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Who Is This?

Who Is This?
December 17, 2017

Scripture: Colossians 1:15-20

I. Jesus is the greatest because He created everything the first time.

A. The role of Jesus as creator is spoken of in vs. 15-16. When God looks in the mirror, do you know who He sees? Jesus! Jesus is the image of God. Jesus makes the invisible God visible as the divine Son of God, the second person in the Trinity. If the fact that Jesus is God seems clear in the first part of vs. 15, then the second part of vs. 15 seems to deny that Jesus is God. The second part of vs. 15 says that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. If Jesus was the firstborn of all creation, then maybe he was just the first creature created by God.

B. The phrase the firstborn of all creation does not mean that Jesus was created. It means that Jesus is the firstborn OVER all creation. He has authority over all creation because He is its maker. We know that Jesus is the agent of all creation because of how vs. 16 begins, “For by him all things were created.” Jesus is not creature. He is creator. He made everything whether angels or you or me or anything else that we see on this earth. Jesus has authority over all things because He made everything. That is why Jesus is the greatest.

II. Jesus is the greatest because He holds all creation together.

A. In Colossians 1:17 we read that “(Jesus) is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” The fact that Jesus is before all things is a statement about how He is supreme above all things as the Creator of the Universe. It’s another way of saying that He is preeminent to use the word of vs. 18. Jesus surpasses all things because He created all things. But vs. 17 tells us not only that Jesus created all things; He also sustains all the things that He has created. All things owe their continuous existence to him.

B. Acts 17:28: “For ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’” Some of you in recent days have experienced an earthquake of some kind. It was not a physical shaking of the earth. It was the shaking of your soul through a major trial or temptation. Jesus is in control of the shaking. He willed the shaking for some reason you might not be able to understand. And he will bring the shaking to an end when the earthquake’s purpose has been fulfilled in your life. Jesus is in control of the earth and the earthquake. Jesus holds everything together.

III. Jesus is the greatest because He is re-creating a broken world.

A. In Colossians 1:18 we see the second use of the word firstborn in this passage. In vs. 15 we read that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. Now in vs. 18 we read that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. What does it mean that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead? It means that just like Jesus is the author of creation, Jesus is also the author of re-creation. Jesus is the beginning and the founder of a new humanity, a new people, by virtue of his having been the first to rise from the dead, never to die again. After Jesus died, God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, the firstborn from the dead of all who have faith in Jesus and are united to Him. If we trust that His death brings us forgiveness and reconciliation with God, then one day we too will be resurrected. We will be part of his new creation of humanity.

Application:
Worship the Jesus who is preeminent above everything else.

Sources:
Commentaries on Colossians by David Pao and Sam Storms