The Preeminent Christ: Part 1

Colossians 1:15-20

Thank you for being with us today. This teaching is brought to you by Heralds of Hope; we are a small ministry using media to make disciples. We recently started working our way through Paul’s book to the Colossians. In chapter one, there is a remarkable passage about our Messiah. These five incredible verses will be the focus of our teaching today and the next lesson.  

In this lesson and the next, we will discuss the Preeminent Christ. J Mark will explain this passage by looking at three proofs of His preeminence. The three proofs are relationships: one to His deity, another to creation, and the last to the church. Let’s go to Colossians one and grow our understanding of Jesus.  

Our world is filled with deception. Dishonest people prey on others’ ignorance or carelessness to cheat them out of their money or possessions. This problem isn’t new; it has existed since sin entered the human family.  

When I was in my late teens, I traveled to a big city with my brother, who was a truck driver. On the street, a man approached me wearing a dozen or more watches on his arm. He claimed he would sell me a brand-name watch at a very low price. So, I bought one. 

Later, when I showed it to my brother, he said, “It’s either fake or stolen.” He was right. We looked at the watch closely, and it wasn’t a brand I knew. It was a piece of junk.  

Once, when I was visiting an Asian country, my host told me that he didn’t think the country had a properly licensed copy of Microsoft Windows! It was all pirated or bootleg. The same was true in the myriad shops along the streets of the capital selling brand-name footwear and clothing. He told me that the vast majority of it was knock-offs from China.  

Watches, software, clothing, and other things aren’t of much enduring value. If a dishonest or shrewd salesman takes advantage of me, the consequences usually aren’t that great. I may lose some money or end up with a worthless product.  

But what if I believe things about myself and about the world that aren’t accurate? What if my beliefs about God and Jesus aren’t correct? What are the consequences of that? Deception in these areas can lead me to eternal ruin!  

The people in Colossae struggled to understand who Jesus was adequately. Gnosticism was making inroads into the church. Gnosticism embraced a Jesus but not the Jesus of divine revelation in the Holy Scripture. Paul knew that unless the Believers in Colossae truly understood who Jesus was according to Scripture, they were headed for eternal ruin. Similarly, many people today have a distorted view of Jesus. They create a Jesus out of their imagination.  

In Colossians 1:15 to 20, Paul emphatically proclaims Christ as preeminent. That means He is supreme over everything and everyone. Paul emphasizes Christ’s relationship to three specific things to prove his assertion. To learn those particular things, let’s read Colossians 1:15 to 20. After I read the Scripture, I’ll share my teaching on “The Preeminent Christ.”  

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

¹⁶For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.  

¹⁷And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  

¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that He may have the preeminence in all things. 

¹⁹For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,  

²⁰and 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. 

In this text, the apostle Paul produces several PROOFS confirming Christ’s preeminence.  

The First PROOF is, 

His Relationship to Deity 

In the verses just before our text, Paul reminded the Colossian Believers how Christ had purchased their redemption and forgiveness of sin through His blood. As a result of that transaction, they had been delivered from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son with the full rights and privileges as citizens of that kingdom. 

In our text, Paul lays out the proofs that support Christ’s ability to make this transfer. And, as I said, he begins by explaining who Jesus is in relation to deity.  

He states that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God…” Let’s clarify one thing right here at the beginning of our study. Human beings are made IN the image of God, but only Jesus IS the image of God.  

Paul’s use of the word “image” involves three things: likeness, or mirror image; representation, that is, Jesus represents God to us; and manifestation, that is, Jesus reveals God to us. Let’s look at each of these. 

First, likeness. In Hebrews 1:1 to 3, we read, “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…”  

Jesus is the express image or the mirror image of the invisible God! He is an exact reproduction of the Father. John chapter 1 tells us that Jesus, the Word, was present with God at the beginning of time, and indeed He was God. He preexisted with God in eternity past.  

Philippians chapter 2 tells us that Jesus was and is equal to the Father. There is equality of being in the Godhead, but there is a difference in roles. Jesus didn’t selfishly hold on to His equality but voluntarily submitted Himself to the will of the Father in becoming the sacrifice for our sins. In reality, God took on human form and allowed human beings to abuse Him and put Him to death. There is no separation between God and Jesus. Jesus IS God in the flesh. 

What about representation? Jesus portrays the Father to us. He shows us what the Father is like. That doesn’t mean Jesus’ physical appearance was like His Father’s because God is a spirit. But His character and attributes accurately represent who God is. That’s why Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” If you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father. If you haven’t seen Jesus, I urge you to read the Gospels. 

 Paul teaches us that Jesus is the substance of God’s purposes and intentions for His creation. “He is God’s pattern for all of life; through him, God will restore a broken and fallen creation in his likeness. I think Paul uses the word image to echo the biblical story of creation when God created male and female in God’s own image. Christ brings to historical expression the ultimate purpose of God’s creation of all human life.  

On the one hand, Jesus exemplifies humanity’s faithful response to God; on the other hand, he also discloses God’s faithfulness to mankind. God’s good intent [or purpose] in creating human life is to enjoy a faithful relationship with every person. Because of Christ, this intent can now be realized for those who are in him.”¹  

And then there’s manifestation; Jesus reveals God to us. That’s what John wrote. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life —the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us…” I John 1:1 and 2. 

We could change the word manifested in these verses to reveal. I believe that helps us understand the meaning better. Later in John’s Gospel, when Jesus turned the water into wine, it says, “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested [or revealed] His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.”  

Later on, in John 14 and verse 21, Jesus said, He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest [reveal] Myself to him.”  

So, Jesus being the exact image of God involves likeness, representation, and revelation. This affirms and proves His deity and His preeminence.    

The Next PROOF (of the preeminence of Christ) is, 

His Relationship to Creation 

Paul goes on to say that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. In Hebrews 1:1 to 4 and other Scriptures, Jesus is clearly stated to be the Creator of all things. John 1:3 says, “Without Him, nothing was made that has been made.” This must mean that He existed before creation.  

The firstborn of creation cannot mean He was created first. He would have had to develop Himself. How can something that doesn’t exist create something? That makes no sense! He is not part of the creation. This fact gives Him both priority and sovereignty over all that is created.   

This is Paul’s refutation of the Gnostic idea that Jesus was just one of the many emanations radiating from the Godhead. These emanations were supposedly various orders or ranks of spirit beings of greater or lesser degree. These are the thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers that Paul mentions in verse sixteen. But he says Jesus is over all these. He is God’s first and only representation and has no equal.  

As I said earlier, the false teachers maintained that the universe proceeded from God indirectly, through a succession of emanations or releases of energy (Big Bang theory, anyone?). Christ, at best, was only one of these emanations. As such, the universe could not find its consummation in Him. But Paul emphatically states that Christ is the beginning and the end of all creation. As such, He is the sole mediator between God and humanity.  

What an ending! Our time is up, and we are left thinking about Christ and His relationship with His creation. It struck me again how inexplicable and mystifying it is that Christ entered His creation. What if you build a city with Legos or any other toy? Then, you choose to enter the town you just built and be subjected to what you designed. This explains what Jesus did, and it is no wonder we have difficulty grasping this. Why would God do this? What kind of God is He? Good questions. Please join us next time we discuss the rest of this lesson.   

If you have any questions or want to contact us, here are a few ways to reach us. An easy way is email; our email is [email protected]. You can also message us online; our website is heraldsofhope.org. We look forward to hearing from you soon.  

Thank you so much for listening. Please join us again next time as we continue our teaching of Christ’s preeminence. We leave you with this verse from Philippians 2, which emphasizes what we just heard: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” 

*This episode is an exposition by J. Otis Yoder, re-recorded by J. Mark Horst, with an opening and closing by Arlin Horst.