PT-2 "Intro to Colossians 1:15-19"

 

SPIRITURAL DIARY FOR 1/14/2017 10:58 PM

My Worship Time                                                        Focus:  PT-2 “Intro to Colossians 1:15-19”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Colossians 1:15-19

            Message of the verses:  “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 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. 19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,”

            One may wonder why it is that Paul would write all of these truths about the Lord Jesus Christ very near the beginning of the letter to the Colossians.  Well we know that Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter, and we know that Paul had never been to this church as it was founded sometime when he was ministering at Ephesus as we learned in our introduction to this book.  John MacArthur tells us why Paul was writing these things at the beginning of this letter.  “Much of the heresy threatening the Colossian church centered on the Person of Christ.  The heretics, denying His humanity, viewed Christ as one of many lesser descending spirit beings that emanated from God.  They taught a form of philosophic dualism, postulating that spirit was good and matter was evil.  Hence, a good emanation like Christ could never take on a body composed of evil matter.  The idea that God Himself could become man was absurd to them.  Thus, they also denied His deity.”

            One of the things that the Colossians did not understand was the necessity of the virgin birth which was eluded to in Genesis 3:15, one of the more important verses in all of Scripture as God is giving out judgment to Satan, who took on the form of a serpent which did not look like serpents we have today, and God also spoke of the judgment for the woman and for the man.  He says that there will come a day when the seed of the woman would bring forth a child, as the seed of the man was who passed on the sinful nature to all born of men.  Jesus was born to Mary who was a virgin in the truest state, and the Father was the Holy Spirit thus no sin nature was passed onto Him.  Because of this He was able to take our place on the cross to provide salvation to those who believed in Him as their Savior and Lord.

            As we look through the first three chapters of this letter that Paul writes to the Colossian church he confronts the Colossian heresy head on.  As we go through these chapters we will learn that Paul rejects their denial of Christ’s humanity as he points out that it is through Christ that “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9).  He also rejects their worship of angels in 2:18, and also their ceremonialism found in 2:16-17.  Then we will see that he emphatically denies that any secret knowledge is required for salvation as he points out that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as seen in 2:3.”

            The most important thing that Paul wants them to understand is that Christ is indeed God come in the flesh as this is a crucial doctrine that cannot be denied when one seriously studies the Scriptures.

            MacArthur concludes “In Colossians 1:15-19, Paul reveals our Lord’s true identity by viewing Him in relation to four things:  God, the universe, the unseen world, and the church.”  These are the topics we will be looking at in these very important verses from the book of Colossians.

1/14/2017 11:20 PM