Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Colossians 1:15-23 | Date: November 29, 2020 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Our Father, we are thankful for all of the great things that you do for us. We’re thankful most of all for your gift of your Son. We’re grateful for the salvation that we have in him, the forgiveness of sins, the assurance that we belong to you, the blessed hope, and the confidence for life. We’re grateful for all of your temporal provisions that you give us. You’ve prospered us in so many ways, and we are thankful. We ask now that you will help us as we look into your word together. We ask that your Spirit would guide our minds, open our hearts, and give us a new appreciation of Christ through a better understanding of your word, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

All right, we are in Colossians chapter—okay, it’s been a couple of weeks, but we started working our way through this very important passage last time. And we have called it the Lordship of Christ. It is, as I mentioned, one of the most important passages in Paul’s writings with regard to the doctrine of Jesus Christ, our understanding of who he is. As I mentioned, some scholars have conjectured that this may have been an early Christian hymn that Paul has either taken up or adapted in some way. Not sure if that’s the case, but there are some indications of that.

We saw that this passage, verses 15 to 23, breaks down really into two sections. Verses 12 to 14, remember, we had the thanksgiving for our rescue in Christ and that prayer of the apostle, but now in verses 15 to 23, he gives himself to addressing the qualifications of the one who rescued us. So he’s just prayed in verses 12 to 14 with thanksgiving that we have been rescued. And now he talks about the qualifications of the rescuer.

Christ Is The Lord Of Creation

Verses 15 to 17, he tells us that Christ is the Lord of creation. We saw that last time. And then verses 18 to 23, he speaks of Christ as the Lord of the church. There was evidently in Colossae a false teaching with regard to the sufficiency of Christ. And so that is a theme that Paul hammers over and over again throughout the epistle. And here he starts with just the big guns, speaking of the supremacy of Christ. He’s Lord of creation. He’s Lord of the church.

And last time we emphasized a couple of the terms that Paul uses in verse 15. He used the image of the invisible God. We saw that that has Trinitarian implications. The point of it is to say that Christ is the one who reveals God. He’s his image. And we had a little bit of an aside there then about the Trinity and so on. But the point is that he is the one who reveals God. As God, he can reveal him.

And then we took a look at the word firstborn. He’s the firstborn of all creation. And we saw that that is a title of supremacy again. It’s not, when he says firstborn, speaking of temporal priority, but of positional priority. And that was the status of the firstborn in Old Testament Israel. That’s been taken over now for Paul with reference to Christ. He’s the firstborn of all creation. That is, he’s preeminent over all of it. It does not indicate, as some in the history of the church have tried to argue, as various heresies have come in, it does not indicate that Christ is the first one created. And the reason we know that is the very next verse, verse 16; he explains why he’s the firstborn. He’s the firstborn of all creation for by him all things were created—not just all other things or all subsequent things, but all things were created by him. Heaven and earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities—everything was through him and in fact for him. So again, he’s driving this point of the supremacy of Christ. He is the image of God, and he is the firstborn of all creation.

Christ Is Lord Of The Church

All right then, now we come to verse 18, and we find this next theme: Christ is Lord of the church. Look at verses 18 and 19: “And he is the head of the body, the church. He’s the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Again, you see right off the bat that his emphasis is still the same, and that’s the preeminence or the supremacy of Christ.

But notice a few of the designations here. He’s the head of the body, the church. The head—that is the authority, the supremacy of Christ, emphasizing again the Lordship of Christ over the church. He’s Lord over all by right of creation, but now more specifically, he’s Lord over the church. He is the beginning, he says next. He’s the head of the church, he’s the beginning. That is, I think, the beginning of the new creation, the founder.

And that’s the next expression: “the firstborn from the dead.” Firstborn from the dead. Now again, the title firstborn still carries the idea of priority, but here there’s some indication of temporal priority as well because he says explicitly he’s the firstborn from the dead, or the first one to be raised from the dead. And he’s the first one to be raised from the dead in order that—there’s the purpose clause—in order that in everything he might be preeminent. That is the goal of his resurrection. He has established his lordship over the church by being the first one raised.

Now this captures up into it a lot of resurrection theology that we’ve looked at before: that Christ’s resurrection from the dead, first of all, is a resurrection not like Lazarus or any of the others, or Jairus’ daughter. It was a resurrection into the age to come. It’s the eschatological resurrection. We’ve seen many indications of that. That’s the consistent emphasis in the New Testament, that Christ was the first one to be raised, not to die again, but to be raised into that eternal state. And as the first one, he is also the leader, the pioneer, the one who takes us with him. And so Paul argues in 1 Corinthians 15 that Christ was the first fruit, and He is the head, the leader, and will bring all of us with him in time when he comes with him from the dead. So he’s the firstborn from the dead, the forerunner, the leader, who will bring all of us with him. And in that sense, then, he has become preeminent over the church.

And then verse 19, and we’ll have to spend some time here: “For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Here’s the ultimate reason for Christ’s lordship over the church. In him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Now there’s no way to read that except to say it’s the fullness of God’s nature. The fullness of God’s being dwells in Christ.

Ancient heresy in the church, Arianism in the fourth century, carried on today by people such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, deny the deity, or at least the full deity of Christ. Here’s one of those verses that they have to contend with. In him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Again, there’s no way to read that except to say that it’s the fullness of God’s nature. It’s the strongest possible kind of affirmation of the deity of Christ. Without qualification, whatever God is, Jesus is that.

Now fullness, this term fullness, might be a word that the false teachers in Colossae had used. They might have said—and a little bit of this is conjecture, but it seems to be reflecting, it’s more of that mirror reading that we’ve talked about, reflecting something of what was going on in their own context—and it might be that this word fullness is a word they reserve for God himself, and no one else is the fullness. Or it might have been that they’re arguing that if you don’t follow their teachings and their regulations that they were imposing on the church that Paul will deal with later in the letter, not until you do that can you have the fullness. Well, whatever it is that they were saying about it, Paul wants to emphasize that in Christ, all the fullness of God dwells. All the fullness of God is in him. Again, the strongest kind of affirmation of the deity of Christ.

So we come—last time we talked about the Trinity for a few minutes—and we come now to talk about the second leading mystery of the Christian faith, and that is the person of Christ, the incarnation, the two natures of Christ. So let’s talk about that for a second. First of all, in verse 19 here again, we have an affirmation of the full, unqualified deity of Jesus. All the fullness of God dwells in him.

If you want to turn over a page or look across the page, however it is in your Bible, to chapter two in verse nine, we have a similar statement: “In him, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” In him the fullness of deity dwells bodily. Now there in a nutshell is the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. He’s God and he is man. So we have this doctrine of the person of Christ. The second person of the Godhead became incarnate, took on to himself a human nature. He did not cease to be God, but now in his incarnation, his enfleshment, became whatever man is. And so now the person, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, has both the divine nature, the fullness of it, and a human nature. Two natures in one person.

We saw last time with regard to the Trinity that there’s a certain ordering in the Trinity, that each of the three persons is self-existent and fully God in every sense of the term, but there is some mysterious sense in which the Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten. The Father and the Son send the Spirit. There’s this ordering among the Trinity. And so here it is when it came time for the outworking of God’s saving purpose, it was very properly the Son who was sent by the Father and he now takes on a human nature. Still God, but now man as well. Two natures, one person.

Now let me back up before we take any questions about this or anything. Let me back up and give you a broader biblical context that anticipates and then that actually teaches us this doctrine. First of all, in the Old Testament you may remember a couple of different occasions I’ve brought you through these two tracks of prophecy in the Old Testament. On the one hand, Old Testament prophets talk of a day when God himself will come. It’s the Day of the Lord. It’s the day when he will come and break into history, and he will take the government of the world to himself, and he’ll take up center stage and everything. God will come, and he will establish his kingdom. God himself will do this.

And then we have another track of prophecy that says David’s Son will come. The Davidic King will come. Messiah, the Anointed One, will come. And he’s David’s Son. And so you have all these prophecies that David’s Son will come and he will reign over God’s kingdom. So you have these two tracks: God will come, David’s Son will come. And then you have some prophecies where those tend to merge. And I call them the deity of Messiah passages in the Old Testament.

So for example, Psalm 45, where there’s this psalm to the Davidic King. A psalm to the Davidic King on his wedding day, and you’re the most handsome, and you’re the brightest and the best of all of them, and you’re the most fierce, and all your enemies will fall before you. Praise—and some are a little exaggerated—but praise to this great Davidic King. And then suddenly, Psalm 45 verse six: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” And suddenly we’ve got language going beyond any human king. And this Messiah is seen to be divine as well.

You have that in Daniel chapter seven with the Son of Man who receives the kingdom from the Ancient of Days. The Son of Man is just that. He’s the Son of Man. He’s man. Well, it actually says he’s one like the Son of Man. And in fact, he’s a heavenly being and he’s worshiped universally. And again, you have these two tracks kind of merging. God will come, David’s Son will come—oh wait, David’s Son is David’s Lord.

And all of that comes to fruition in the Gospel narratives where we have the incarnation, where Christ is born. And his birth in Bethlehem is not the beginning of his existence. It’s the beginning of his human existence, but it’s not the beginning of this person’s existence. Now he is both God and man come together. And then we come to the Gospels and we have Jesus who identifies himself as the Son of Man. He’s a glorious figure. He’s to receive universal worship. Jesus in the Gospels, particularly in John, speaks of God as his Father in a unique sense. Now, he does allow us now, in union with him, to speak of God as our Father as well, but he always maintains that distinction. For example, in John, he says, “I go now to my Father and to your Father.” He’s God’s Son in a unique sense. And the Jews recognized that that’s what he meant by it, and so they wanted to stone him for blasphemy, because “you, being a man, call God your Father, making yourself God.” So they understood that he was claiming deity.

And in fact, Jesus made all kinds of great claims of supreme authority and supreme importance. “Go out, preach the gospel of the kingdom. They’re gonna hate you for it. They’re gonna beat you for it. Your family will turn against you for it. You’ll be turned over to governors and kings. You’ll even be put to death. But it’s for my sake, so it’s okay.” And you see lots of passages like that, and you think, who can talk like that? Who is so important to say that you can go out and get killed for me and it’s okay, it’s worth it? You find all kinds of passages where Jesus reflects a self-understanding of his greatness. He has the authority to raise the dead. He has the authority to judge. He will send God’s angels, but yet in Matthew chapter 13, he’ll send his angels. He has authority over the angels. It is at his behest that God’s angels come and do God’s work.

We find Jesus receiving worship. We find Jesus making stupendous claims. Like in John chapter five: “The Father has given me authority over all, I’ll raise the dead, I’ll judge, so that all will honor the Son just as they honor the Father. If you don’t honor the Son, you don’t honor the Father either.” Just stupendous statements reflecting his equality with the Father. This is something of Jesus’ own self-understanding. I suppose one of the clearest of them is in the Great Commission: “Make disciples of the nations, baptizing them in the name,” singular, not the names, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And so the Son and the Spirit, equally with the Father, participate in the divine name.

We have Jesus accomplishing God’s plan, God’s plan. He does God’s work. And he receives worship as God receives worship. We have Jesus claiming the authority to forgive sins. His hearers would even say that: “Who is this who has authority to forgive sins? Who does he think he is?” And we have much of that in the Gospels where not only this Old Testament track anticipating God coming in the person of David’s Son, but now we have Jesus claiming that very thing.

And then we have the apostles and the New Testament writers picking up on the same thing. And we have some prominent passages that expound that and are given to teach that exactly, like most famously, John chapter one, verses one to 18, the prologue to John’s Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word.” Well, there again, with the designation “Word,” we have Christ designated as the one who makes God known. But in the beginning, when the beginning came, he was already there, and the Word was God, the Word was with God. So there’s some distinction among them, and yet he is God. Emphasis on the deity of Christ. He created all things, John says. And then verse 14: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father.”

So we have the New Testament writers picking up on the same. We have it very famously in Philippians chapter two. He was in the form of God and yet took the form of man, humbled himself, became one of us. We have this passage, Colossians 1, which is one of the more prominent ones. We have the same in Hebrews 1 and other places as well. Also, the New Testament writers refer to Christ as Lord. Not just a title of respect, but Lord in the fullest sense. And in fact, the New Testament writers will quote Old Testament passages about Yahweh, the Lord, and refer them just as easily to Jesus. And in fact, you have passages in the New Testament where they call Jesus God. And so you have all of this that comes together—Old Testament, New Testament, the Gospels, as well as Jesus himself, as well as the New Testament writers coming together to emphasize that Jesus is Lord in the fullest sense of the term. Whatever it is to be God, he is that. Without qualification, he is that.

And yet, at the same time, the same is true with regard to his humanity. Whatever it is to be human, Jesus is that, exactly, without qualification. Whatever it is to be God, he’s that. Whatever it is to be man, he is that. And so you see some of that reflected again in the Gospels and then in the New Testament writers. Jesus is born, a helpless baby, absolutely dependent upon his mother for everything. Helpless. And yet at the same moment, he upholds all things by the word of his power. You see that? We see Jesus in the Gospels. He grows weary. He gets thirsty. He suffers. And yet he upholds all things by the word of his power. He is born, and yet he can say, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

We find in Luke chapter two that Jesus grew in wisdom. He learned. And at the same time, we find through the Gospels that Jesus is omniscient and knows all things, always. We find in the Gospels that Jesus is resolved to accomplish the divine mission that culminates in his death. And yet at the same time, we find Jesus praying, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Two wills: a divine will, a human will. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus knows what is in men’s hearts. He knows the future. He directs his whole life by his understanding of what has been set out for him. He knows the future. And yet at the same time, he says, “I don’t know the day of my return.” We find one of the most interesting ones in John chapter five, where Jesus claims that he has life in himself, self-existence. He has life in himself, and yet he dies.

So we call this—the big term that many of you are familiar with—the hypostatic union, the union of two natures in one person. Philippians 2 expounds that in a very pointed way. He was in the form of God, humbled himself, was found in the form of a servant, became obedient unto death. Both God and man. John 1 emphasizes the same as I’ve mentioned. Hebrews 1 and 2 does the same. We have this then: whatever it is to be God, Jesus is that, fully, entirely, without any qualification. And yet at the same time, whatever it is to be man, Jesus is that, fully and without qualification. Two natures, one person.

Now, as you can imagine, in the history of the church, then there have been various heresies that have cropped up, trying to deal with all of this and putting it together. Interestingly, the first heresy to crop up in the Christian church, and we even see some reflection of this in the New Testament that John had to deal with, the first heresy regarding the person of Christ in the Christian church was not a denial of his deity. It was a denial of his humanity. Docetism was the name of it. He just “seemed” to be a man. They saw him. They saw what he did. Obviously, he’s God. Well, therefore, he can’t be a man. So he just seemed to be a man. He appeared to be a man, but wasn’t. But later, we have Arianism. It crops up. And it’s the opposite. They deny his deity. They acknowledge his humanity, but deny his deity.

And then later in the history of the church, you have more that crop up and you have some hybrid ideas. He’s not quite everything that man is and not quite everything that God is. He’s both together and it’s formed a third kind of being. And you have that heresy in the Christian church. And so the early theologians had to wrestle through all of this and take all of this kind of data that I just ran through in the Bible about the person of Christ and put it together and say, “How do we state that? And how do we come to a clear understanding of who Jesus is?” Clearly we are worshiping him from the beginning. Christians have worshiped Jesus. And yet at the same time, he was a man. So how do we put all that together?

And it came together most famously in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. I won’t read the whole thing, but let me give you some of the lines from that, the creed that came out of the Council of Chalcedon: “Perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood.” You see what they’re capturing now. It’s just what we’ve been emphasizing. “Perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood,” or to say it again, “truly God and truly man. Of a rational soul,” and here’s an important phrase that they fought over, “consubstantial with the Father, according to his Godhead.” That is sharing with the Father in all that it is to be God. “Consubstantial with God, with the Father, according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us, according to manhood.” Whatever it is to be God, he’s that. Whatever it is to be man, he’s that. He’s us, whatever we are. He’s also God, whatever he is.

“In all things like unto us without sin, begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary,” goes on to say, “according to the manhood.” Born of the Virgin Mary according to the manhood. “To be acknowledged in two natures.” Now this is important as well. Follow this. It’s complex, but these denials are important. “To be acknowledged in two natures without confusion.” That is, they don’t form some third kind of being. “Without change.” Whatever it is to be God, whatever it is to be man, both of those are preserved. So “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved and concurring in one person, not parted or divided into two persons.” So we have two natures, one person. He does not become two different persons, but one person with two natures.

All right, before I go on, any questions on that? That’s a whole course in Christology, the person of Christ, in 10 minutes.

“I think I got it.”

You got it all? Yeah. Put it back for us, would you?

“Can I ask you a question? Yes. OK, so whatever it is to be human obviously doesn’t include anything—”

Oh yeah, that’s not essential to humanity. Sin is not essential. Cite Adam in his original creation.

“Right, right. So he can be whipped and feel it.”

And feel the weakness, and the tiredness, and the thirst, and the hunger, and all of that. That’s created humanity; that’s not sinful humanity. Now it’s exacerbated by the fallen condition, but yeah. Yeah?

“I wonder what you think it means that the fullness of God was pleased, right? The what?”

In verse 19, you know, “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Well, the idea is there, and other translations bring this out, it was pleased for the Father for all fullness to dwell in the Son. And that’s more of the taxis, the order of relations in the Trinity that we talked about last time.

“I was wondering if it maybe could also—well, maybe it can’t—but I was thinking of like, you know, where Christ says, ‘I am in the Father, and the Father is in me,’ and this idea of like the mutual indwelling of, you know.”

Yeah, that’s—well, that’s certainly a Christian doctrine that’s important, but I don’t think that’s there in that verse. I think it’s reflecting more the order of relations that we talked of last time. Yeah.

“It’s not a struggle for me to believe any of this. It’s just, I often just kind of wonder about how can you know all things and learn things? Or, you know, just how do you, how do these two beings, like two natures work in everyday?”

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s why it’s called a mystery of the Christian faith.

“Was it a carpenter and a thumb?”

I would imagine. I would imagine. Oh, I know. Actually, I came and I had one of my closest friends, a theologian from a seminary, was in the area, was at our house last evening. And we were talking about this very thing. And I said, this is exactly what you’re saying. And I said, it’s just hard to imagine what that would have been like. And he shakes his head, and I know. But what you end up saying is two natures, one person, one agent acting simultaneously through his deity and through his humanity. Divine nature and his human nature. So that at all times, he’s both omniscient and ignorant—learning.

“And it’s not switching from one to the other.”

No, no. Simultaneously always the same. He grew in wisdom. And in principle, growing in wisdom is no different from being thirsty. It’s a human thing. And yet at the same time, he upholds all things by the word of his power always, or everything would fall apart. But yeah, believing it and understanding it—getting your head all around it—is another matter. But that’s why the early church theologians had to grapple with this. How do we state this without going off the rails one way or the other? And passages like this were enormously important then and throughout the history of the church to keep us on those tracks. Yeah, Clark.

“I was going to say, if he was swinging a hammer and missed a nail, that’s part of his humanity. But he’s not imperfect because he might have to learn something. He’s perfect because he never offended God.”

Right. Sin is what makes somebody imperfect. Right.

“Did he have to learn to read Hebrew?”

Yeah. And in fact, there’s a fascinating statement in Luke. I said, I quoted part of it: “He grew in wisdom.” It goes on: “He grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and with men.” As to his humanity, he developed physically. And as he developed physically, he matured. And you have a perfect model of maturing. And so here you have a young boy who was not an adult in a boy’s body. He was a boy with all the limitations of boyhood. And yet it was a perfect boyhood. And as he became a teen and a young adult, it was everything that that age should be, but not something else. He grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and with men. And at the same time, he was always God, with all that it is to be God.

And you cannot—the mystery you’re addressing, Cayman, the difficulty of understanding it—this is what I mentioned last evening in our discussion. It’s what you’re necessarily left with if you’re going to have a genuine incarnation. Unless the incarnation is something else and he becomes a third being or he’s not quite all humanity or not quite all deity, if you’re going to have a genuine incarnation, this is the mystery you’re left with. It’s fascinating.

A Gospel Essential For Our Salvation

Now, to move on a little bit, we have to emphasize that this doctrine of Christ—two natures in one person—is a gospel essential. This is not some accidental thing or unimportant thing. Because who but God alone can save? Who but a man can stand in place of men and render human obedience to God? And yet, who but God in the death of that man could render sufficient satisfaction for all of us? So he’s human, and it was necessary, as the creed says, for us and for our salvation to be both man and God. He represents us perfectly. He represents God and accomplishes what only God can do.

And Paul brings us together in 1 Timothy 2, verse 5: “There’s one God and there’s one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” He’s qualified for both parties and he brings us together and accomplishes what only the God-man can. So this is a gospel essential. And then Paul picks that up exactly in verse 20: “through him to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” And I can’t work through verse 23 before our time is up. So just, we’ll hang it here, wait till next time. We’re picking up on the incarnation of the Son, two natures, one person as a gospel essential for our salvation that begins with verse 20.

All right, let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, what a wonderful passage this is. It stretches our minds, it stretches our hearts, and how grateful we are to see that our Redeemer is one who is no less qualified than this. God who has come to the rescue. God who has become one of us to make us his own. Grateful for the salvation we have in Christ, and we pray that as the Apostle Paul’s purpose in writing all of this to Colossae was, that we would appreciate the all-sufficiency and all-supremacy of Christ. Surely, if we have him, we have all that we need. We thank you for him. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.