The preeminence of Jesus
Leader’s note: Against the backdrop of early questions about the nature of Christ as fully God and fully human (i.e. whether he was elevated to divine status only by his followers), the second half of chapter 1 in Colossians set out to settle this issue for all time; not as a dogma to blindly swallow, but by explaining why Jesus could not have been the promised Messiah (gr. Christ) if he were not both fully human and fully God. To do so, Paul precisely followed the lines of a prophecy in Isaiah 42:1-9 about the True Servant Israel as a person of the Trinity (which also predicted that Messiah himself will not cry aloud in the streets of Israel who He truly is (Isa 42:2), but that He will instead become a new covenant for the Gentiles, Isa 42:6).
Warm-up: What do you expect of witnesses for them to have any credibility?
Read: Colossians 1:15-23
1) What could have prompted Paul to witness about Christ’s preeminence here?
- i.e. what alternative ideas about Jesus were going around in Colossia? Col 2:3-4, 8-10
- What if less than the whole fullness of deity were in Christ (3:9)? What would this imply about God, the gospel, Christianity, etc.?
2) vv15-17: In what sense is Jesus “…the image of the unseen God”? cf 2Cor 4:4; Heb 1:3
- In the sense of a sketch, or a copy, or the full manifestation? Jn 14:9; Ro 8:29; 1Cor 15:49
- Did he only become God’s image at His incarnation? Why not?
- What did change with His incarnation? Jn 1:14; 1Pet 1:20
- “firstborn”: In what sense? i.e. what distinguishes Him from “all creation”: The timing when He was created? Or that He was never created at all, but always existed?
- How does v16 answer this question? Hint: If v15 were saying that Jesus was created (Arianism), how would such a claim contradict v16?*
- v17: How else must Christ have existed “before all things”, if He was never created? cf Jn 8:58; Ex 3:14
2) vv18-20: In what sense is Christ “…the beginning, the firstborn from the dead“?
- The beginning of what?
- Did Paul only repeat what he already said in v15?
- Or does the context in v18 now zoom on the beginning of something else than the universe?
- How did He become preeminent also in God’s new creation?:
- How is He the ‘firstborn’ from the dead? cf Phil 2:8-9 [not the first who was raised, but preeminent also among them]
- v19: If less than the fullness of God would dwell in Christ, what difference would it make? cf Col 2:8-9
- How does v19 challenge the idea that a divine status of Jesus was a late invention of his followers?
- Read Isa 11:1-2, 42:1-3, and Mt 12:15-19. How did already Isaiah speak of three persons in the one God?
- Paul’s idea that the completeness of the godhead “pleased to dwell” in Christ comes from Isa 42:1. According to Isaiah (42:2-9), what causes God’s delight in Christ?**
- How does v20 summarize Isa 42:4-9?
- How does the blood of Christ overcome our hostility and reconcile us to God?
3) vv21-22: Why was it necessary that God became fully human? i.e. why was our reconciliation not possible without His incarnation? cf Ro 8:3; Gal 1:4
- What made us “hostile in mind” against God in the first place, v21? cf Ro 8:7; 1Cor 2:8
- Why can’t we be blameless before Him (gr. katenopion, lit. in His gaze that sees everything) if we are not truly reconciled to Him? cf Ps 5:5-7
- What has this to do with being presented (lit. placed beside Him) blameless in His sight?
4) v23 “…if indeed you continue…”: What is the promise (v22), and what is the condition? cf Heb 3:6
- Why is “…hope of the gospel that you heard” a condition? Hint: Why is hope in any other gospel a false hope, bound to disappoint?
- If someone does not “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast…”, what is at stake?
5) To the Colossians, Paul proclaimed Christ’s preexistence and preeminence as a fact. Did he think that everyone should accept it simply on his auhority? v24
- Is the truth of his words self-evident? Why or why not? cf Jn 1:5-7; 2Cor 4:5-7
- Rather than citing the Old Testament (like e.g. in Hebrews), how else did Paul use Scripture (here from Isa 42)?
6) Personal & application
- The gospel which the Colossians had heard was the one Paul had brought to them. How do you ensure that your hope is of the same gospel? v23
- Every false gospel either teaches salvation by less than faith in the real Jesus which thus becomes salvation by works, or faith in Jesus plus something (i.e. faith+works). Which one infiltrated the Colossians? 2:16-19
- What would you think or do if your church would want to call itself e.g. Church of The Full Gospel, or Church of True Monotheism?
- Questions about the Trinity and Christ’s divine versus human nature among the Colossians caused theological schisms for centuries. Why? cf 1Jn 4:3
- If you would have lived before the 3rd or 4th century, how would you have responded or taken sides, and why?
* Arianism and all its offshoots, including Islam and every other form of Unitarianism claim that Jesus was only a preeminent creation and therefore less than fully God. However, the statement that everything was created through Christ and for Christ proves that Paul intended to make it clear beyond doubt that Christ always existed. The Arian reading of v15 is impossible, because it implies that Christ would have had to create Himself through and for Himself, which would be absurd.
** According to Isaiah, God delights in Christ (Mt 3:17; 12:18; 17:5) because of Christ’s selfless love for the ones He was sent to redeem through a new covenant (42:6) that inaugurated the new creation and the passing away of the old (42:9) through his death and resurrection.
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