Who is Christ?

We began analyzing this question of who by examining what the Bible, particularly Colossians chapter 1, has to say about who we are, about what our place in the world is, about who God is, about what God's place in the world is, and about whether the way that we live life, the choices that we make and the things that we do, the things that we say and the things that we think, are the best way or if there's another way. Many of our most important questions in life boil down to who questions. By examining Colossians 1 and the Bible in general, we found two groups of people: those who are apart from Christ, and those who are united to Christ. We are either people who, in our being, are apart from Christ, or we are people who, in our being, are united to Christ. We are either people who, apart from Christ, need rescue, reconciliation, and revelation, or we are a people who, knowing Christ, have been rescued, reconciled, and have had the purpose of our life revealed. Christ came to seek and to save the lost, to rescue, to reconcile, and to reveal life's purpose to the lost.

Who is Christ?

Whether we're apart from Christ or united to Christ, who is this Christ?

When you were little, you may have been asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? This question can change significantly by just replacing one word: Who do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up focuses more on the actions, your activity. What do you want to be busy with? What do you want to be busy doing as you contribute to society, as you live the life that God has given you? What do you want that life to be filled with? That now calls to mind questions of character, virtue, and attributes.

That for those of us who have come to know the Lord Jesus by faith, for we who once were lost but are now saved by faith, we who have been saved, we are now united to Christ. According to Colossians 1:28, we are growing up. We are maturing. We are being made complete. That's the word that's used there in Colossians 1:28. Paul and Timothy write, we proclaim Christ, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. Another way to translate perfect is mature or complete. It means to mature, to be ready, to be complete, to be all that it is, to be as it is intended to be. And that's what we as Christians are growing up to be. This is who we are growing up to be. We are growing up as God works in us. We are growing up. We are maturing.

Christ is the Invisible Made Visible

We are growing into this Christlikeness. We are growing into someone, not just into something, but into someone. What is it that we are growing up into? It's Jesus. We are growing up to be more like Jesus. Colossians 1:15-20 is a summary statement of who this Christ Jesus is. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the one who makes known that which cannot be otherwise known. He is the revealing. He is the revelation of the thing that was hidden. This is why Christ is oftentimes called the mystery of God, now made known. Christ is the image of the invisible God. If you want to know who God is, you need to look to Christ. He is the invisible, made visible. Then we see that he is the firstborn over all creation. Christ now holds the inheritance rights over all creation. Things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, anything that was created, all things that were created, they were created by him and for him.

Christ is Preeminent

Christ is the one who is preeminent. He is the firstborn in terms of inheritance rights. Everything is due to him. In the inheritance of the universe, Christ's name is the beneficiary of all things. He has inherited and owns all things. Indeed, all things were created by him and for him. Verse 16 starts with that concept and ends with that concept.

There's a list stating anything you want to name that's been created by him, and it was created for him. This speaks to Christ's presence as the second person of the Trinity at work in the beginning. And this is an important note for us as Christians that we are particular about, that we are focused on, that we don't ignore. We worship one God in three persons. And this one God in three persons was active in the beginning. That this second person of the Trinity, the blessed Son, the Christ, who took on flesh and dwelt among us, was active in creation.That he was there in the beginning. For his purposes. For after all, he is the firstborn. He's the inheritor of all things. And so everything is his. He is before all things, stating that he was there before anything else was. And in him all things hold together. So he was there to start all things. And now he is the great thing that holds all things together. Everything is dependent on something else.

You can think of this in a very simple way. The great dependence of all things. Everything is dependent. We can be very thankful and praise God for the independent things, but we are a part of a world that is very dependent. You have to plant bushes, trees, grass, and flowers into dirt. If you don't plant them in the dirt, they won't grow. They're dependent. Plants are dependent on being planted in the dirt and on the sun to shine on them. What happens to plants if they do not receive sunlight? Eventually they die. There's no life for them. They're dependent on it. They're also dependent on rain. All things are dependent on this one, this Christ. What Colossians 1 says of Christ is that he is the great one on whom all things are dependent. He was before all things. And in him all things hold together. Without him there's nothing.

Christ is the head of the Church

Colossians 1:18 tells us that Christ is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. He is the head of the body, the church. That speaks to who we are: that we are the body, we are the church, and Christ is the head of the body. The head directs the body. The body with no head has no life, and so the body needs the head to think and to move, to be directed, to know where to go, to know how to get there. The church, us, we who are united by faith to Christ, we are the body. And we are directed and guided by Christ, who is the head of us. There's no elder, there's no pastor, there's no deacon, there's no denominational staffer, who is the head of the church. There is no human position or human seat that is occupied by any so-called individual or so-claimed group that is the head of the church. Only Jesus Christ is the head of the church. This is who he is. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. It's not a claim that Jesus is the first one to ever rise from the dead. The scriptures speak to those in the Old Testament who rose from the dead.

So Jesus isn't sequentially the first person to rise from the dead. So what is this phrase firstborn in reference to? Well, we see it's in the same way as it was before. This is in reference to inheritance. That Christ is the inheritor. He is the firstborn who has rights and a claim over all, including those who have died. So that in everything he might have the supremacy. This is one of the ways that we are children of Abraham by faith. Because all who have faith have been saved by this Christ, even though they died many, many centuries before Christ. They would be redeemed by Christ, saved by Christ, and Christ would be their Lord. Just as we who live hundreds of years after Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension have been saved by Christ, redeemed by Christ, and he is our Lord. In the same way, Christ, he has supremacy over all. Or as verse 18 says, so that in everything, living and dead, he has supremacy.

He is the firstborn from among the dead. He has the inheritance rights. Any category that you want to come up with, Christ has supremacy. That was what Paul and Timothy, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were speaking about back in verse 16, talking about the created order of all things. Regardless of whatever powers or principalities or anything that you could possibly come up with, Christ is the one whom these things were created by and for.

Christ is the Great Peacemaker

Christ is God in fullness, who walked among us, who died, who rose, who ascended, and who reigns. Verse 20 says, and through him, through this Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. God has reconciled all things through this Christ, that Christ is the reconciler. Christ is the great peacemaker, as we read in the next clause of verse 20. That God has reconciled to himself all things. 

How? By making peace through Christ's blood that was shed on the cross. That just as God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in him, and just as Jesus said in the Gospel of John, I and the Father are one, just as God himself came and dwelt among us, so too also God has made peace with us by this Christ. This Christ who came, who lived, and who died, he has come to make peace through his blood that was shed on the cross.

So to the Jew and to the Gentile, to those of us who are here, who are apart from Christ, and those of us here who are united to Christ, Colossians 1:15-20 comes to us with pointed application for each of us, regardless of our background and regardless of our current present status. We can see how Colossians 1 comes to a Gentile audience, a Gentile audience who may believe in many gods, who may believe in many spiritual forces, who may believe in a whole pantheon and council and great universe filled with all sorts of spiritual beings. The Gentile who believes in many different gods, different powers, and many different deities, introduces Christ Jesus and says, regardless of what other principalities, regardless of whatever spiritual authorities, regardless of what other dominions, regardless of what other gods there may be, Christ is the supreme one.

He is not sitting at a round table, surrounded by other co-equal partners among the gods, as some claim. He is not some co-equal many-formed deity whom many know of, but know of him in different ways. No, Christ is the supreme one. He's the supreme one. He's the one who is over all. If it's real and if it exists, Christ was the one who made it, Christ is the one who sustains it, and Christ is the one who is supremely over it.

To the Jew who reads Colossians and who may have had some confusion or some disbelief that God could really come in the flesh, this passage comes to us and introduces Jesus in a very forward way: that Christ Jesus is God in the flesh, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. There's no room to say that there was an Old Testament God and a New Testament God. There is one God, and God in his fullness dwelled in Christ Jesus. There is no way to say that Christ Jesus is a new edition of God, a new update of God, a new person that once wasn't. He always was, for in the beginning he was there. For all things were created, whether the things in heaven or on earth, all things were created by him and for him.

He is before all things. The claim here and the introduction here of who Jesus is shows us that he was there even before the beginning. In the beginning there was something, but before the beginning there was this God, this God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. This is the one who came and walked among us. This is the one who died on the cross. To those of us who do not believe in Christ, this resume or this cover letter comes to us and says, the reason why you don't have peace in your life is that you don't know the one who is peace. The reason why you don't have settlement in your heart or lasting satisfaction in your life, the reason why you are discomforted, disquieted, and disturbed, is because you lack the peace of Christ. And there is no peace apart from him. The only peace that there is to be found in all of everything is a peace that comes under and submits to his lordship and to his supremacy.