PT-2 "Jesus Christ in Relation to God?" (Col. 1:15)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/16/2017 11:41 PM

My Worship Time                                                   Focus: PT-2 “Jesus Christ in Relation to God?

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Colossians 1:15

            Message of the verses:  “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

            Jesus Christ has always been the absolute accurate image of God, as this did not just happen at the incarnation, but has been this way throughout all eternity.  Jesus Christ reflects the attributes of God as the sun’s light reflects the sun.  Jesus Christ is the exact representation of God’s nature.  John MacArthur writes “Charakter (‘exact representation’) refers to an engraving tool, or stamp.  Jesus is the exact likeness of God.  He is in the very form of God (Phil. 2:6).  That is why He could say, ‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9).  In Christ, the invisible God became visible, ‘and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father’ (John 1:14).

            “By using the term eikon, Paul emphasizes that Jesus is both the representation and manifestation of God.  He is the full, final, and complete revelation of God.  He is God in human flesh.  That was His claim (John 8:58; 10:30-33), and the unanimous testimony of Scripture…To think anything less of Him is blasphemy and gives evidence of a mind blinded by Satan (2 Cor. 4:4).”

            Now we want to look at the last part of verse 15 which says “the firstborn of all creation.” And from the Arians who lived in the early church area until the Jehovah’s Witnesses of our own day as each of these groups and many others deny our Lord’s deity have tried to draw support from this verse.  There argument was that is speaks of Christ as a created being, and so He could not be the eternal God.  These people misunderstand the sense of the Greek word “prototokos” (first born) as they ignore the context.

            This word can mean firstborn chronologically as seen in Luke 2:7 “And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”  However the primary position of this is of “rank.”  In both the Greek and Jewish culture the firstborn chronologically was not the son who got the inheritance.  We can see this in the life of Esau and Jacob, as Jacob got the blessing from his father Isaac instead of Esau.  Let us look at Exodus 4:22 “"Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ’Thus says the LORD, "Israel is My son, My firstborn.”  Here as we see God calls Israel His firstborn son even though there were many peoples and nations before Israel.  Now we will look at Psalm 89:27 “"I also shall make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.”  This verse is speaking of the Messiah.  So we see that there are many times in the Scriptures that we see the word “firstborn” and it does not mean chronological order, but one in rank.

            There are many other reasons that show this in John MacArthur’s commentary and I think that I want to save them for our next SD, as I will quote some of this in that SD because of the importance of the subject.  You may run into one of these cults that speak of Jesus being a created being and you will need to be able to defend the truth of it as found in Scripture.

1/17/2017 12:06 AM