Christ Above All

GOLDEN TEXT: “He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” —Colossians 1:17

COLOSSIANS 1:3-6, 9-20

PAUL informs us that “all things are of the Father and by the Son.” (I Cor. 8:6) A similar thought is expressed in I Corinthians 15:27, where we read, “When he saith all things are put under him [Christ], it is manifest that he [God] is excepted, which did put all things under him [Christ].” So when we read, as in our Golden Text, that Christ was “before all things,” and that by him “all things consist,” the Heavenly Father is excepted.

The 15th verse of the lesson expresses the thought plainly, saying of Jesus—who in his prehuman existence was the Logos—that he is now the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.” It is important to notice that in this statement Paul refers to Jesus as a “creature,” that is, a created being. In Revelation 3:14 he is described as “the beginning of the creation of God.”

Thus, when the Apostle John tells us concerning the Logos, the “Word,” that “without him was not anything made which was made,” the Logos himself is excepted; for he was the first, and indeed the last, of God’s direct creation. Having created the Logos, the Heavenly Father then employed him to carry forward all the remaining work of creation, both in heaven and on earth.

After reminding us of this original pre-eminence which Jesus in his prehuman existence occupied, Paul proceeds to explains that he has the same pre-eminence with respect to the “new creation,” of which he is the Head. “He is the Head of the body,” writes Paul, “the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence; for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.”

Through the Gospel of Christ there is revealed to us the opportunity of being partners with our Heavenly Father and with our Head, Christ Jesus, in the great work of reconciling the world to God. This is not because we have any worthiness of our own, but because the grace and power of God, through Christ, make us “sufficient” for this high position in his arrangements—“meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.”

In order to enter into this blessed partnership with our Lord it was first of all necessary that we be delivered “from the power of darkness.” Satan is the prince of darkness, and the prince of this present evil world. But God in his great mercy shined into our hearts by the Gospel and burst the bands of darkness by which we were bound as slaves to sin and death.

Paul adds that then we were “translated” “into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.” Many mistakenly suppose this to mean that the kingdom of Christ was established at Pentecost, and that it has been reigning in the earth ever since; but this is not the thought: it is merely that the preparation of the kingdom began at that time. In the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, those who have been “translated” into this embryotic kingdom are designated “children of the kingdom,” but they do not “shine forth as the sun” in that kingdom until the end of the age.—Matt. 13:43

During the age there has been an admixture of “tares” with the “wheat.” Not until the end of the age is there a separation, and this is followed by the exaltation of the “wheat” into the glory of the kingdom. The kingdom was “at hand” in Jesus’ day only in the sense that Jesus the King had come to die for his subjects, and to select from the world of mankind those who were to be honored with the great privilege—upon conditions of faithfulness in suffering and dying with him—of living and reigning with him a thousand years.

In the divine plan these are made so definitely a part of the kingdom arrangements that they are included with Jesus as the “firstfruits” of the resurrection. (I Cor. 15:23) James wrote, “We [are] a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:18) It is after this “firstfruits” class is resurrected and exalted with Jesus in the glory of the kingdom that the remainder of mankind—those who become Christ’s during the millennial age—will receive their opportunity for salvation.

Their salvation will be restoration to life as human beings on the earth. In verse 20 Paul speaks of the heavenly salvation of the church and also the earthly salvation of the world, saying that it is the divine purpose through the blood of the cross that Christ shall “reconcile all things unto himself; … whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.”

Our hope—the hope of all consecrated Christians during the Gospel age—is a heavenly one. It is the “hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel.” In Ephesians 1:10 Paul speaks of the things “which are in heaven,” and also “on earth.” It is only as we recognize these two salvations that the Word of God becomes harmonious.

QUESTIONS

Is the expression that Christ is “before all things” literally true?

How was Jesus the “firstborn of every creature”?

In what sense was Jesus the “firstborn from the dead”?

Are the members of the church a part of the “firstfruits”?

What did Paul mean by “things in earth” and “things in heaven”?

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