2016-07-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
After focusing on how Jesus Christ is the Source of the hope of the resurrection for us, in COL 1: 5 and the importance of His Gospel story to our lives (6), we continued to see how He is the manifestation of God’s grace. Without His Atonement, there would be no justification [RO 4: 3], eternal forgiveness [1 JN 1: 9], or salvation (redemption) [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25]. His life is the paradigm of worthiness for us to follow [COL 1: 10], and Christ rescued us from the dominion of darkness (13). We are now ready to carefully examine COL 1: 15-20, one of the clearest descriptions of Who Jesus is we have in the Scriptures.
COL 1: 15, “He is the image of the visible God, the Firstborn over all creation.” Long ago I was asked by some new Christians: What is the Trinity? This is a very basic question that some of the seekers ask in secured computer chats that come in for the organization for which I work, In Search of Shalom. [Shalom means “peace” in Hebrew]. Our God is One [DT 6: 4-5] and has three personalities. The Father is unknowable by humans and can’t be seen. This is the Decision-maker and Policy-setter of the three. He, like all the three personalities, has multiple names, each describing His attributes and deeds. Yahweh, Jehovah, Adonai, Almighty, Creator, and Most High are some of them. Our senses are not capable of perceiving God, but we can sense His presence and perceive what He has created [RO 1: 18-20]. Jesus, Who is described in COL 1: 15, is the one and only begotten Son of God. Because of this, God’s sacrifice of Him on the cross for us is a huge factor in both our earthly and eternal lives. Jesus was visible to us, having taken on human form, but is partly divine and partly human at the same time. The entire Trinity breaks through the limits of Newtonian physics and Einsteinian relativity; the Trinity is supernatural. Jesus, as with all the personalities of God, lives among us and in heaven at the same time. He is referred to by numerous names too, e.g. Yeshua, Lord, Rock of our salvation, Christ, great High Priest, Savior, and Prince of Peace etc. And finally, there is God’s third personality, the Holy Spirit, Who is God’s mouthpiece on earth and Who dwells in the souls of believers. The Holy Spirit is our Teacher, the One Who lets us know what God’s will for us is and Who supplies God’s advice in decision-making for us in response to prayer. He too has multiple names, e.g. Spirit of God, the Gift, Voice of the Almighty, Spirit of counsel and power, Spirit of holiness, and Spirit of Sonship (adoption), to name a few.
Jesus is the Firstborn over all creation. JN 1: 1-5, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.” What we must understand is that Christ, as the Firstborn, existed before any human or angel was ever created. Our God in all His three personalities is self-existent. Christ was involved in the creation of all things on earth and in heaven. It’s not coincidental that He is referred to here as “the Word,” and we can take this to mean that whatever He has said in the Bible is true, in conformity with the definition given in HE 4: 12. He and all the personalities of God are omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (present everywhere all at the same time). All of these qualities make Jesus supreme and sovereign [HE 1: 3, 6; DT 32: 43] over every aspect of our lives. Because of these qualities, Christ’s teaching gives us the power to bring the light (truth) of God to expunge the darkness of the evil one.
Because Christ atoned for our sins (including the original sin –GN 3: 1-6, great blessings are available to believers in Him, which were never before available with only the Law given. The greatest blessing is ability to gain eternal life. This is sweet and eternal fellowship with God after our physical deaths. This is victory over spiritual death, as described in 1 COR 15: 52-58. HE 2: 14-15, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He [Christ] too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Remember that spiritual death is a one-way ticket to hell, which can be described as conscious and eternal torment from which there is no escape. Instead, we who believe in Jesus Christ can eagerly anticipate eternal and sweet fellowship with our Lord and all those who have gone to heaven before us. By the righteous use of His power to do good, our Lord Jesus gives us great hope, as well as a Paradigm to live by. His wisdom knows no bounds.
COL 1: 16-17, “For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or ruler or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” The extent of his power is beyond human perception. In all the years this author has studied the Bible, our need to worship Christ, to respect the impact of His sacrifice on the cross for and on us, and our need to thank and praise all three personalities of the Trinity for their presence and intervention in our lives is abundantly apparent. Our lives would be useless and wanting without our Deity [JN 15: 5]. We are urged to keep all of this in mind and to spend our lives getting to know God better and serving Him with distinction.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have called us to faith in Jesus Christ, openly and genuinely professed and with sins confessed. This is not an easy life, but it is one lived righteously. The love You have in Your heart for us was first seen in GN 3: 21, when You dressed Adam and Eve in the pelts of animals, whose blood was spilled in the first promise of forgiveness for sin. LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22 remind us that life is in the blood, and blood must be poured for forgiveness. You first gave us the Law, which helps us to know what pleases You and what doesn’t [EX 24: 7-11]. This is recalled with the Jewish festival of Shavuot. Later, You sacrificed the physical life of Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross to atone for mankind’s sins. Three days later, He was brought back to Your side in heaven, being brought from death to eternal life, as the “Firstborn among many brothers” [RO 8: 29]. This brought us justification, salvation, and eternal forgiveness, annually recalled at Easter. Dearest Father, we rehearse this history, so that You know we acknowledge Your heart and accomplishments on our behalf. We thank and praise You forever for the Law and for Christ’s Atonement. We offer You our utmost love and adoration for Who You are to us, for entering into a covenant relationship with us, and for Your presence and intervention in our lives. With You, Christ and the Holy Spirit are the greatest Being our lives can have. We utter these sentiments in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I am led to continue writing about how we can get better acquainted with Who Jesus Is, found in COL 1: 18-20. In the meanwhile, our understanding of the Trinity is enhanced by EPH 2: 19-22. With our adoption into the family of God (which will be further discussed next week), we gain perspective on the relationships in this passage. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners or aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief Cornerstone. In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit.” This passage has ramifications in every aspect of our lives! That’s how important it is to us. We have a responsibility to know and do the will of God. Our way to do this is through prayer and through study of the Scriptures, His word. I call prayer: Two-way communication between man and God, in which God gets to speak first. Prayer is powerful and needs to become a habit in our lives. In the same way, daily study of the Scriptures, including time in between readings needs to become a habit, time to meditate on any lessons or messages God has for us in them. I call these weekly messages I write “devotions,” because I feel the desire to encourage all of us to adore God this way. Moreover, I feel the urgency to obey Christ’s own words in MT 28: 19-20, “Therefore go an make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Praise and thanks be to our Lord, Jesus Christ!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 14: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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