Sunday School Lesson: Seeking Reconciliation

Purpose: To discuss the cosmic significance of the person and work of Christ and its effect on us.

Scripture: Colossians 1: 15-23

Who and/or what is Jesus Christ?

From Adult Bible Studies:

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the season that "proclaims the comings of the Christ - whose birth we prepare to celebrate once again, who comes continually in Word and Spirit, and whose return in final victory we anticipate." During the next weeks we will sing and hear familiar carols. People all across the world will hail the Christmas holiday with parties, decorations, and greeting cards. But will these parties, decorations, and cards acknowledge who this Jesus is whom we call Christ? What does his birth and life, his death and resurrection, mean to us and for us?

Suppose for a moment that you encountered a couple of people who had just heard the name Jesus Christ for the very first time. Suppose these people asked you to tell them who Jesus is and what he means. If you had just five minutes to tell them what they needed to know, what would you say? Where would you start? What points would you include in your five minute introduction to Jesus Christ?

Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians from prison. This letter was to a church that was not founded by Paul and was never visited by Paul. The church was most likely founded by Paul’s fellow servant Epaphras.

Paul’s purpose in the letter to the Colossians was to head off a threatening heresy that had found it’s way into the church. The false teachings consisted of combining Christian beliefs with ideas from other philosophies and religions. This blending of thoughts and beliefs came to be known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism emphasizes "special knowledge" of spiritual matters and has become very popular recently. Gnostic beliefs have been popularized through "The DaVinci Code" and "The Gospel of Judas" and others.

While Gnosticism is never named in the Letter to the Colossians (there may have not been a name attached to this belief system until many years later), there are many clues in the text that indicates the false teachings:

It was clearly a heresy which attacked the total adequacy and the unique supremacy of Christ. No Pauline letter has such a high view of Christ or such insistence on His completeness and finality. Paul went out of his way to stress the part that Christ played in creation. Gnostics believe that material things (all matter including the earth and all creatures on it) are evil and only spirits could be good. Therefore, according to Gnosticism, an altogether good God could not have created the world.

This belief went even further to say that if matter is altogether evil that Jesus could not have possibly been the son of God and have had an earthly body. If Jesus were the son of God he would have had to be some sort of spiritual phantom. They believed that when Jesus walked, he left no footprints. Spirits can’t leave footprints, you know. This belief completely removes Jesus from humanity and makes it impossible for him to be the Savior of human beings.

Gnosticism attempts to be a highly intellectual approach to life and faith. In order to get to know God, one would need all kinds of secret knowledge, hidden passwords, etc. The Gnostics, or intellectual ones, were dissatisfied with what they considered the unrefined simplicity of Christianity, and wanted to turn it into a philosophy and to align it with the other philosophies which were popular at the time.

If faced with gnostic beliefs, how could you answer the question "Who or what is Christ?" in a way that would show the Gnostics their errors?

The Gnostics believed that Jesus was not unique but only one of many paths to God. The Gnostics believed that one sent by God to be the revelation of God to mankind could not have had a human body. Gnostics believed that there is no simple path to God. The simple truths of the Gospel were not nearly enough.

What was Paul’s answer to the question "Who or what is Jesus Christ?"

Col 1:15-20 ESV
(15) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
(16) For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.
(17) And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
(18) And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
(19) For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
(20) and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Let’s take Paul’s description of Christ and see how it responds to the Gnostic belief that Jesus was only one among many revelations of God and that, however great he might be, He was only a partial revelation of God.

Paul’s answer is loud and clear in his very first statement: Jesus is the image of God. This word image is translated from the Greek eikon. An image of God could be just a representation of God, but a representation, if it is perfect enough, can become a manifestation. When Paul uses this language, he declares that Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God. To see what God is like, we must look at Jesus. He perfectly represents God to us in a form that we can see and know and understand. Not "just one of many" manifestations of God like the Gnostics believe. No partial revelation. Just Jesus.

Let’s look at other thoughts about image or eikon as used in relation to the revelation of God:

We had a lesson not very long ago on Proverbs 8. Proverbs 8 deals with Wisdom. Wisdom is said to exist in eternity with God and to have been with God when he created the world. In the Deuterocanonical book The Wisdom of Solomon, Solomon says that wisdom is the eikon (image) of the goodness of God. Paul seems to say, "We have been taught (in Proverbs) that Wisdom is as old as God, that Wisdom created the world. Now Wisdom has come to us in human form in Jesus Christ."

What is the first mention of the image of God in Scripture?

Gen 1:26-27 ESV
(26) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. ...."
(27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Human beings were themselves created to be the eikon of God. That is what we were meant to be. According to Paul, Jesus not only shows us what God is, He shows us what we were meant to be. Humanity as God designed it. Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God and the perfect manifestation of what it is to be human.

What is, according to Paul, Jesus Christ’s relation to Creation?

The Gnostics believed that creation was brought about by some being hostile to God. They believed that creation was wholly evil and could not have been created by a good God.

Paul said that Jesus was the "first-born" of all creation. What exactly is meant by the word "first-born"?

If we read this word literally with our English definitions of first and born, we would think that this tells a time of Jesus being created or born, that Jesus was the first person to be created.

How can an eternal being be ascribed a time of creation?

"First-born" in ancient cultures was not necessarily the first born, but was the title of honor given to the most favored child. Solomon was not the first child of David to be born but was named the first-born and thus the heir of David. The nation of Israel was called the first-born of God, although there were other nations in existence before Israel. First-born is a title for the Messiah in Psalm 89:27. So, clearly, first-born is not to be thought of in a time sense at all, because, as Paul continues, Jesus was not the first of the creation, but was the creator, existing from eternity, before all created things, before any concept of time. This phrase, "first-born of creation" assures us that Jesus' teaching is not just an afterthought or something tacked onto God’s original intentions in creation. First-born does not refer to time at all, but to place or status. Firstborn simply means "of first importance, or rank." If we change the "for" at the beginning of verse 16 to "because" we see more clearly why Jesus can be given the title of firstborn, "Because by him all things were created...."

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Col 1:16 ESV
(16) For by him all things were created...

What was created by Him?

ALL things. What does "all" include?

Watch this passage of Scripture and see how many times Paul used the word "all"and synonyms for "all".

What do you think are the "invisible" things of creation?

What are some things that we cannot see, yet know they exist?

We cannot see oxygen, but we draw it in with every breath. We cannot see poisonous gases, yet that makes them sometimes all the more lethal. We cannot see thoughts and emotions, yet they sometimes control our very lives.

Scientists have determined that only 4% of the mass of the universe is made up of stars, planets, cosmic dust, and gases, much of which is invisible to the eye. But what about the other 96% of matter? 22% of this is made up of what scientists call "dark matter". Dark matter cannot be seen even with the most advance scientific equipment. Dark matter does not reflect electromagnetic radiation, but scientists know it exists because it creates a gravitational pull on visible objects. The remaining 74% of our universe is made up of what scientists call "dark energy", an even stranger component than dark matter. The visible things are actually only a very small portion of the "all" of creation.

What other relationships are there between Jesus, the creator, and creation?

It was for Him that all things were created. Jesus is not only the agent of creation, but also the goal of creation. Creation was created to be His, and in the worship and love of and by all creation, He will find His honor and joy.

Is it any wonder that the storms and waves obeyed Him?

What does the phrase "in Him, all things hold together" mean?

Not only is Jesus the agent of creation in the beginning, and the goal of creation in the end, but between the beginning and the end, during time as we know it, it is He who hold the world together.

Now read carefully all you scientifically minded people out there:

All the laws that govern and sustain order in the universe are an expression of the mind of Jesus Christ. The law of gravity and all the other laws by which the universe hangs together are not only scientific laws but also divine laws.

The Son is the beginning of creation, the end of creation, and the power that holds creation together, the creator, the sustainer, and the final goal of the world.

Can see why one of the commentaries that I read this week says that "probably no paragraph in the New Testament contains more concentrated doctrine about Jesus Christ than this one."

But we are just getting started.......

We’ve already asked who is Jesus and what is His relation to creation. Now let’s ask: What is Jesus to the church?

He is the head of the body. The church is the Body of Christ, the organism through which He acts and which shares all His experiences. Look at this in human terms. What is a body without a head? Dead. The body is in reality the servant of the head and is powerless without it. Jesus Christ is the guiding spirit of the church. It is at His bidding that the church must live and move. Without Him, the church cannot think the truth, cannot act correctly, cannot decide its direction. There are two things combined here. There is the idea of privilege. It is the privilege of the church to be the instrument through which Christ works. There is the idea of warning. If we neglect or abuse our bodies, what happens? We can make them unfit to be the servants of the great purposes of our minds. By undisciplined and careless living, the church can make itself unfit to be the instrument of its head, Jesus Christ.

Every Christian is a member of this spiritual body, and Jesus is the head.

He is the beginning of the church. What are two different senses of the word beginning?

There is beginning in the sense of time, and there is beginning as sense of priority, A is the beginning of the alphabet, 1 is the beginning of the series of whole numbers. In which sense is Jesus the beginning of the church? Both. Jesus is the originator of the church. The church had its origins in Him. As the source from which the church came, Jesus is the moving power which set the church in operation. The church had its origin in him, and today it has its operation in Him.

Jesus is the firstborn of the dead. Paul returns here to the event which was at the center of all the thinking and belief and experience of the early church, the resurrection. Did Paul say that Jesus was the first person to be raised from the dead? No, and He was not. But he was firstborn, the most important of those who have been raised. Christ is not merely someone who lived and died. Jesus is alive. Christ is not a dead hero who founded a movement, but a living presence in the church.

He is not only the beginning of the church, but has first place in everything. The resurrection of Christ is his title to supreme lordship. By his resurrection, He has shown that He has conquered every opposing power and that there is nothing in life or in death which can bind Him.

Four great facts about Jesus Christ in His relationship to the church: He is the living Lord, He is the is the source and origin of the church, he is the constant director of the church, and he is the Lord of all, by virtue of His victory over death.

We are still not finished with that paragraph...

What is Jesus Christ to all things, the whole universe?

In Him, the fullness of God dwelled. This statement took Paul’s argument directly to the gnostic believers. The word translated as fullness was the Greek word pleroma, a technical term in the vocabulary of the gnostic false teachers that meant "the sum total of all divine power and attributes." Paul used this word eight times in the Colossian letter in an attempt to meet the false teachers on their own ground. The gnostic believers would never accept that God would allow His pleroma to dwell (much more than merely reside, but to be at home permanently) in a created being. By telling these people that it pleased God to have his pleroma in Christ, Paul was in fact telling these people that Jesus Christ is in fact God.

And because He is God, what is He able to do that no man could ever do?

He could reconcile a lost, sinful world to God.

The object of Christ’s coming was to reconcile or reconciliation. What is reconciliation?

What do we do when we reconcile our bank accounts?

We check our register of the account against the banks register of the account to find any mistakes or omissions and correct them. The goal of the reconciliation is for the two registers to balance or agree.

So what does it mean that through Christ all things are reconciled to God?

First it means that there is a need for reconciliation. There was an imbalance that needed correction. The imbalance came through the separation of the will of man from the will of God. The natural mind of the unsaved sinner is at war with God.

How can a Holy God ever be reconciled with sinful man? Can God just close His eyes, lower His standards and make a compromise with man?

Reconciliation is mentioned in other passages of the New Testament, also, but never is there any mention of God being reconciled to the world. Every mention of reconciliation is of the world being reconciled to God and the initiative in reconciliation was with God. Because God so loved the world, He sent His Son. His object in sending His Son was reconciliation.

What was added to the account to bring it into balance?

The blood of Christ. The driving force behind the reconciliation was the death of Jesus Christ.

Who other than God could offer reconciliation to sinful man?

Was the reconciliation only for man?

No, it was for all things. There is that word all again. God’s reconciliation extends not only to all persons but to all creation: animate, inanimate, seen, and unseen. Not only did Christ come to redeem all people, but also all things.

How in that statement did Paul speak directly to the gnostics?

Remember the Gnostics regarded all matter as essentially and incurably evil, therefore the world is evil. But according to Paul, the world is not evil. This is God’s world. And as God’s world, it shares in the reconciliation offered by Christ. And through Christ we live in a redeemed world, where even inanimate objects are reconciled to God.

And now the second paragraph of our Scripture lesson which tells the aim of reconciliation:

Col 1:21-23 ESV
(21) And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
(22) he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
(23) if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

And what is the aim of reconciliation?

Holiness. The foundation of the Methodist movement.