The Child Who Was God

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2016 · 20 November 2016

The apostle Paul wants to help us understand who Jesus is by studying Colossians 1, this grand passage. Colossians 1:15-20 says, “Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

“17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”

All those statements are absolutely exclusive. No one else is the image of the invisible God. No one else can be the first born 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.

The angel said at His birth, “this is Jesus who will save his people from their sins and his name shall be called Emmanuel which means ‘God with us’”. What you have in the birth of Christ is the Savior who is God in human form. God entered our sin polluted world without being tainted by it, He took our guilt, He bore our griefs, He carried our sorrows, He is unique, no one has ever been like Him. And no one ever will be.

In Revelation 5, John has a vision into the throne room of heaven and the presence of God. He sees in the hand of God a scroll representing the title deed to the universe. The universe at the present is in the hands of Satan, the destroyer of souls. And Satan now is the god of this world. But God is saying, who is worthy to take the title deed and to open its seals and is able to take back the world and the universe.

And as John looks, in all heaven and earth no one is found worthy. No great intellect, no great military leader, no great monarch, emperor, and no great religious man. And John begins to weep because no one has the ability to take back the universe from Satan. And in the midst of his tears, he can discern one stepping forward from the throne who is both a lamb and a lion, Jesus Christ Himself and He takes the scroll.

But to really understand the greatness of His person, we need to study what Paul wrote here under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that reveals Jesus Christ. Here we see first Christ and his relationship to God and then in his relationship to the created universe, then as related to the unseen world, then as related to the church and then to all other revelations.

So let us start with Jesus in his relation to God. Verse 15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.” Now the church in Colossi was influenced by a religious error. There were false teachers then as there are now. These religious teachers thought that they had a superior knowledge. They taught that Christianity was a low level religion and they had elevated themselves to a much higher religion.

They believed that an evil being created the universe and therefore all matter is evil. They believed that only the spirit was good. Anything that was invisible and intangible is good, so God could never take on a body. Jesus could never be God in human flesh because the true God is good and He wouldn’t touch flesh. So, according to these false teachers, Jesus is not the creator God.

So Paul is writing to correct them and he simply says to them, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God.” And in verse 16 he says, “by Him all things were created.” There is one God and He created everything existing and that one God came into the world in the form of Jesus in human flesh. In relation to God then, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the replica of God, the complete reproduction.

Hebrews 1:3 says, “Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person.” He is the essence, the substance of God. John 1:14 says, “we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Philippians 2:6 says that Christ beforehand was “in the form of God.” But He divested himself of that and came in the form of man. That is why He could say in John 14:9, “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”

Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” And in Colossians 1:19, it says, “all the fullness is caused to dwell in Him.” In 2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul says, “Christ is the image of God.” He is a full manifestation and revelation of God. Paul wants to make it crystal clear that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh.

So what attributes should God have if He were a man? He had to be sinless. Jesus was. Hebrews 4:15, “He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.” Even Pilate who sat as his judge after all the false accusations came to this conclusion, “I find in him no fault.” The Roman centurion came to the same conclusion and so did the thief on the cross. In trials before Annas, before Caiaphas, before Herod and passed back to Pilate, nobody could come up with any fault.

If God were a man, we would expect Him to speak the most profound and greatest words every spoken. Well, Jesus did that. We never heard anybody speak like this and every time He preached they were absolutely astounded. If God were a man, we would also expect Him to exert a profound influence on human personality. He did. The impact of Jesus Christ on humanity is without equal.

In fact, just look at the disciples who were basically common people who had a hard time comprehending some of the basic issues of theology and truth, but the power of Jesus’ life transformed them into people who changed the world. And still, He is transforming people like that.

Now if God were a man, we would also expect Him to do miracles. Jesus did that repeatedly, publicly, unarguably and dramatically. He even brought dead people back to life. If God were a man, we would expect Him to know the future. And Jesus did. He predicted things about himself, things about the nation of Israel, details about the future and the end of the world. And everything that was predicted about Him all came true.

If God were a man, we would expect Him to show us what God was like. Jesus did that. We saw in Him love, show mercy and grace that was 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. If God were to come into the world as a man, He would come out like Jesus Christ and that did happen. Jesus Christ is the exact reproduction of the invisible God, He makes God visible.

Verse 15 identifies Jesus as “the first born of all creation.” That is not a reference to time. He was not the first person born in creation. Adam was made and then Eve was formed out of his rib and then they started having babies. What it means is that of all of creation He is the ‘prototokos,’ which means the heir, the supreme one, the one with the rights of privilege, prestige and honor.

In Psalm 89:27, God says, “Also I will make Him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” First born being defined as the king of kings, the supreme one. Hebrews 1:2 also speaks of this, “His son whom He has appointed heir of all things.” And that is 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.

Some people now may be confused about whether Jesus claimed this. Certainly the Jewish people of his time were not, they wanted to stone Him for blaspheme. John 10:33 says, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.” Indeed, He was God. Thomas had it right when he said in John 20:28, “My Lord and my God”.

Look at the second relationship, not only do we see Jesus in his relationship to God, but in his relationship to creation. It says in verses 16 -17, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.”

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 created by Him. He is before all of it and in Him, all of it hangs together. And again, that is exactly what we read in Hebrews 1:2, “through whom also He made the worlds,” that is the whole cosmos.

How vast is the cosmos? Just think, a ray of light travels at 186,000 miles per second, so it reaches the moon in 1.5 seconds. Now, if we can go at that speed, we can reach Mercury in 4 ½ minutes, because it’s only 50 million miles away. In fact, in two minutes we can be at Venus, that’s just 26 million miles and 4 minutes and 21 seconds we can hit Mars.

And then if we want to take a little longer trip, we can go all the way to Jupiter. That’s 367 million miles and with the speed of light it will take us 35 minutes. And if we want to go to Saturn, well, that will take an hour, because that is 790 million miles away. And then if we still want to go further we can go to Uranus which is 1,608,000 miles and Neptune which is 3 billion miles and Pluto is past all of that.

And when you get all the way to Pluto, you haven’t left the front porch. Beetlejuice, this amazing star is 880 quadrillion miles away, and has a diameter that is greater than the earth’s own orbit. That is a really big star. Who made all that matter? Jesus. He made the creation and He made it very good. But man stained it with sin and Jesus will one day come back to recreate it and bring it to the glory originally intended.

All the things have been created by Him and for Him for his own good and his own pleasure and his own purposes. Jesus existed before there was anything, which means, Jesus is eternal. He was before the creation because He was the creator. He is the one who holds it all together. We don’t believe the deist view that God created the world and then walked away. Hebrews 1:3 says, “Jesus is upholding all things by the word of his power.” He keeps everything moving, keeps everything in orbit.

Look thirdly, at his relationship to the unseen world. Verse 16, “All things were created by Him, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.” Now those terms are in the New Testament because they are indicative of ranks of angels. We can find those terms in Paul’s writings, several times in Ephesians and that tells us that Jesus is the creator of all the angels. The highest angelic beings are subject to Jesus Christ, whether they be Seraphim or Cherubim or whether they be demons or Satan himself.

In Hebrews 1:6-8 says, “But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “Let all the angels of God worship Him. 7 And of the angels He says, “Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire?” 8 But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.” The angels worship Him because He is the sovereign Creator.

Now look at Jesus and His relationship of the church. Verse 18, “And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first born of from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.” Jesus is the head of the church. Biblically the metaphor of the body is often used. All the functions of the human body are under the control of the brain in the head, both voluntary and involuntary, giving direction to all that we say, think and do.

Christ is the source of all truth, all knowledge, all wisdom, all growth, and all guidance in his church. Secondly, He is the beginning of the church. In Matthew 16 Jesus said, “I will build my church.” The church is the creation of Christ and the source of its existence. And He is also the first born from the dead. He is not the first person ever resurrected. There were people that Jesus raised from the dead before He himself was resurrected.

We are not talking about who was raised the first in time. But Paul says that of all who have ever been raised, Jesus is the prōtotokos, He is the supreme one. His resurrection is a guarantee of the ultimate resurrection into eternal life of all believers. Jesus has given birth to the church by His own resurrection. Verse 18 says, He himself has first place in everything. He is absolutely preeminent.

Verse 19, “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell.” Here Paul adds a word about Jesus in his relationship to all other revelations. Jesus is the fullness of God’s essence, and it is in Him alone because it pleased God to do that. Why? The answer is in verse 20, “to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”

Why did Christ come into the world? To save sinners, to shed his blood through death and pay the price for sin in order that He might present us to God, holy and blameless. He came to remove the curse of the universe and to restore it to its original, intended purpose, Amen? Let us pray.