The Son’s Significance

is out of Colossians 1. And our
brother John read it earlier. Thank you, John, for not preaching
that. It’s Colossians 1, 14 through 18. And I’ve titled it, The Son’s
Significance. The Son’s Significance. And when we speak of Christ, We cannot adequately speak of
him. And for that reason, I’m grateful
for Lyle’s prayer, for the Spirit’s help. I’ll read Colossians 1, 9 through
18, just to get a head start on that. For this reason also, since the
day we heard of it, that is Paul, Timothy and Epaphras. Epaphras
brought the news of Paul is telling the Colossian church that since
the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and
to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you will walk in a manner
worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects. bearing
fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of
God. Strengthened with all power according to his glorious might
for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience. Joyously giving
thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the
inheritance of the saints in light. For he rescued us from
the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved
son. in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 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 through
him and for him. He is before all things, And
in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body,
the church. And he is the beginning, the
firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have
first place in everything. If you were here last July, you
may remember us going through verse 9 through 13 and What we looked at there was how
Paul was praying for them, as I just read. His prayer was that
they would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, that
they would know his will for them in all spiritual wisdom
and understanding. Now we cannot know the will of
God in all spiritual wisdom and understanding without it having
an effect on our lives. And this effect is, as Paul says,
walking worthily of the Lord. That is to be pleasing to him
in all things. But he tells us also what that
looks like. If he would have stopped there,
we may have the question, well, what does that look like? Walking
pleasing to the Lord. What does he require of us? And
so Paul gives us four things that we looked at back last July. The first one is bearing fruit
in every good work. Bearing fruit in every good work.
Bearing fruit means to produce. So he’s saying in our good works
something should be produced. And we concluded that it was
ultimately works. It is character that is built
by obedience to Christ to do good works to the glory of God.
That does build our character. God uses that for that purpose.
But we cannot have an improvement of character without
also an improvement of actions. The character and works are two
sides of the same coin, so you can’t separate those two. And he would, he also, we all,
I also concluded that it has another effect, and that is the
next thing that Paul gives us in chapter, in verse 10 there,
he says, increasing in the knowledge of God. We talked about how this
has connected, that bearing fruit in every good work, that the
good works also lead to an increase in the knowledge of God. We compared
it to what Peter had to write. In his second epistle, first
chapter, in verses five through seven, he gives a list of virtues,
you might say. And in verse eight he says, for
if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render
you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our
Lord Jesus Christ. So he too tells us that an increase
of good works, our efforts to serve the Lord in obedience to
Him, that results in increase of knowledge of our Lord. And
that Peter’s not talking about growing in holy attributes apart
from any kind of action is evident by verse 11 where he says, for
as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.
He’s talking about practicing something. So if you want to
love Christ more, if you want to know God better, here’s how
you do it. If you’re in Christ, that is
the first step. But if you are a follower of
Christ, it is to practice these virtues given in 2 Peter, 2 Peter
1, among which are brotherly kindness and love. And so if
you practice those and the others that Peter lists there, you will
be off to a good start. The third thing he talks about
is being strengthened. This third thing that is pleasing
to the Lord is that if we are strengthened, and we talked about
how you can do that, which I won’t go into this morning, but the
ultimate goal of that being strengthened is to be steadfast, steadfast
in the faith and patient, to not sin, but to have patience
in difficulty. And number four is that we give
thanks to the Father. And Paul gives us the ultimate
reason for giving thanks, and that is that the Father has qualified
us to share in the inheritance of the saints by rescuing us
from the domain of darkness and transferring us to the kingdom
of his beloved son. And so Paul mentioned the word son, and we
can’t imagine that he would stop there, that he would mention
the son and say nothing about him. If you know anything about
Paul’s writings, you know what I mean. And so he tells us much
about the son, which is what we want to look at this morning. The Colossian church who he was
writing to, they also needed to hear about the son. since
they had been exposed to, and I quote, philosophy and empty
deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary
principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. They were exposed to false teachers,
or at least erroneous, who had a false understanding about Christ. And so he’s giving them some
information here about who Christ is. And how many of you know
that there is still deceit in this world? There are still false
teachers. There are still false Christs out there. So for that
reason, lest you be deceived, or maybe you just forgot some
things about Christ, or maybe you never knew in the first place.
These are all reasons why this portion of the Word is very important.
So if you would, let’s dig into that. The first point being,
the Son is Redeemer. We see that in verse 14. where Paul says about Christ,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Whom we
have redemption. The first question that came
to my mind as I looked at this is, well, who is the we he speaks
of here? And I traced it back to verse two, where we can see
who he’s writing to. To the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ. That’s the we, the saints and
faithful brethren. A lot of people, especially when
times are easy, it’s easy to profess Christ, but not change
anything in your life, have nothing changed. And so that’s problematic. Paul says here that the we is
those who are faithful to Christ. And so if you haven’t shown any
faithfulness to the Son whatsoever, this we would not include you.
But we desire that it does. And so please listen carefully.
There is a message of hope here. but know that you cannot live
in rebellion to Christ and expect to escape the wrath that is to
come. It is of these hypocrites that Puritan William Gurnall
writes, quote, take your foul fingers off the promise and pretend
no more you have faith if you do not freely stoop to place
your neck in the yoke of obedience. End quote. He’s addressing those who profess
Christ but and want the promises but want nothing to do with obeying
Christ. And so that the two must go together. It’s impossible to be faithful
without having faith also. Cannot be faithful without faith.
So that is the first step. And Paul even talks about this
in verse four about their faith. having heard of your faith in
Christ Jesus. Faith is a life-changing gift.
It isn’t us mustering up our own faith. It’s a gift from God,
we’re told in Ephesians 2, 8. And so this must come from Him.
We can’t bribe Him for it. It is by His mercy alone that
He gives this gift. And because it is life-changing,
that’s why we also see good works produced from those who really
believe. So if you want this gift, if
you don’t already have it, if you want this gift, again, you
cannot bribe God, but you can plead for His mercy. That’s what
you can do. You can plead for His mercy. This faith, as I said, has an
effect on our lives, and Paul talks about that, the Colossians
here, in verse four again, at the end he says, speaks of their
love for all the saints. It will have an effect, the love
that is given for the saints will be evident. John writes
in his first epistle that the one who does not love does not
know God, for God is love. Jesus said something similar.
He says by this all men will know that you are my disciples
if you have love for one another That’s how we know if we’re his
followers This we does have a limitation and as to the faithful The faith
in Epaphras was also bearing fruit in verse 7 we see that
where Paul writes just as you learned it He’s speaking of the
gospel from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bondservant who is a faithful
servant of Christ. Epaphras’ faithfulness was shown
in that he shared the gospel with the Colossians and they
came to know Christ through that. And that was just quite different
from what I witnessed a few weeks ago in L.A. where we were handing
out tracts and I came across this Baptist deacon who I asked
if he would help and he refused. And he spewed off something about
that sounded universal like universalism. That is the belief that everyone
will be saved eventually. And so he wanted nothing to do
with serving the Lord in this way and and proved to be self-righteous
and lost really. But not so with Epiphras. He
did share the gospel, and we see his faithfulness in that.
This we applies, and let me say this also, that when I say faithful,
I’m not speaking of perfection, but in, as some say, direction
or progression. There’s a, it’s a lifelong process,
and we won’t be perfected until glory, but there must be a commitment
to Christ. This we applies to those who
have their sins forgiven, as we see in verse 14. It is those who are in Christ
who have been forgiven in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he
has done. And we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God. I don’t, few contend that, so I won’t belabor that
point. But if we say we have no sin,
we are deceiving ourselves, John writes, and the truth is not
in us. So when we compare ourselves to the law of God, there’s really
no argument, is there? We often, or unconverted people
would often point out, well, I’ve done that, but I won’t do
it again. Well, that doesn’t even work
in our own legal systems where we have corrupt judges. They
understand that it’s not what you’re doing in the future, it’s
what has been committed. That must be accounted for. And
God is a good judge, He can’t be bribed, and so all sin must
be punished. So how shall we escape this just
condemnation that He would be just to give to all of us, to
condemn us all to hell? The only answer is in Christ.
We must flee to Him, if you haven’t already. It’s in Him that we
have redemption, that Paul says. The redemption is a word that
means a release affected by payment of ransom. We were in bondage to sin, but
we who are in Christ are now free. He has freed us. How did
he do it? What was the ransom? It was him,
his own body. Peter writes, you were not redeemed
with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way
of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of
a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. This wasn’t just God forcing
his son to suffer for us. This wasn’t just the father forcing
his son to bear the wrath that we deserve, but he willingly
did it. We see his surrender in the garden.
He said, my spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And we
also see it in 1 Timothy 2. For there is one God and one
mediator also between God and men. the man, Christ Jesus, who
gave himself as a ransom for all. He gave himself. So if you
have not turned from your sin and your idols and turned to
the living God, we plead with you that you would do so now.
I plead for his mercy. You’re not promised another hour.
None of us are. confess your sin to him, seek
his face, and plead for the security that is in Christ alone. Well, he’s not only the Redeemer,
but he’s also the God made visible. This we see in verse 15. He,
speaking of Christ, is the image of the invisible God. He’s the image of the invisible
God. We know nobody’s ever seen God. The scripture says that.
Why? Because he’s invisible, right?
And this is what John writes also. Please turn to the Gospel
of John, chapter one. If you keep your place in Colossians,
we can turn back and forth there a few times. John 1 verse 18. He says, No
one has seen God at any time. This was after Christ was here.
He’s speaking of the father. Well, it’s because he’s invisible
that we haven’t seen him. And John continues in verse 18.
He says the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father.
He has explained him. So John’s telling us the same
thing that Paul is, that although no man has seen God the Father,
Jesus Christ, whom he here calls the only begotten God, he has
explained him. He’s given us some understanding
about this invisible God. How did he do so? It was by taking
on human flesh. We understand better those things
that we see. And so by Him taking on flesh,
becoming man, we see that. He explained much of the Father.
This John says in his own way in verse 14 there, in chapter
1. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we
saw His glory, the glory as of the only begotten, from the Father,
full of grace and truth.” So in like manner, Paul says
the same thing there in Colossians, where he calls him the image
of the invisible God. He’s God in palpable form. That Paul’s speaking of the incarnate
Christ here is evident by the word image. It implies visibility. Does it not? The image. It’s
something we see. He’s speaking of the God-man
here. Now are we not also an image
of God? We are. We are a visible form that has
some of God’s attributes, attributes that are given to us to give
us the capacity to have dominion over his creation. So we are
a visible form that image some of God’s attributes. However,
our image is very limited, and especially since the fall. It’s
very dim at this point. But even before the fall, Adam
did not image God in the same way that Christ did. Not nearly
to the same degree. Adam didn’t have control over
nature. He didn’t have omnipresence as we saw in Christ, a flash
of it when he spoke to Nathanael about seeing him under the tree.
And we see other glimpses of Christ where we see deity in
him. But the next clause here that
follows image of the invisible God, namely the firstborn of
all creation, if further modifies, it modifies the image of the
invisible God. And it’s a clause that has been argued about. It’s been misused much in church
history. We trace it back to Arius, back
in 325 AD, the Council of Nicaea, where he argued against Athanasius
and about three other men, including Saint Nicholas, He argued that this verse proves
that Jesus is not God. I mean, it says he’s firstborn,
right? And how can God be born? He must be mere man. Or, I don’t
think that was Arius’ argument, but that he was created just
before the foundation of the world sometime, but that he was
a created being. However, the defenders of Christ’s
divinity in this council, they argued that he was, quote, consubstantial
with the Father, end quote. They’re saying he’s of the same
essence as the Father. He is, in essence, God. Many theologians and commentators,
even to this day, argue that this statement, firstborn of
all creation, has nothing to do with creation, with him being
a created being. And I would say that, and I’ll
say this without agreeing with Arius, let me make that clear,
that these men aren’t exactly right either, from my understanding,
that I think it’s swinging too far. It does have something to
do with creation. Remember, we’re talking about
the God-man. We’re talking about the image,
an image, a visible being. And so was his humanity not created? Was he not knit together in Mary’s
womb? Was he not conceived by the Holy
Spirit there? And was he not a man, a created
man? He was. So for that reason, we
cannot just push aside and say this has nothing to do with creation. Paul is saying that of all that
has ever been made, this man, Jesus, is the firstborn. So did Paul mean by firstborn
that he was the first in time to be created? Not at all. Not at all. And Arius would have
understood this, well, if he would have kept reading with
understanding. In verse 16, he says, For by him all things were
created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible. So my question is, how could
he have created all things if he didn’t exist with the Father
for an eternity? If you’re still bookmarked there
in John, let’s see what he says about this. His opening words, John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things came into being through
Him, and apart from Him, nothing came into being, that has come
into being. And we know the Word, speaking
of Christ. So nothing came into being without
Him. So therefore, he cannot be a created being. In verse
18, John says, No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten
God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.
There he calls him God. And Peter also says the same
thing. He says, To those who have received a faith of the
same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. The Scriptures clearly teaches
that he is God, and being God, he must be an eternal being by
necessity. He’s God in visible form. We’re
done in John, by the way. So what is meant by firstborn? We know it doesn’t mean that
he isn’t God. So what does it mean? We see it used in two ways in
Scripture, this word firstborn. We’re all familiar with the primary
use of the word where it’s referred to the oldest male child of a
family that came from the father, usually not necessarily the mother,
but the oldest of the father is the way it was used in ancient
time. And this ancient custom also was that the oldest male
offspring had a higher status than the rest of his siblings.
And for that reason, he received a double portion of the inheritance.
This is the sense in which Arius wanted to use the word, the first
one that came forth from the Father in a specific time. But there’s a second use for
this word, and it’s used to merely speak of preeminence. We see
this in places like Exodus 4.22, where it has nothing to do with
time. Then you shall say to Pharaoh,
thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. So Israel is his firstborn. Elsewhere, he says, in Jeremiah
actually, he says, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my
firstborn. Now, Ephraim is also his firstborn.
He had a firstborn nation among nations. He had a firstborn tribe
in that nation of nations. In Psalm 89, it’s written about
David that God is speaking, says, I also shall make him my firstborn. So how many firstborns does God
have? Three there, and four with Christ. So the only way we can
make sense of this is if we remove time and understand it as status. He’s merely talking about status.
It’s time that needs to be removed. and not creation. That’s my argument. He’s simply speaking of preeminence. And if I may state this in my
own words, which I want to be very careful with, but if I want
to paraphrase what Paul is saying here, I would say it like this.
Of all that has been created, this man, Jesus, is supreme. He is far more excellent. His
choiceness, His greatness, His dignity, and His rank are far
beyond anything else among all creation. For, verses 16 through
18, He is also God. That’s why. And because He’s God, He must
be an eternal being also. So verses 16 through 18, Paul
is telling us how the son, why he says the son is the firstborn
of all creation. And I put it under five sub points
and we’ll move quickly through these where he gives further
explanation on this firstborn. A is he’s the creator of all.
We see this in verse 16. For by him all things were created. both in the heavens and on earth,
visible and invisible. This Jesus of Nazareth is creator
himself. And John also testified of that.
And we looked at that earlier. This Christ, he created all things
in the heavens, the sun, star, stars, moons, and planets, entire
galaxies, and every one of them. Every one of them. David in the Psalms marvels when
he considers the heavens. And so how much more should we
marvel having the technology that we do to look further into
space than he could? So that always makes me just
worship God with more zeal when I consider the heavens to a greater
depth than even David could see. The heavens testify of the majesty
of this man, Jesus. He also created everything on
the earth. You and I, the mighty seas, the
tall mountain ranges, and the flowers of the field, the birds
of the air, and the list goes on, everything. All creation
testifies of the greatness of our Lord, the firstborn of all
creation. But it’s not only the things
that are visible that he has made, but also the invisible realm.
He’s the creator of the spiritual realm as well. Lucifer, all the
angels fallen and holy alike. And there’s nothing that has
come into being that he didn’t make. The second reason that
Christ’s status exceeds all of creation is because he’s the
purpose for all. He’s also the purpose for all
of creation. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,
all things have been created through him and for him. Paul refers to both the visible
and invisible realm again, and he mentions the most preeminent
and powerful in those realms, all authorities and powers, that
they’re there because of Christ. Christ is the reason these have
been made. The sun exceeds them all. And the reason he exceeds them
is because they’ve been made for him. He’s the agent of creation,
if we look at the right definition of that word, and he’s the very
purpose for creating anything at all in the first place. The
third axiom about the son that Paul gives here about his preeminence
is, well, he just states it plainly, he is preeminent to all. Okay,
those are my words, but he says it just as plainly, in different
words. He is before all things, verse
17. Some commentators, they try to
defend Christ’s deity by saying, see, that firstborn has nothing
to do with Him being created, a created being, because here
it says He’s before all things. He was before all creation in
time. Well, I have, you know, I removed
the time from this also because this is further explaining firstborn. Because I removed time there,
I must remove time here, too. And so I don’t believe He’s talking
about before in time, but He is before all things. He is preeminent
to all. So there’s no need to argue for
His deity where the author didn’t intend it. That’s evident elsewhere
in Scripture that He is God. So both words, firstborn and
before, are speaking of his preeminence. And I hope to show you this further
before closing. Paul doesn’t stop there. He also
says that he is sustainer of all. He’s the sustainer of all. Look at verse 17, or the rest
of it. And in him all things hold together. The Son of God is the reason
we’re here. in more than just one way. He didn’t only create
us. We’re not only created for him, but he also sustains us. He’s the reason we don’t fall
to pieces or float out into space or dissolve into nothingness. And I understand that he uses
gravity, or what little we know about gravity, that he uses means
to do this, okay? He’s upholding all things through
means which are observable to us as some of them. The scriptures
also says in Hebrews that he upholds all things by the word
of his power. How he does this is beyond me.
I don’t understand how he uses the moon to draw the tide. We
also believe the planets have an effect on one another in these
things, but I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how he
holds the planets in their place, but I trust him. Who better to trust, who better
to have in control of all these things, of our lives, of the
whole universe, than the one who laid down his life for us? The one who died a cruel death
in the place of others, in the place of those who hated him,
in fact. I’m grateful that it’s him. And this is only something God
Himself could do. More evidence of His deity. The
Son is God, and He’s God made visible. Not only is the Son
sovereign over creation and the world we live in and all that
pertains to it, but He’s also sovereign over the new creation.
And we know this as the Church. Look at verse 18. He is also
head of the body, the Church. We’ve all heard of this head
body illustration that Paul gives time and time again when he speaks
of Christ and his relationship to the church. And it’s a perfect
illustration, is it not? We now know more than ever how
much the head, or rather the brain within it, controls everything
in the body, how they’re connected there. And so that’s a perfect
illustration that Christ is the head. He’s the control center
of the church. He’s the Lord of the church. He’s the one who sustains us
and directs us, just as the brain does the body. This headship
of the church, this is also the prerogative of God. This isn’t
for anybody else. This local body here, or anywhere
in the world, it doesn’t belong to you, it doesn’t belong to
me. It’s Christ’s church, okay? The Son is the person of the
Godhead who reigns over the church. The church is not a democracy. In this country, it’s hard to
understand that like it is in times where kings are far more
sovereign and it isn’t power to the people, right? Well, the
church is not power to the people. Christ is the Lord of the church.
And he’s given us commands to obey. He requires this of us. He doesn’t require different
things from different congregations, although he uses us differently
in special ways. His commands to us are all the
same. And his purpose for us is all
the same as well. His primary command to us as the church is
that we should love one another. This love is more than just an
emotion also. Love is patient. Love is kind
and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not
arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own, is
not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does
not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things. It believes all things. It hopes
all things and endures all things. If that sounded like scripture,
that’s because it was, because it is. First Corinthians 13 to be exact. Our head, Christ, the son has
told us to love one another. And it was because of the love
that the church in Colossae had for one another that Paul could
say with confidence that they belong in the kingdom of the
sun. Can the same be said about us? Are we a people who love one
another? I know I’ve fallen short in this
area, and so I’m not talking about perfection. We all fall
short, but is there any love whatsoever? Do we have patience
with one another? Do we have patience with those
we disagree with? And I’m not talking about false
teachers. Christ and the apostles, the scriptures puts them on a
complete different level. They treated them quite differently.
But I’m talking about brother to brother, sister to sister.
Do we love one another? Are we patient with one another? Are we patient with those who
are impatient with us? The reason that there are so
many Christian denominations, and I speak of real Christian
denominations, not the false teachers, is because there’s
a failure here on the part of the church. Ron summarizes it
with one word. He usually says it’s pride. Pride
is the reason. And so I’m in agreement with
him. I just go a little further, a little deeper into what he
means by that. It’s because you have, most oftentimes
in leadership, men who disagree with one another over secondary
issues, not primary, that would compromise the faith, but they
disagree with one another and instead of being patient with
one another, they go their separate ways. One breaks off and goes
his own way. And this is due to a failure to realize that
Christ is Lord of the church. He’s our head. It’s also a failure to remember
his commandments, to love one another. Proverbs 18, he who
separates himself seeks his own desire. He quarrels against all
sound wisdom. A fool does not delight in understanding,
but only in revealing his own mind. So my appeal to us is that we
would remember, and when I say us, I’m talking about myself
as much as anybody, that we would remember who our head is. Christ
is the head of the church. He’s all in all, as I believe
Paul, those are the words of Paul in Ephesians, when I think
he’s saying the same thing, he’s all in all. That just as the
body is nothing without the head, so the church is nothing without
Christ. He’s our everything. He’s also in all of his people.
He has a direct connection to all of his people as well. So
just as the head has everything to do with the body, so does
Christ. Is Christ in you? Or have you
shut him out with a heart of stone? Or are you a follower of Christ
and have said, you can have this much dominion over me, but this
part of my life, I want control of it. Well, He wants control of everything,
and He must have it. We need to surrender our will
to Him. He wants all of us or none of us. He must have dominion
over all of His church. He is the Lord of the church.
His body will not function properly if we block off part of that.
it will be paralyzed from the waist down, as it were, if we
don’t give Him everything. He must have, and He will have,
and in reality, He does have preeminence over all, even the
new creation, the old and new creation alike. Yet this didn’t
come without a cost, and this takes us to our third point we
see in verse 18, and that is that the Son is the church’s
foundation. He’s not only the Redeemer and God made visible,
but he’s also our foundation. Verse 18, he is the beginning,
the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come
to have first place in everything. He is the beginning. The beginning
of what? Well, look at what follows. The
firstborn from the dead. I hear we run into that word
firstborn again. Must we interpret it the same
way as we did above? Is the Son preeminent over the dead? He
is. But is that all that is intended
here? Is that all that should be understood here? I say it’s
not. But it’s more than preeminent
spoken of here. I believe the word is used in its primary sense
here. And how can I do that? How can I just choose which way
I want to use this word? Well, I didn’t choose. I’m looking
at what is said before it. What is first born modifying?
Look back up at verse 15. The first time it’s used, it’s
modifying. He is the image of the invisible God. There’s no
time in that statement whatsoever. We’re not talking about time
there. It’s not there. And now down in verse 18, he
is the beginning. The beginning is time. We’re talking about time now.
And we see that further. So that he will come to have
first place in everything. And we’re talking about him being
raised from the dead. And we know there was a point in time
that that took place. We’re talking about the resurrection
here. So that’s why I say this is talking about first in time,
the first one to be born from the dead. You may remember that even before
that, Lazarus was raised from the dead. And Elijah raised a
young man from the dead. There was multiple ones before
Christ who came from the dead. But they came from the dead only
to die again. They didn’t come from the grave
with their incorruptible nature, but Christ did. He was the first
one in time to be in his glorified body, coming from the grave,
never to die again. He had defeated death. And the
reason that he had to be first is so that he would come to have
first place in everything. And the reason I’ve titled this
point Foundation of the Church, that he’s the church’s foundation,
is because I have a construction background, so I think of what
goes first. What must be the beginning of
a building? And Paul uses this building illustration elsewhere,
also speaking of Christ in the church. He calls Christ the foundation.
Christ is the first one. He’s the beginning of this building,
the church. And I speak of the living organism that we call the church, this
interdependent entity that is Christ’s body. And it’s because he is alive,
that he’s from the grave, that we as his followers can much
easier believe his words where he says, because I live, you
will live also. That would be harder to believe
were he still in the grave, would it not? How could we believe
that? The other thing that we can gain confidence in, because
he has risen, is that the wrath of God was satisfied. Were it
not satisfied, he would not have been risen from the grave. But
that was evidence that he was. And we have, his resurrection
was witnessed by 500 or more people before he went and ascended
to heaven. And they saw his resurrected
body. We have their eyewitness accounts. And we have no evidence
to the contrary. There is no stronger evidence,
no more accurate and reliable historical account in the scriptures.
Even from a secular standpoint, there is nothing more reliable.
His words are true and we can trust them. We’ve only scratched the surface
on the person of the Son. and we can never fully comprehend
him even in glory. That will be a process and will
never attain to the depths of his glory. But would you with
me make every effort to meditate on on the person of Christ this
week? If you haven’t recognized him
as Redeemer, you must acknowledge him as such. You must commit
your life to him or you will die in your sin. And we don’t
want that. We don’t want that. If you have not recognized him
as God, well, that too is mandatory. Christ’s words himself was, you
must believe that I am, which is the name of God. You must
believe that I am or you will die in your sin. And if you’re Christian, examine
yourself. Are you truly recognizing him as having preeminence to
all? I think I am, but tomorrow he’ll
probably show me something else. Do our lives testify that we
have turned it over to him? Have we surrendered everything,
our finances, our possessions? How about the circumstances in
our life, pleasant and unpleasant? Do we accept them from him? Do
we embrace what he’s brought into our life? This is how we
humble ourselves, by the way. The Son has loved us. He loves
us still and has shown that by laying down his life for us.
And by that he is rightly called Redeemer. Let us live to him,
unto him with gratitude for this. He’s God made visible. Let us
submit to him as God. Let’s worship him as such. He’s
our sure and solid foundation. He’s the beginning. Because he
lives, we will also live. What great news. Would you join
me in prayer to him?