PEARLS OF PAUL
WHO IS JESUS CHRIST?
DR. JIM DIXON
COLOSSIANS 1:15-20
JULY 25, 1999
Christology is the branch of theology that studies the person and nature of Jesus Christ. Christologists seek to answer the question, “Who is Jesus Christ?” This morning, we have one of the greatest Christological passages in the whole of the Bible: Colossians, chapter 1, verses 15-20. In this passage, the Apostle Paul describes the person and nature of Jesus Christ. He does this in four ways, and these comprise our four teachings.
First of all, Paul describes Jesus Christ in relationship to the godhead. Paul does this in two ways. First of all, he tells us that Christ is the image of the invisible God. The Greek word for image is the word “eikon,” and it is the word from which we get the English word icon. In the eastern Orthodox churches, Christians collect icons. Icons are pictures of venerated saints. It might be a picture of Paul. It might be a picture of Peter. It might be Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but they are pictures of venerated saints. In this passage, Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is the icon of the invisible God. He is the picture of the invisible God. You look at Jesus Christ and you see what God is like. That is why in John, chapter 14, we are told that Philip came to Christ and said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” Jesus responded by saying, “Have I been with you so long, Philip, and you do not know Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” You see, He is the icon. He is the picture of the invisible God.
The Bible tells us in Genesis, chapter 1, that all of humanity was meant to be iconic. We were all created in the image and the likeness of God. There came a point where God breathed on man and he became a living soul, and God imparted the “imago Dei,” “the image of God,” and each of us were meant to reflect something of the person and nature of God. But you come to Genesis, chapter 3, and you see how sin entered the world, and you see the fall of man. We are to understand that humanity is fallen, and the image of God in man is more or less shattered, and we are not what we were meant to be. It is difficult for people to look at us today and see much of God.
Not too long ago, Barbara was driving her car. She pulled onto Arapahoe Road from Colorado Boulevard. Apparently, she made the person in the car coming behind her slow down just a bit. This person was in a big hurry and this person became very angry. The person behind Barb was a woman driving a Lexus. She was dressed very nicely. She might have been late for something. Barb didn’t know, but she obviously was very angry and didn’t like the fact that Barba made her slow down when Barb pulled into the lane. So, she whipped her car, pulled her Lexus right along the side of Barb’s, shook her fist and then pulled her car right in front of Barb. In the rearview mirror, looking at Barb with anger in her eyes, she flipped Barb the bird. She began to shake her fists at Barb, and it was hard for Barb to see the image of God in this woman. It was hard to see the imago Dei.
In Colossae where the Colossians lived and where the church of Colossae was, there was a cult and it had invaded the Christian church. This cult was called Gnosticism. The word gnostic means “intellectual one.” It comes from “gnosis,” the Greek word for knowledge. The Gnostics considered themselves to be intellectually superior. They believed that God was utterly distant and unknowable but that God had made Himself known through 30 emanations that proceeded from His pure being. Each of these emanations were viewed as deities. The Gnostics viewed Jesus Christ as one of these 30 emanations through which God was revealed, one of these deities. They had infiltrated the church, and they acknowledged in the Christian community that Christ was deity, but one amongst many deities, one of the emanations of God. All of the emanations of God, the summation of deities, they called the pleroma.
So, Paul writes to the Christians at Colossae and he takes this Gnostic word pleroma and he applies it to Christ saying, “He is the fullness. He is the sum and total of deity.” He’s not just manifestation of God. He is the manifestation of God. He is the fullness of God. Of course, this reflects what the Bible teaches in so many places. We’re told in John, chapter 1, that Jesus Christ was “In the beginning with God, was with God and is God.” And indeed, the Bible speaks clearly of His deity. If you are a Christian and you take the name of Christ, if you believe in the Bible as the word of God, you cannot deny that Jesus Christ is deity. He is God’s Son. He bears the very stamp of God’s nature, the icon and pleroma of God. This church is Christocentric. We are Christocentric. We focus on Christ because, in Christ, the fullness of God is revealed.
The Apostle Paul gives a second teaching in this passage about the person and nature of Jesus Christ, and in this teaching he describes Christ in relationship to the creation. The Apostle Paul says that “Christ was the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities. All things were made through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.”
The word Paul uses for creation is the word “ktisis.” This Greek word ktisis was generally used to describe the universe, the cosmos, what the Bible calls the heavens and the earth. I can remember, when I was growing up, how my mom and dad took me and my brothers camping on many occasions. My dad also took my brothers and I backpacking. In virtually every case, my brothers and I slept in a sleeping bag out under the stars. We did not sleep in a tent. My mom and dad would sleep in the tent, but we wanted to sleep out in the open because we loved looking up at the heavens. We loved looking at the stars. We loved thinking about them and just imagining what they were like. We loved contemplating the vastness of the universe.
In college I majored in psychology and I minored in history. My doctoral work is in theology, but I’ve always had this great love of astronomy, and it’s kind of an avocation for me. In understanding the creation, I want us to take a moment and just focus on the vastness of the universe. I understand that for some of you, this is going to seem kind of esoteric and perhaps you’re going to say, “Well, what does this have to do with me?” But it has everything to do with you because God created it, and He is not arbitrary or capricious. He’s created it with purpose, and the Bible says that God has prepared a place eternal in the heavens for those who believe in His Son. Jesus tells us that He’s going to create a New Heavens and a New Earth wherein righteousness dwells. I really believe that the destiny of the people of Christ is cosmic. God created all things with a purpose. As men and women were once given dominion over this earth, so one day in the life to come we will be given dominion over all the works of His hands.
Astronomers measure distance in space either by parsecs or by light speed. Of course, the speed of light is little more than 186,000 miles per second. Most physicists, most astronomers, believe that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. It is true that in quantum mechanics and in accordance with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, there is the theoretical possibility of greater than light speed, but most physicists, most scientists, believe that in this time space continuum matter cannot exceed the speed of light. Einstein first said this. Most physicists today agree with this.
But light moves at tremendous speed—186,000 miles a second. Light can move from earth to the moon in a little over one second. Light moves from the earth to Mars in 4 minutes and 17 seconds. Of course, this is on an average, depending on the relationship of these heavenly bodies. Light moves from the earth to Saturn in 1 hour and 11 minutes. Light can move from the earth to the non-planet planet, the wannabe planet called Pluto, in 5 hours 21 minutes and 42 seconds. That’s how fast light is. Of course, in a sense, it’s irrelevant because we can’t move that fast. We don’t have that kind of technology.
The space shuttle moves at 11,000 miles per hour, so the space shuttle could take us from earth to Saturn in 9 years, moving at 11,000 miles per hour. Light can move from earth to Saturn in 1 hour 11 minutes, but the space shuttle would take 18 years for the round trip. The space shuttle would take 100 years to take us to Pluto and back. That is why we’ve only sent a human being to the moon. You see, space travel is simply not practical or even feasible given our state of technology. Our solar system is just too vast.
And yet, this solar system is just a speck in the vast body of stars we call our galaxy, what we call the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. It takes light, moving at 186,000 miles a second, 100,000 years to span our galaxy, the Milky Way, from one end to the other.
Our solar system centers on a star we call the sun, but that star we call the sun is only one of 250 billion stars in this galaxy we call the Milky Way. The closest star to us outside of our solar system is called Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away. Even though it’s the closest star, it would take light, moving at 186,000 miles a second, 4.2 years just to reach it. We will never reach it. That’s what most scientists believe because the fastest that any manmade object has ever moved through space is 106,000 miles per hour. That was the Galileo Probe. Physicists and astronomers believe that if we could harness the gravitational slingshot effect of Jupiter, we might be able to send a spacecraft at 150,000 miles per hour. But even at 150,000 miles per hour, it would take a spacecraft 17,900 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system. Even if we could move at 150,000 miles an hour, it would take us 17,900 years. That’s the closest star in our galaxy.
You want to know why physicists, scientists, and astronomers generally do not believe in UFOs? They do not believe in UFOs because they simply believe that space travel is not practical. And, indeed, significant space travel is impossible. They do not believe that anything can exceed the speed of light, and light speed travel does not enable a person to span even this galaxy, let alone the universe.
In the peripheries of our galaxy, the average stars are five light years apart. Stars are in closer proximity at the core, where physicists believe there is a black hole. But even at the speed of light, we could not in our lifetime reach many stars even in our galaxy. Our galaxy is only one of what scientists believe to be 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and a few trillion galaxies in the full universe. The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way Galaxy is 200,000 light years away. We’re in is a spiral galaxy, and the nearest spiral galaxy to us is M31, sometimes called Andromeda, and it’s 2.2 million light years away. It would take light that long to reach it, and it’s the nearest spiral galaxy. The Verigo galactic systems are 60 million light years away. The closest quasar, called 3C 273, is 1.5 billion light years away. Scientists believe that there are quasars and galaxies 12 to 15 billion light years away.
The Bible tells us, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” The Psalmist writes, “When I look at the heavens, the moon and stars which Thou hast created, what is man that you are mindful of him?” And yet, He is mindful of us, and He loves us. He loves you. And for those of you who believe in Him, I tell you, He has a plan for you, and I do believe that plan is cosmic.
When the Apostle Paul writes that “all things were created through Him and for Him,” the words “ta panta,” the Greek words for “all things,” refer not only to the macrocosm but also to the microcosm—not only to the world of outer space but even to the world of inner space. Christ has authority over all of that. It was “created through Him and for Him,” Paul writes. Is it any wonder that Christ was able to transform water to wine, a transformation that, at the molecular level, would literally have been supernatural? Is it any wonder that He was able to calm the sea, rebuke the wind? Is it any wonder He was able to walk on water?
Maybe you’re sitting there thinking, “Well, why doesn’t he take my cancer away? Why doesn’t he take my wife’s cancer away? Why doesn’t he heal my cerebral palsy? Why doesn’t He use a little bit of that power and give me a husband or wife? Why can’t I get a job if He loves me so much and He has all this power?” And, indeed, He does love you, and He does have all that power, and sometimes He does heal us, even of cancer. And certainly, He gives us jobs. He, so often, leads us to a wife or a husband. He does these things in our lives, but we also need to understand He is sovereign. He has an eternal plan for you and for me. This life and this world is just a classroom. It’s just a classroom, and it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the endless ocean of eternity. And so, God is viewing all things in an eternal prospective, and He’s seeking to use all things in our life in this world to transform us. But Christ is the Creator. This is the second Christological message of Paul.
Then Paul describes Christ in terms of His relationship with death. He says of Christ, “He is the Firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent.” The word for firstborn is the Greek word, “prototokos.” Now, in saying that Christ is the Firstborn from the dead, Paul is not simply saying that Christ was the first to rise from the dead. The word prototokos was a word of authority. In the Hebrew and, indeed in the ancient world, it was the firstborn to whom family authority was given. And eventually, over time, this word prototokos came simply to connote authority. Saying that Christ is the Firstborn from the dead, Paul is saying Christ has authority even over death, that in everything He might be preeminent. And Christ does have authority over death. He has authority over my death. He has authority over your death.
We’ve all seen in recent days the tragedy of JFK Jr. John Kennedy Jr. was perhaps the strongest link to the so-called Camelot era of the Kennedy White House. JFK Jr. was trained in law, and he was the Editor of George Magazine. You all know that a week ago Friday he crashed his single-engine plane into the Atlantic Ocean not far from Martha’s Vineyard. His wife, Carolyn, and her sister Lauren joined him in a watery grave.
Some have spoken of a Kennedy curse. The cover of the most recent issue of Newsweek is entitled, “The Kennedy Curse.” Newspapers all over the world, in their headlines, announced his death. Many of them put “cursed” in the headlines. Cursed. At first glance when you look at the Kennedy family, you might think there’s a curse, when you look at the children of Joseph and Rose Kennedy.
In 1941, their child Rosemary was institutionalized because of retardation caused primarily by a failed lobotomy. She was 22 years old. She’s still living today—80 years old—and still institutionalized. Her life, from a human perspective, is seemingly meaningless. She is almost a vegetable. In 1944, Joe and Rose’s son, Joseph Kennedy Jr., died in a World War II plane crash. He was only 29 years old. In 1948, their daughter, Kathleen, died in a plane crash in Europe in inclement weather. She was only 28 years old. Of course, on November 22, 1963, their son, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was only 46 years old. In 1968, on June 5, their son Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. He was only 42 years old.
On June 18, 1964, their son Edward Kennedy, better known as Ted, almost died in a plane crash. He broke his back, and the person sitting right next to him did die. Of course, on July 19, 1969, it was Edward Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, who drove his car off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, snuffing out the life of Mary Jo Kopechne.
It’s hard to believe that all these things could have happened to Joe and Rose’s children. And if there is a curse, it extended to the children’s children, for we have seen the death of the Kennedy grandchildren. We’ve seen a Kennedy grandchild die right here on the slopes of Colorado. Another grandchild died through drug overdose, and most recently JFK Jr. died in yet again another plane crash.
Some people say, “Well, the Kennedys play too hard and they live too fast. They take too many chances.” Other people say, “No, there’s got to be a Kennedy curse.” I cannot answer those questions, but I can tell you this: There is a curse. There is a curse of death, and it is upon all mankind. It is upon all the women and men of the world, the curse of death, and you read about it in Genesis, chapter 3. All of humanity is cursed because of sin, and that curse of death is upon us all. If Christ tarries long enough, each of us in this room will, at some point, die. But the Bible tells us Christ took the curse of death upon Himself on Calvary’s cross where He shed His blood in substitutionary atonement for you and for me.
The Bible tells us that when we receive Christ as Savior and Lord, death loses something of its sting. I Corinthians 15. The Bible tells us that when we embrace Christ as Lord and Savior, He gives us everlasting life. Jesus stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and He said, “Lazarus, come forth” and the dead man came forth because Jesus Christ is the Firstborn from the dead, the prototokos. He has authority over death. And Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, thou he die, yet shall he live, and he who lives and believes in Me will never truly die.” And so, Christ is the hope of the world, and He is my hope, and I pray He is your hope.
As we close, Paul said one other thing about Christ and His nature. He also described Christ in relationship to the church. He said of our Lord Jesus Christ, “He is the head of the body, the church.” The word for head there is the Greek word, “kephale.” This word’s primary meaning is your literal physical head. Its secondary meaning is metaphorical, and it refers to head as authority. Its tertiary meaning is also metaphorical and refers to head as source, as we speak of the headwaters as the source waters. In saying that Christ is the head of the body, the church, Paul is speaking metaphorically, and he is saying Christ is the source of the church’s life and He has all authority over the church, all authority.
The church has sometimes abused that authority. On July 15, in the year 1099, 20,000 Christian knights completed a 3-year journey and arrived at the city walls of the holy city of Jerusalem. Those 20,000 Christian knights had come to invade the holy city that they might recapture the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and return it to Christendom. And so that day they stormed the city, and they literally butchered Jews and Arabs by the tens of thousands.
You might have noticed in the newspapers recently that just a few days ago, on July 15, 1999, on the 900th anniversary of that crusader victory in the city of Jerusalem, the 900th anniversary, 500 evangelical Christians they completed a 3-year journey wherein they retraced the journey from western Europe that the Christian knights had taken 900 years before. And on July 15, 1999, they arrived at the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Those 500 evangelical Christians, just 10 days ago, went into the holy city to repent and to ask the forgiveness of Arabs and Jews. They brought letters of repentance from the Roman Catholic Church, letters of repentance from the United Methodist Church, from the ELGA (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), letters of repentance from the PCUSA. Letters of repentance from the Christian world. And why was that? Why did these evangelical Christians do that? They did that because they realized that in the name of Christ they had perpetrated atrocity (or Christians had, the church had) 900 years earlier. They realized that in doing that, they had defied the authority of Christ Himself, who is the head of the body, the church.
You can look at church history and you can see countless times when the church, the body of Christ, has denied the authority of Christ and acted unilaterally and sinned. This was true in the Inquisition. This was true in Calvin’s Geneva Experiment. It’s been true time and again.
This church, Cherry Hills Community Church, longs to be faithful to Him who is the head of the body, the church. We long to be faithful to Christ. I know you, as believers in Christ, long to be faithful to Him who is the head of the body, you long to be faithful to Christ. It is a miracle of Christ that His church still thrives today. Why does the church of Jesus Christ still thrive today? Because Jesus Christ said, “I will build My church and the powers of hell will not prevail against it,” because He is the head of the body, the church. And by His authority, He prospers it.
I spoke yesterday to our new members class in the new gym, 140 people. I told them about the plaque as you enter our worship center. As you enter our building, you look to the left and you see that plaque on the wall. It quotes Matthew, chapter 16, beginning with verse 13. “I will build My church and the powers of hell will not prevail against it.” It’s Christ who builds the church.
I do not believe those new members came by accident, and I don’t believe you’re here by accident today. You might be able to articulate many reasons why you joined this church, but in my heart I know it’s only Christ because He builds His church and it’s His church. It’s not my church. It’s not the staff’s church. It’s not the elders’ church. It’s not even you, the congregation’s. It’s not your church. It’s Christ’s church. We are to live for Him. We are to honor Him with every breath we draw.
And so, we have this Christological passage where Paul tells us that Christ is the icon of God and the pleroma of God. He is the image and fullness of God. We have this Christological passage where Paul tells us that Christ is the Creator, that all things were created through Him and for Him. We have this Christological passage where Paul tells us that Christ is the Firstborn from the dead. He has authority over death itself. He is the giver of eternal life. He is the resurrection in the dead. We have this passage which tells us that Christ is the great head of the body, the church. He is our Savior and Lord. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.