Christ Firstborn from the Dead (Col. 1:18)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/24/2017 9:02 PM

My Worship Time                                                               Focus: Christ Firstborn from the Dead

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Colossians 1:18

            Message of the verses:  “18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”

            Looking back to our last SD I mentioned that today’s SD would be a bit longer than the one we did yesterday, but I made a mistake in saying that.  The following is what John MacArthur writes on this subject of Christ being the firstborn from the dead:  “First-born again translates prototokos.  Of all those who have been raised from the dead, or ever will be, Christ is the highest in rank.”  That is all he writes but I have decided to look at some of the things that are found in his sermon from 1975 that he spoke on this subject as it is an important thing for us to understand.  The reason that it is important is because when we see the term “firstborn” there are those who contend that Jesus Christ came into existence when He was born at Bethlehem on what we call Christmas day.  Of course that is not what this section means at all as we have studied enough in our recent Spiritual Diaries from different books of the Bible including Colossians to show that Jesus Christ is the God/Man, the eternal God who created the earth and all the universes that we can see or those we cannot see.

            Now in listening to this sermon from MacArthur I learned that those who were making trouble in the Colossian church believed that Jesus Christ was just One of the angels that God created and this letter to the church was showing them that He is the eternal God as I already mentioned and being first born does not in any way negate the truth of who Jesus Christ really is.  Let us look at the second Psalm for a moment “1 Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!" 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. 5 Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury, saying, 6 “But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain."

    7 “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ’You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.”  Now verse seven takes place when Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and I know that for a long time I thought this meant when He was born at Bethlehem, but this speaks of after Jesus had done His work on the cross and the Father accepted the work that He did and this we see what our verse tells us that He is the firstborn, the highest in rank who has been raised from the dead.  Now we know that when Jesus was on earth that He raised people from the dead, but they all died again.  In Matthew we read that there were people who came out of their graves when Jesus was resurrected from the dead, but all of them died again too.  Jesus Christ is the only One at this time who has been raised from the dead and continues to live.

            Ok in our next SD we will finally finish looking at this verse when we look at “Christ is the pre-eminent One.”

1/24/2017 9:22 PM