a let down!  That’s what happens if we look to philosophy of human origin.  Mankind’s thinking.  It’s empty.  It leaves you with nothing.

Paul says in contrast the truth is in Christ you have everything.  .  Verse 9 “For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. You have been given fullness in Christ who is the head over every power and authority.”  One of the translations says, “I am complete in Christ.”

The Greek word for “fullness” is pleroma.  It was a word that Gnostics liked to use because it meant fullness.  They thought that pleroma was what they were looking for.  It meant all the fullness of deity.  They thought that by going through the angels one step at a time that they could get to that pleroma.  And Jesus Christ was like the ABCs.  He was for the people who were just getting initiated.  He was one of the little stepping stones that could get you to pleroma.

But God says, no.  Rather than Jesus being a stepping stone to fullness, completeness.  Jesus Christ is fullness, He is completeness.  Because He contains all of God.  Jesus is part of the trinity – Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit.  Each one of them is fully God.  They have separate personalities but each one is fully God.  *So when you have Jesus Christ you have God.  You have everything you can possibly need.  You don’t have to search for anything else.  You don’t have to search for pleroma.  It is in Him.

So why would you need a false teacher?  Why would you need a man made philosophy.  If you’ve got it in Jesus Christ there’s no need to search anywhere else.

So we have freedom from hollow human philosophy, in the next post we will see that we have freedom from the penalty of sin and of death.

Darrell

www.Upwards.Church

Message Audio/Video and Outline: https://upwards.church/leander-campus/watch-now-message-videos

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Christ Our Living Hope – Colossians 1:26-27

Posted on September 26, 2026 by dkoop

In the Survival Journal.com they state, “One of the common rules we have amongst survivalists and preppers is called the Rule of Threes.”

The Survival Rule of 3’s States That You Can:

  • Survive Three Weeks Without Food
  • Survive Three Days Without Water
  • Survive Three Hours Without Shelter
  • Survive Three Minutes Without Oxygen
  • Survive Three Seconds Without Hope

Wow, three seconds without hope.  I find it interesting that among survivalists that they would put such a high priority on hope.   Here’s what they say,

“The Survival Rules Explained: Let’s break down this rule of survival piece by piece so you best understand it and why it’s important for us to remember ‘3 Seconds Without Hope’  A big part of why preparation is so crucial is so that you don’t panic! If you panic, you’re done. The first part of the rule of 3’s in survival states that you can only survive three seconds without hope. So be prepared for emergencies before they happen so you’re prepared.” They explain that preparation brings confidence and hope which is vital.

To survive in today’s hostile environment to our faith, our passage shows us the hope we have in Jesus! We see that we can grow in our confidence and be prepared against doubt, false teaching and keep our hope alive in Christ.

The key verse in this passage is verse 27:  “…Christ in you the HOPE of Glory.”

Let’s break it down from the beginning staring with verse 25 with Paul explaining how we get prepared with the hope we have in Christ.

Paul had referred to himself as “a servant of this gospel.” Paul’s service came because of God’s commission. No human had commissioned Paul; no human authority had called him; instead, Jesus Christ himself had spoken to him (Acts 9:4-6). Paul’s credentials as an apostle need never be questioned. Although Paul was called after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, he and the other apostles were called by Jesus Christ and God the Father, and they answered to God as their final authority.

Paul explained that this commission was given to him for you, that is, for Gentile congregations such as the one in Colosse. When Paul was commissioned by God, the focus of his ministry was made clear. God said of Paul, “This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15 niv). Paul was keenly aware of who had commissioned him, to whom he had been commissioned, and what he had been called to do.

He was commissioned to make the word of God fully known.NRSV The heresy in Colosse drained hope from Christ followers by claiming the need for mystical knowledge, and that only a few could find it.  When Paul wrote of making God’s word fully known to all the believers, he was pointing out once again that God’s word is for all people. They could have all the wisdom they needed to be saved and to grow in Christ.

1:26 The MYSTERY which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but NOW has been revealed to His saints.NKJV

What is this mystery?  There are some things God reveals to no one. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The Lord our God has secrets known to no one.” Still other things were hidden in the Old Testament but have now been revealed in the New. The New Testament calls them mysteries (mustērion). Paul’s use of this word is not to indicate a secret teaching, rite, or ceremony revealed only to some elite initiates (as in the mystery religions), but truth revealed to all believers in the New Testament. This truth, that has now been revealed to His saints, is that which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, namely the Old Testament era and people. Now refers to the time of the writing of the New Testament.

27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. 

One of the greatest scientists of our time was Albert Einstein. He was a man who was so focused on his scientific theories. He was so focused, he often neglected even the simplest things of life, such as personal appearance (as evidenced by his hair). One time, Albert Einstein was taking a train out of town for a speaking engagement. As he sat in his seat engrossed in his work, the conductor stopped by to punch his ticket. Looking up in shock, Einstein realized he didn’t know what he had done with his ticket. Frantically, he began to search his coat pockets, and then his briefcase.  Gently, the conductor said, “We all know who you are, Dr. Einstein. I’m sure you bought ticket. Don’t worry about it.”

But, as the conductor moved along, he looked back to see Einstein on his hands and knees searching under the seats for his ticket. The conductor walked back, “Dr. Einstein, please, don’t worry about it. I know who you are.”   Exasperated, Einstein looked up and said, “I, too, know who I am. What I don’t know is where I’m going.”

The Christians at Colossae had gotten to the point that they weren’t sure where they were going because somebody had begun to convince them that they weren’t going to heaven. Somebody had slipped into their midst and begun to tell them they weren’t acceptable to God

They weren’t even sure who they were. To understand what was going on here, it helps to realize that back in the days of this letter – behind the scenes – there was a spiritual battle taking place

The congregation at Colossae was composed of Gentile believers. A Gentile was anyone who was not of Jewish descent. (I asked the audience on Sunday how many of them had “Jewish blood” in their veins? Only one raised their hand. “The rest of you are all Gentiles”)

Gentiles had always been despised by God’s people. The Jews referred to them as dogs, and perhaps had even worse names for them. Jews refused to spend any time with them if they could avoid it. Jews wouldn’t eat with them, work for them, play with them. If a Jew purchased anything from a Gentile, the product was washed to cleanse it the filth of those who had no part in God’s covenant.

So when the church early got started it is no surprise that there were no Gentiles in the church. After the church had established itself in Jerusalem, God moved Philip to share the Good News with an Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 who believed and was baptized.  In Acts 9 God called Paul to “take my message to the Gentiles.” In Acts 10 God led the Apostle Peter to he household of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius to preach the Gospel to him and his family who all believed and were baptized.

As more and more Gentiles came to Christ, the apostles and church leaders met together to decide what to do about all the gentiles coming to faith in Chris in Acts 15: They agreed that God was drawing them and giving them the Holy Spirit as they believed (Acts 15:8) that they were acceptable just as they were – no circumcision required, no need to follow Jewish laws, or customs.

What Paul was telling the Colossians that there was something these false teachers didn’t understand.  “The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,”

And, what was that mystery? It’s…”Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:26-27

Of all the mysteries God has revealed in the New Testament, the most profound is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Old Testament predicted the coming of the Messiah. But the idea that He would actually live in His redeemed church, made up mostly of Gentiles, was new and mind-blowing!  The New Testament is clear that Christ, by the Holy Spirit, takes up permanent residence in all believers (cf. Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 6:19, 20). The revelation of the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles awaited the New Testament (Eph. 3:3-6).

Believers, both Jew and Gentile, now possess the surpassing riches of the indwelling Christ (John 14:23; Gal. 2:20)! The church is described as “the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’” (2 Cor. 6:16).

That Christ indwells all believers is the source for their hope of glory and is the subject or theme of the gospel ministry. What makes the gospel attractive is not just that it promises present joy and help, but that it promises eternal honor, blessing, and glory. When Christ comes to live in a believer, His presence is the anchor of the promise of heaven—the guarantee of future bliss eternally. In the reality that Christ is living in the Christian is the experience of new life and hope of eternal glory!

  • The Gentile believers in Colossae were already saved
  • The Gentile believers were already acceptable before God.
  • And the Gentile believers there already had the hope of living in Glory.

Why, because Christ was living inside of them. They were acceptable just as they were!

The hope was this: That God would let anybody be acceptable to Him through faith in Christ.

The hope was that God would allow those who had been His enemies to now be called His friends

Now that’s a living hope!

Darrell

www.Upwards.Church

Message Audio/Video and Outline: https://upwards.church/leander-campus/watch-now-message-videos

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Additional Sources:  John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Colossians and Philemon, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, 78.

 

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Christ is the Creator- Colossians 1:16-17

Posted on September 25, 2026 by dkoop

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 all things, and in Him all things hold together. (1:16–17)

The truth that Christ is the Creator is also affirmed by the apostle John (John 1:3) and the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 1:2).

Because the Colossian false teachers viewed matter as evil, they argued that neither the good God nor a good emanation could have created it. But Paul maintains that Jesus made all things, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. He refutes the false philosophic dualism of the Colossian heresy. Jesus is God, and He created the material universe.

By studying the creation, we can gain a glimpse of the power, knowledge, and wisdom of the Creator. The sheer size of the universe is staggering. The sun, for example, has a diameter of 864,000 miles (one hundred times that of earth’s) and could hold 1.3 million planets the size of earth inside it. The star Betelgeuse, however, has a diameter of 100 million miles, which is larger than the earth’s orbit around the sun. It takes sunlight, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, about 8.5 minutes to reach earth. Yet that same light would take more than four years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, some 24 trillion miles from earth. The galaxy to which our sun belongs, the Milky Way, contains hundreds of billions of stars. And astronomers estimate there are millions, or even billions of galaxies. What they can see leads them to estimate the number of stars in the universe at 1025. That is roughly the number of all the grains of sand on all the world’s beaches.
The universe also bears witness to the tremendous wisdom and knowledge of its Creator. Scientists now speak of the Anthropic Principle, “which states that the universe appears to be carefully designed for the well-being of mankind” (Donald B. DeYoung, “Design in Nature: The Anthropic Principle,” Impact, no. 149 [November 1985]: p. ii). A change in the rate of Earth’s rotation around the sun or on its axis would be catastrophic. The Earth would become either too hot or too cold to support life. If the moon were much nearer to the Earth, huge tides would inundate the continents. A change in the composition of the gases that make up our atmosphere would also be fatal to life. A slight change in the mass of the proton would result in the dissolution of hydrogen atoms. That would result in the destruction of the universe, because hydrogen is its dominant element.

The creation gives mute testimony to the intelligence of its Creator. Max Planck, winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the founders of modern physics, wrote, “According to everything taught by the exact sciences about the immense realm of nature, a certain order prevails—one independent of the human mind … this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe to which both man and nature are subservient” (cited in DeYoung, “Design in Nature,” p. iii). It is no wonder that the psalmist wrote, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world” (Ps. 19:1–4).

The testimony of nature to its Creator is so clear that it is only through willful unbelief that men can reject it. Paul writes in Romans 1:20, “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Like those who deny Christ’s deity, those who reject Him as Creator give evidence of a mind darkened by sin and blinded by Satan.

Jesus also has primacy over the creation because He is before all things. When the universe began, He already existed (John 1:1–2; 1 John 1:1). He told the Jews in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was born, I am” (not “I was”). He is saying that He is Yahweh, the eternally existing God. The prophet Micah said of Him, “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2). Revelation 22:13 describes Him as “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” As was previously mentioned, anyone existing before time began at the creation is eternal. And only God is eternal.

A third reason for Jesus’ primacy over creation is that in Him all things hold together. Not only did Jesus create the universe, He also sustains it. He maintains the delicate balance necessary to life’s existence. He quite literally holds all things together. He is the power behind every consistency in the universe. He is gravity and centrifugal and centripetal force. He is the One who keeps all the entities in space in their motion. He is the energy of the universe. In his book The Atom Speaks, D. Lee Chesnut describes the puzzle of why the nucleus of the atom holds together:

Consider the dilemma of the nuclear physicist when he finally looks in utter amazement at the pattern he had now drawn of the oxygen nucleus.… For here are eight positively charged protons closely associated together within the confines of this tiny nucleus. With them are eight neutrons—a total of sixteen particles—eight positively charged, eight with no charge.

Earlier physicists had discovered that like charges of electricity and like magnetic poles repel each other, and unlike charges or magnetic poles attract each other. And the entire history of electrical phenomena and electrical equipment had been built up on these principles known as Coulomb’s law of electrostatic force and the law of magnetism. What was wrong? What holds the nucleus together? Why doesn’t it fly apart? And therefore, why do not all atoms fly apart? ([San Diego: Creation-Science Research Center, 1973], pp. 31–33)

Chesnut goes on to describe the experiments performed in the 1920s and 1930s that proved Coulomb’s law applied to atomic nuclei. Powerful “atom smashers” were used to fire protons into the nuclei of atoms. Those experiments also gave scientists an understanding of the incredibly powerful force that held protons together within the nucleus. Scientists have dubbed that force the “strong nuclear force,” but have no explanation for why it exists. The physicist George Gamow, one of the founders of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, wrote,

The fact that we live in a world in which practically every object is a potential nuclear explosive, without being blown to bits, is due to the extreme difficulties that attend the starting of a nuclear reaction. (cited in Chesnut, The Atom Speaks, p. 38)

Karl K. Darrow, a physicist at the Bell (AT & T) Laboratories, agrees:

You grasp what this implies. It implies that all the massive nuclei have no right to be alive at all. Indeed, they should never have been created, and, if created, they should have blown up instantly. Yet here they all are.… Some inflexible inhibition is holding them relentlessly together. The nature of the inhibition is also a secret … one thus far reserved by Nature for herself. (cited in Chesnut, The Atom Speaks, p.38)

One day in the future God will dissolve the strong nuclear force. Peter describes that day as the one when “the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). With the strong nuclear force no longer operative, Coulomb’s law will take effect, and the nuclei of atoms will fly apart. The universe will literally explode. Until that time, we can be thankful that Christ “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus Christ must be God. He made the universe, existed outside and before it, and preserves it.

JESUS CHRIST IN RELATION TO THE UNSEEN WORLD

whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities (1:16b)

Thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities refer to the various ranks of angels. Far from being an angel, as the Colossian false teachers taught, Christ created the angels. The writer of Hebrews also makes a clear distinction between Christ and the angels: “Of the angels He says, ‘Who makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.’ But of the Son He says, ‘Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of His kingdom’ ” (Heb. 1:7–8).

Jesus has been exalted “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21). As a result, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). With that truth the apostle Peter agrees: “[Christ] is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him” (1 Pet. 3:22).

Scripture is clear that Jesus is not an angel, but the Creator of the angels. He is above the angels, who in fact worship Him and are under His authority. Jesus’ relation to the unseen world, like His relation to the visible universe, proves He is God.

Christ is supreme over all creation, including the spirit world. We, like the Colossian believers, must believe in the deity of Jesus Christ (that Jesus is God) or our Christian faith is hollow, misdirected, and meaningless.

Christ is not only the creator of the world but he is also its sustainer. In him, everything is held together, protected, and prevented from disintegrating into chaos. Because Christ is the sustainer of all life, none of us is independent from him. We are all his servants who must daily trust him to protect us, care for us, and sustain us.

www.Upwards.Church

Message Audio/Video and Outline: https://upwards.church/leander-campus/watch-now-message-videos

Watch Messages: YouTube-Upwards Church

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Read Along Daily Bible Reading: You Version

Sources:

Life Application Bible Notes (Tyndale, 2007), 2029.

John F. MacArthur Jr., Colossians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1992), 47–50.

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Christ is God – Colossians 1:15

Posted on September 18, 2026 by dkoop

Today we look at a crucial part of Scripture; describing the most important personality in the universe; Christ who is God.  The deity of Christ is the very heartbeat of Christianity, the very essence of all that we believe and the very foundation of our faith.  The deity of Christ is the battleground over which we stand against the cults and the –isms and anyone who wishes to make  Christ, less than He is.

It’s been said that the Bible the “Jesus Book.”  If we understand the Bible, we understand that it is the book about Christ.   In the Old Testament, there is the preparation for Jesus coming.  In the gospels, there is the presentation of Christ; He is come.  In the Acts, there is the proclamation.  The message of salvation in Christ is announced.  In the epistles, we study the personification.  That is, “For to me to live is Christ,” or how Christ, who has died and risen from the grave, returns to live in His people.  In Revelation, there is the predomination or the Christ on the throne, the reign of the King, the Lamb on the throne.

In every sense, the Bible is Christ’s story.  It is the book that tells us all about Him.  In Acts chapter 8, that is indicated to us in verse 35 when Philip, talking to the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza, the Holy Spirit says, “Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture (Isaiah), and preached unto him Jesus.”

You can begin at any point in the Scripture and teach Jesus.  In Luke, a familiar passage, chapter 24:27, Christ, after His resurrection, meeting the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “And beginning at Moses,” or the Pentateuch, “and all the prophets,” or the prophetic books, “He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures,” or, the Hagiographa, the holy writings, “the things concerning Himself.”

The Bible is the book about Christ.  It is the book about the revelation of God and the coming of Christ into the world.  It is about God becoming a man.  In every aspect of the Bible, facets of this are made clear.  But of all the statements in the Bible, in the Word of God about God becoming man, none is more significant than the one in Colossians 1:15, for here we have the identification of the Son as God very, very clearly.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Now that is a tremendous statement, a vital statement to the understanding of the Christian faith and the removal of any confusion over who our Lord Jesus Christ really is.

Why does Paul pen this?  Paul understands that there is a certain false system of doctrine being propagated at Colossae, and he understands that because Epaphras has visited him.  Epaphras, undoubtedly one of the pastors of the Colossian church and its founder, has come to visit the apostle Paul.

The apostle Paul hears from Epaphras that there are some terrible things going on in terms of propagation of heresy in Colossae.  One such heresy relates to the deity of Jesus Christ.  The heretics are saying that Christ is not God; that He is not sufficient for salvation; that in addition to Christ, there must be the worship of other spirits, perhaps other angels, if you will.  There must be special visions.  There must be certain knowledge that is sort of super knowledge beyond that which is attainable in Christ.  In fact, the heretics had said that Jesus Christ is only one in a long line of emanating spirits descending from God, and Jesus was one of those good emanations.  He is not God.  He is not even an adequate Savior.  Knowledge beyond Him is the only way to salvation.

The attack of this particular heresy, which apparently later developed into what we know as Gnosticism, the attack was at the deity of Christ and His total sufficiency as Savior.  The heresy was pretty well based upon a philosophical dualism that says that matter is evil and spirit is good, and since God is Spirit, He is good.  But since all of creation is matter, it is evil.  So a good God can’t create an evil creation.

So what happened was God started sending out emanations, or spirits started coming out of God like ripples in a pond.  They kept coming and coming and coming, and the first ones were good and good.  Then they got neutral, and then they got bad.  A zillion emanations down the line, you got some bad emanations, one of whom was bad enough to create the world.  Now, Jesus was just one of these process of emanations, a good one to be sure, but nonetheless, one of them.  He is equal to an angel, and that is why they worshipped these emanations or spirits or angels.

Paul’s point here is to tell the Colossians Jesus is not an emanation from God.  He is not something down the ladder from the character of God.  He is God in human flesh.  Paul has pretty well dispensed with the opening thoughts.  He has greeted them, initially.  He has thanked God for them in verses 3 and following.  He has prayed for them that they would be filled with all of the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and they would walk worthy.

He thanks God for the salvation that they enjoy in verses 12 to 14; the redemption, the forgiveness.  Then he moves right in from there to make his point that this one, who has redeemed us, who has forgiven us, who has delivered us from the power of darkness; this one who is the dear Son, who possesses the kingdom, this one is the image of the invisible God.  That’s vital to his message.

As we look at  verses 15 to 19, we want to see Jesus Christ in relation to five things.  We’ll see Him in relation to God, in relation to the universe, in relation to the unseen world, in relation to the church, and in relation to anything else that might be left.

The false teachers had tried to show that Jesus was simply an emanation, that He was just some ripple from the character of God; one of an infinite series of lesser beings that finally reached to evil and were able to create the world.  But Paul says, “Christ is God.”  In fact, in verse 16, he says, “He created everything.”  He’s the one that did it.  The heretics went so far even as to teach that God could never enter a body, because if God entered a body, then good God would be in evil matter.  A good emanation could never have a body, because a good emanation couldn’t take on a bad matter body.  So they taught that Jesus didn’t have a body, that He was a good emanation who was a phantom.

So Paul wants to make it clear that Jesus is God, that He is God in flesh, and that He is the Creator of the universe. He says in 15 that, “He is the image of the invisible God.  He is the image of the invisible God.”  To begin with, God is invisible.  In 1 Timothy, it tells us that God is invisible.  It tells us in the Old Testament that God is invisible, that God cannot be seen.  God is not visible to the human eye.  God is a Spirit and “A Spirit,” said Jesus, “hath not,” what? “flesh and bones.”  God is invisible, but God became visible.  God became a man, and Christ was God made visible.  He is the image of the invisible God.

In Genesis 1:27, we have the use of the term “image.”  It says, “God made man in His own image and likeness.” 1 Corinthians 11:7 says, “Man is the image of God,” again, repeating the same truth, but we need to remember man is not a perfect image of God.

We are certainly not made in the moral image of God:  He’s perfect; we’re not. Adam was created innocent, but  failed the first test.  We are not created in God’s image morally.  Also, we are not omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient, or immutable.

Who is the only really, true, graphic, perfect, flawless, absolutely accurate image of the invisible God?  Were it not for Him being in the image of God, none of us would ever be able to approximate it.

Hebrews 1:3, “He is the express image of His person,” the exact image, the perfect image.  The substance is the same.  Jesus is the exact reproduction of God; nothing missing, altered, nothing changed.  In John 1:18 it says, “No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”  “And when we saw the Son,” John says, “we beheld His glory, and it was the glory of the only begotten of the Father.”

It was just obvious that He was manifesting God.  In Philippians 2:6, “Who being in the form of God,” Christ having all of the character and form of God, became a man, “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant,”

Christ is the identical thought and expression of God.  That’s why Jesus said in John 14:9, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.”

In Matthew 17, Jesus even let them have a little glimpse of the fact that He was God.  This should end for all time any speculation or argument about it, where we find the Lord Jesus Christ revealing Himself.  Matthew 17, a transfiguration.  Verse 2, “He was transfigured before them: His face did shine like the sun, and His raiment was as white as the light.  And a voice out of the cloud, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased said God, “hear Him.”

The Son, then, is the only perfect representation of God. Men are not.  They are a marred image.

Going back to Colossians 1 and looking at that word “image”, it means a precise copy, a replica.  Christ is the perfect, unblemished replica of God.  He’s not just a sketch; He’s all filled in.  Colossians 2:9, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”  Colossians 1:19, “It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness (Pleroma) dwell.”  Jesus is the full, final, only revelation of God with nothing missing.

To think that God became a man, God invaded the world in human form is a staggering thought.

Christ is God revealed in the world.  If you want to know what God’s like, look at Christ.  He’ll tell you what God is like.  If God were man, we would expect Him to be sinless.  Jesus was.  If God were a man, we would expect Him to speak the greatest words ever spoken.  He did.  If God were a man, we would expect Him to exert a profound influence on human personality like no other being that ever lived, and He did.  If God were a man, we would expect that He would do miracles with ease, and He did.  If God were a man, we would expect Him to love, and He did, because He was God, and God cannot be known other than through Jesus Christ.

Secondly, in verse 15, “The firstborn of all creation.”  That particular phrase has caused people a lot of trouble, because they don’t understand what He’s saying.  The first begotten, or the “firstborn of all creation.”  This is a reference to position, not time.   He is not the first created being in terms of time.

There are two good reasons for that.  Number on reason, He never was created.  He said, “Before Abraham was,” what? “I am,” in John 8:58.  Revelation calls Him “the One who was, and is, and is to come.”

What does “firstborn” mean? Prtotokos the Greek term refers to position. It refers to rank; it refers to right of authority, to primacy; not to chronology.  The firstborn is the one who has the rights of inheritance.  In the Jewish context, everybody knew that. Even in the Gentile context, everybody understands that.  They had no question in Colossae about what he was referring to; that Christ was the honored One, the privileged One, the prestigious One, the Father’s heir.

Back to Hebrews 1 again.  He says, “In these last days, God has spoken unto us by His Son.”  AND, “His Son whom He has appointed heir.”  The heir was appointed by the Father.  Normally it was the firstborn, but if the firstborn was disqualified for some reason, the father wanted to give it to another he had the right to do that. But he had to be appointed by the father.

In Revelation chapter 5, God is on the throne and the scroll is in His hand, the title deed to the earth, sealed with seven seals, as was customary with Roman law.  For sealing a will, it had to be sealed seven times so you couldn’t unroll it without it making an obvious distraction.  “And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and loose its seals?’”  Who is the possessor of the earth?  Who is the heir to take over the world?  Who has the right to control the earth, to take it back, to inherit it?  “And no man in heaven and earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the scroll or even to look at.”  John says, “I cried a lot because nobody was found worthy.” 

Where’s the firstborn?  Where is the prtotokos?  Where is the primary one?  Where is the heir?  “‘Weep not,’ one of the elders said to me, ‘The Lion of the tribe of Juda, the root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll, and loose its seven seals.’ And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood the Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.  And He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne.”

Here is Christ, taking the title deed to the earth as the prtotokos to take over and reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.  From chapter 6 to chapter 19 is the takeover of the earth until He finally reigns in chapter 20.  Verse 13 echoes the sentiments of heaven.  “Every creature that is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them heard I saying, ‘Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.’”  You see, all the universe echoes in, chiming in, that this One is worthy.

The sad fact is, that the one thing Satan wants to do is make sure nobody understands that, make sure nobody really believes Jesus is God, make sure nobody really believes that He is not a creature, but that He is the primary one of all personalities.  So in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whom the god of this age,” who’s that?  Satan, “has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

Satan doesn’t want people to know He’s the image of God.  Satan doesn’t want people to know He’s the only one who has a right to rule in the world.  Satan doesn’t want them to know, so their minds are blinded by unbelief.  That’s a good verse to show somebody when they tell you, “Christ isn’t God.”  You can explain to them why they believe that.

In John 10:33, the Jews answered.  Jesus made a lot of claims, but the Jews got the message.  People say, “Jesus never claimed to be God.”  Rediculous!  Jesus never claimed to be God?  The Jews answered in John 10:33, “For a good work we stone you not; but for blasphemy; and because you, being a man, make yourself God.”  They got the message.    They knew exactly what He was claiming.  He had claimed divine authority over angels.  He had claimed divine authority over men.  He claimed, in fact, divine authority over everything when He said, “All authority is given unto Me in heaven and earth,” Matthew 28:18.  He claimed divine authority over the law, over the Sabbath, over the tradition of the elders, every bit of it.  He claimed power to forgive sin, power to raise Himself from the dead, and He proved it!

Jesus is God. Do you know it? Do you believe it?

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Source:  Adapted from Grace to You, Christ Above All, by John MacArthur
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