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
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