Knowledge of Gods Will and Giving Thanks

So, to sum up so far, Paul's introduced himself, as he usually does, as an apostle of Christ, and he goes into a a long prayer sort of outline. He's not really praying, but he gives the Colossians things that he, when he's in Rome, stuck in Rome, he'll pray for.

And I'm reading from my notes here, because my head is still in a little bit of a cloud. That he'll pray for, he's thankful for their qualifications, for their inheritance of the saints, and what they have laid up in heaven for them. But look at verse 9, he gets to a point where there's a purpose clause, that, the word that, that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So that's what he's getting at. He wants them to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because, as you know, they're getting these Gnostic guys coming in and wreaking havoc with their faith.

So Colossians ends up, we aren't there yet, but Colossians does end up being a big treatise on the positional truths. And we'll get into that. He's not there yet, Paul isn't there yet, but he's getting to that point. He'll get there in like chapter 2, which we'll see, but right now he's giving them this long prayer outline of what he's thankful for, for the Colossians faith. And he's trying to get them to put their focus back on who Christ is, away from the stuff that they've been hearing about angels and hierarchies of angels, and back on to Christ.

But Colossians is a massive treatise on the positional truths, isn't it? When we get into it, we'll see that. And I'm always wondering, How come you never hear, out there in the world, the position union truths, or the identification truths? If it's all of Colossians.

Does anyone... I don't know. It's just not... So what we are, we're in doctrine, and we aren't in the application section yet. We'll get there. but right now he's just he's still on his sort of introductory introductory phase of Colossians um but what and it was Bob last week right there was uh what first is it uh 13 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, verse 13, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And there's only one person in the universe who can transfer a person from one kingdom, one spiritual kingdom, to another spiritual kingdom. And that's an amazing verse. It really is.

It's one of my favorites. what happens with he's giving this prayer and then he mentions the kingdom of his beloved son and I want you to take note of he switches gears there Ron Merriman calls it he goes into a ramble Ron Merriman says it's a big ramble verse 15 through about verse 19 or 20 he just goes off from his prayer modus, or outline, and then he veers off, if you've ever taken a quick exit off of a highway that you weren't expecting to do, that's sort of what he does, and then he just goes into this big delineation of who Christ is, and that's our subject for today, verses 15 and 16. Because if you bracket verse 16 through about 19 as this ramble or this non sequitur, Verne Peterman says that it could be an actual song that was popular in that day. Because this section has repeated phrases and things like that, that makes it musical. just because it's stuck in there so it's either a ramble or like a song an early christian song so you can take your pick of what you think what you think it is but in the greek interlinear and you look at it you know they take out all the english what do they do you read the inner linear and they don't make it flow in English so well. It's a word for word translation. Yeah, so it's helpful but it's not too gourmet. But you really see how this section is disjointed from the rest of what he's been at.

So with this section, 15 through about 19, is the longest Christological kind of a statement in the New Testament, a statement about who Christ is. And I was thinking, if it's the longest in the New Testament, what about the Old Testament? There's no statements about Christ in the Christological sections about Christ in the Old Testament, is there? But there is, I think, one, Isaiah 53, which is really long. That's what I think they mean by limiting this to just the New Testament, because what the commentators have in mind is Isaiah 53.

Okay, so, verses 15 through about 20, Paul is trying to, he's tackling a couple things. First, he's tackling, rhetorically, he's tackling the Gnostic gospel, I guess it could be called, false gospel, about that there are no emanations of angels from God. There's no hierarchies. There's no secret knowledges. Gnostics have these, you have to get in the club and you have to learn the secret knowledges. You have to make contact with certain angels to sort of progress.

And he's going to obliterate that with this section right here. He's going to lay it all bare. He's going to say this is who Christ is. He created the world. He reveals everything. Whereas the Gnostics would keep everything secret, right? But Paul lays it all bare here. There's no secrets in Christianity. Everything that we need to know is put out there. The mysteries are actually revealed. I'm going to lay it all out there.

So Paul in this section is recalibrating or refocusing their attention from this sexy Gnostic stuff back to who Christ is and his supremacy over all creation, that he's the head of all things, that he's before everything, that there's nothing that's above him.

So that's what we're doing this morning. So I have this chart and we'll put this up on the web and I could probably... They create a PDF copy and we can make copies. Oh, and then you could get it next week when I'm not here and you say... So I'll do that next time. But I just have the presentation up here for today.

So, verse 15 starts a section where he's giving the Colossians who God is. He is the invisible, he is the image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn of all creation. Then if we skip to verse 17, he is before all things, he is the head of the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead. So you notice those five enes, e-i-m-i, Greek status quo verb, and you might, if you want to, later on, you should circle those little is's in this section, because it's important, because what it does is it gives Christ's essential essence, And then if you notice on the other part of the chart here, I put down Christ, who gives six or eight, if you count them, some ennemies of his own. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door of the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way and the truth and the life. And they're not parallel sections, but it's Paul saying who Christ is, and it's Christ saying who himself is, all from the Gospel of John.

And what is a status quo verb? Anyone want to define that? Yeah, yeah. Or the state of how things are, how things exist. The way it is. But with Christ, it's the way it was, the way it is now, and how he will be in the future. It's eternity, from eternity to eternity. Okay. Now, what the Five Enemies are not is Five Emus. And I just hat-tipped a Vern there. You know, that's something Vern would throw up there. Uh-oh, did I skip one here? Let's see. Okay. So, Frith 15.

He is the image of the Invisible God. The Greek word for image is icon e-i-k-o-n in Greek it's a faithful likeness but as Wyss puts it it's not like an egg with another egg they're exactly alike they're like each other or pen is one pen is like another pen you can't tell them apart the word icon the the generation, the second one, has to originate from the original, or has to come out of the original. Icon, in today's world, like a photocopy, is what is an icon because you're taking an original, making a photocopy of that original.

I have a dental, I think a dental impression would be a good example. You know how you go into the dentist and they put, and then it comes out and they can give you braces or give you a night guard. It's the exact image of your jaw and how your teeth line up. And it has the idea of prototype in it.

You'll see that Macaulay says it's best to say that God is Christ-like. And then I say that Merriman bests Macaulay and says that that I like Merriman's way of saying that because the Greek word icon is a little more than just a copy it's that Christ is the total manifestation of the totally invisible God and that God exhausts everything God is or Christ exhausts everything God is and Christ exhausts the fullness of God Christ is the expressed image of God, and he's the exact image of God. So that's what we're getting with this word image, which is icon in Greek.

A good example is Christ himself in John 14.9.

Philip says, Just show us the Father and we'll be satisfied. Can you just let us see him?" And Christ goes, you know, Philip, have I been with you so long that you don't know? How can you say that? You know, he who has seen me has seen the Father. So that's what Christ is getting at there. And it lines up with what Macaulay says there is God is Christ-like. And Christ is actually, he's perplexed that Philip doesn't understand this. It's kind of funny if you read it. He's just, because he's been expressing this for three years with them and he just doesn't get it.

The Godhead has steps, if you will. I know Christ, but if I get a little bit more spiritual, then I'll know God, and that'll be another step in my transcendental whatever. No. Scripture teaches, if we know Christ, we know all that we need to know about God. Right. Which is actually also the Gnostic kind of thing too, those steps up. Right.

It's pretty amazing. has had some good points to say on this and that is that in verse 15 how the Greek works out the little phrase and he is the image of the invisible God it's in Greek and I don't see it because I'm not a Greek guy myself but he says in Greek it's written so that In English it comes out, he is the image of God. I mean the invisible God. Or you could also say, he is the image of God who is invisible. So what it is, it's a restricted adjective. The adjective invisible restricts the noun. What is that in it's a restrictive? Attributive position of the article is what it is.

So he's Paul is Well think of what he's doing he's really trying to drill down of The invisible God he's he's putting a fence around that for these Colossian believers who who have all this Gnostic stuff kind of swirling around and with these emanations and angels and things like that. So it's interesting in the Greek, that's how it works out.

Okay, so we go on from that phrase to the firstborn of all creation. And he is the firstborn of all creation. Oops. There we go. Firstborn is prototakos or prototakos. if you wish, depending on what syllable you put the emphasis on. It can mean two things, first in time or first in rank, and what do you think it is in this case? First born, first in time or first in rank? Rank, yeah. You want to keep in mind that it's always usually first in rank when mentioned, especially of Christ. It can also even mean that one isn't even born. You don't even have to be born physically to be firstborn.

Psalm 89 says, I will make him my firstborn. my loving kindness in my loving kindness I will keep him forever and my covenant shall be confirmed to him kind of quoting the Davidic covenant but if you think about in the Old Testament about the idea of being firstborn you know was David Jesse's firstborn? no he was like number what 12 or 13 or something to where that Samuel got through all of his sons and said, don't you have any others? Well, I've got one other. Let's go call him up. Or Jacob, was Jacob Isaac's firstborn over Esau? No. So he wasn't born first, but he was... Jacob was the firstborn, right? Yeah, I get these Old Testament names confused in my head. I'm like, Jacob, Esau, Isaac. So I have to read this.

Or Ephraim and Manasseh. Manasseh was older. He was born first. But Ephraim was the one that his grandfather placed his right hand upon. So the idea of being firstborn is appointed. It's not naturally occurring. And in this case, Jesus Christ is both first in time and first in rank over his creation. He's prior to it and he's sovereign over it. We go now to Angona. I'm going to step away from the verse and I'm going to move on to verse 16.

We have, 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 by Him and for Him. And as you can see, I've crossed out two of the by's. and I've replaced them with in Greek what it's really getting at because there's three separate Greek prepositions in this verse even though by occurs twice and for it's actually, it should be unto Him. So if you read it, then kind of the way you might want to do this in your Bible sometime is cross out and put in, for in Him all things were created, both in heaven, 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 unto Him.

So the three prepositions are n, dia, and ice. For in, it's en, it's a n, and then for by, in English, it's dia, in the Greek, and then the word for, in the Greek, is ice, e-i-s. And it gives a very subtle difference about what Paul is getting at with this verse. And we'll look at it. And who is this?

This was Macaulay, who made this outline, which is really good. First of all, it says that he's the originator of all creation. So all the plans and the blueprints and the organization existed in Christ's mind way back in eternity past. So it was in Him, all this... the thoughts and plans of creation was in Him. And that's what that EN in the Greek is getting at. Secondly, we'll look at dia.

And that gives the connotation that he is the designer, builder of all creation. That all things were created through him. He was the general contractor, I guess, of all creation. He dreamed it up in the eternity past and then he took his blueprints and then he actually built it. And how did he build it? he just spoke it into existence. Thirdly, he's the owner of all creation.

And the word, the preposition ice, has a connotation of it's towards and or unto. So all creation moves towards or unto him. The creation goes out from Christ, goes out into the world, and then comes back to Him is what it really gets at. All things were created for Him, which gives Him ownership, doesn't it?

Maybe I was thinking it's sort of a boomerang effect. Did I put that up there? No, I didn't, but it goes out goes out into the world and comes back to him. Let's skip to, I need to skip to verse 17 to keep this, these three prepositions kind of going. There's a couple more.

He is before all creation. He's the predecessor of it. He came before it and that's the Greek pro, P-R-O. in verse 17, even though that's technically next week, but it kind of keeps the same, it's the same argument, so I want to go there a little bit today. This is Paul, again arguing the Gnostic notion that Christ is a created being in the stream of other created beings. So that preposition pro is very important. He's the predecessor of all creation. And then lastly, he sustains all creation.

He is a sustainer. The Greek word is sunistimi. And this is, we are again in verse 17, just skipping ahead just a bit today. He sustains it. So all things cohere or hold together and so that's what in this little in this little section that Paul is doing that's that's an incredible verse if you really think about it and you make it kind of the Greek sort of makes it pop a little.

What is the power that holds together like atoms and electrons and things like that? man calls it atomic force. Right. It's because you're calling something different. Right. It could be, I think it is, Christ himself who holds, and that's amazing to think of, that he holds the atoms and the electrons together. And think of it, think of how the universe on the atomic level If you go down, get small enough, there's actually vast spaces between atoms and molecules and things like that.

And he's the one holding that together. I think about the power. What man has learned through the atomic age, that power is so incredible that holds that together. When we actually split it, it's an incredible amount of power. who Christ is and his incredible power. There's so many amazing things. This passage is just... I've been thinking about that this last couple of weeks actually. Christ had to have allowed man to split that. Yeah, right. I was just thinking that. And had he not held everything else together, I think, you know, the fear was always, will it blow up everything? That's always a fear with man. Oh, like the whole earth and everything. It's held together, because man can't do that.

Or they think that the neutron collider will create a black hole or something. Yeah. Which I don't even know what you're talking about. So now I'm worried. Oh, a pen. Yeah, that's fine. There. The Hedron collider, gee. Now my nightmares will begin. And I was also thinking, you know, Christ was walking around the Sea of Galilee with his disciples for three years. And it's a lake, if you've been there.

It's not so big. And I was thinking, what if someone came around and knocked him out and put him in the trunk of their car? You know what I mean? Would the universe still hold together? Or, because he was unconscious... Well, that's the whole thing that people are struggling with, the fact that in his humanity, he was here on earth, moving around on earth, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he slept, he wept, he did all the things that man does, but then he was at the same time holding everything together, so how is that, you know, our minds kind of lose it, but how can that be? He's holding it all together, but he's suffering as a man suffers, so I don't have an answer.

I'd like to think when he died on the cross, there was an earthquake and there was a lot of shaking going on. And that had to have been from that very thing. Oh yeah, yeah. It was pretty big. So you're thinking that it was from the death and not... quite God the Father, causing an earthquake. Or another example is when he was on the sea and then he calmed the storm. I mean, who can do that? Yeah, just that in this, and he's a man, so he's God and man, but just in this one man that he was just, he had that power and that responsibility.

Yeah, it's amazing. So, to sum up this little section, he's the firstborn of all creation, the Praptakos. So he's the goal of all creation. He is the goal. He has rank. And out of his rank he creates. This is from Ron Merriman. So he has rank, then he creates, and now the creation extends itself back to him and gives him the glory which he rightly deserves.

That's sort of what this is going at. And I thought of this verse. Isn't this sort of, in the Old Testament, summing up what we have here in Verse 16, that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament above shows his handiwork. Day to day it utters speech and night unto night. It reveals knowledge and it goes on. That's sort of what it's saying. There's a parallel between these two things.

I also thought of this. familiar little point chart here, that his creation declares his glory, he shares his glory, and then it has, if you think about the boomerang effect, point number four, it comes back and he is glorified. So declaring His glory, revealing His glory, He shares His glory, and then comes back to Him from that ICE pronoun, E-I-S pronoun, He's then glorified.

One other thing I want to touch upon, sort of back up here, and Paul In this section, he says who Christ is in three realms. It's who Christ is in relation to God the Father, and as we looked at before, the invisible God, the invisible one, in relation to creation, and specifically the heavens and the earth, and then the visible and the invisible, and then, I didn't cover this yet, but He goes into thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities.

He also created that. So he goes into the angelic realms. There in verse 16. And then in, is it verse 18? he's who Christ is in relationship to the church he is the head of the church and you'll get there next week or the week after so that's just looking ahead but there's three realms being pointed out here of who Christ is in relation to God the Father in relation to creation and then in relation to the church let's zero in on these thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities here in verse 16.

And you'll know by now why Paul is addressing those specific things. Those are angelic authorities, and things that we don't know about in heaven. I mean, the order and rank, the real order and rank of angels, and there are, there's seraphim, cherubim, things like that. So, Paul is addressing that because, again, of this Gnostic idea that these angels have a special place, and that they're super powerful, or that they have rank above Christ himself, which they don't.

So that's why he's, I think that's why he mentions that specifically in that verse, is he's trying to knock that out of them. He's trying to knock that out of their their head. So, does it have any application to today, this verse? And I said, yes, it does.

And I just pulled a screenshot, I looked up angelic realms, and you can see from Google that you can get in touch with your spirit angel. Seven ways to connect with the angelic realm. in conscience-like news and knowing and understanding the Archangels. It's all the New Age stuff going on today. This section right here addresses if you've got people who you know or the world is into this stuff It's like anything to take your focus off of Christ.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And isn't that Satan's doing? Oh yeah, yeah, it's all Satanic. Satan has a big plan going on, and this is part of it. And he even uses Michael, the archangel, who's one of God's angels, but he's just throwing confusion in there. It's all confusion.

What does Paul say about this? Later on in Colossians, in chapter 2, we'll get there, but Paul says, let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and the worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. But if you notice that section which I underlined, he's specifically addressing this, right? And it's interesting that he says, hey, you guys don't know You guys don't know what you're talking about.

You don't know. Yeah, you have no idea. And that's why I say don't go there. Because you have no idea what... And we really don't. We have some limited knowledge of Michael and Gabriel. But not much after that. I mean, I remember... It wasn't too, too long ago, because it's stuck in my mind that I always thought I had a guardian angel or two. And I'd go around, oh, I have a guardian angel. But then, by scripture, I was like, oh, there's no, yeah, there's no appointed guardian angels to each of us, because we're in Christ. We don't need. And I just, right.

And I never thought about it before, but growing up, it just was in my head, and seeing My grandmother had this painting of a bridge, these two little kids on a bridge over this chasm, great chasm at night. And they're holding hands, walking across this rickety bridge. But there's this big angel kind of watching over them.

So it was just in my mind all of it. But I think within the last two decades, that got knocked out of my head. I was very disappointed. It doesn't want to acknowledge Christ. We have some angel watching over us, and he's doing this, and it gets us out of trouble. Or even saints. Yeah, saints. You know, it's weird. And those are popular TV shows that have angels showing up and doing stuff and helping people out. But they don't want to talk about the God of the Bible, what Christ has done, His magnificence. They want to talk about these angel things. It just shows you man's I know. He doesn't want the truth. He suppresses the truth. He pushes it down. I want that. What I want is this other fantasy world here. Yeah, but this section just really knocks that out.

And you can see him, and a lot of commentators saying he's trying to, and Vern had that point a lot too, he's trying to recalibrate their trying to get their head back on Christ as the head, and that's basically the whole theme of Colossians. But there is one angel that I think you'll all agree that you can admire, and that, can you see him? Clarence Oddbody, the angel of the second class?

That's the only one, because I... I'll never. He'll always have a special place in my heart. Yeah. And and bells, you know, every time you hear a bell ring, an angel gets his wings. So I think I think part of the problem is that translating angels is Yeah, sometimes it refers to actual, just people bringing something, yeah. Right, and I think when Paul mentions, because when he's talking about the angelic realm, he's always going to mention this thrones, dominions, rulers and principalities, because There's an hierarchy, God's hierarchy of the holy angels that he has, there's definitely that. But Satan, all the fallen angels, those he has ranked into, I think, He's ranked those, I'm sure there's powerful demons and I'm sure Satan has a hierarchy of fallen angels. So that's why there's, Paul calls them rulers and authorities and thrones and maybe some of them are dukes and some are kings and Satan himself is a very powerful angel.

So I thought of one visual about this section, 15 through about 19 or 20, Paul's method of his argument. It's so perfect against this Gnostic idea, and we've looked at it. He uses these special pronouns, and he uses these emis, five of them. And it's very clear when you get into it of who Christ is. And the visual I came up with was this. His argument is so effective.

It has the effect of a hydrogen bomb on the Gnostic gospel. You can see these little ships here in the And maybe a ship up here. Yeah, Bikini Atoll. And it's just so overwhelming, this argument about these angels and things like that. That's the visual I kind of had because Paul's argument here is so perfect. And so good. So, there it is. Alright, questions or comments about that?

So, in my Bible they do say, we're buying them all things we're created with. So, are you saying that in the original Greek, that it should not be buy, it should be sold? Well, yeah, that first buy, that there, it's what, yes, verse 16, that first buy is the Greek preposition en, n. So it's, and EN translates in English to in. So yeah, it's better, it's not that by, it's not that that's wrong, but it's better to translate that as in. For in him all things were created. Because he does, later in the verse he says, and by him, through him all things were created. So he's covering it in three different sort of ways. In, through, and, what was the third one?

Towards, or unto. He's covering all these bases that, yeah, because the English doesn't really, they use the word by for two different Greek prepositions, I think, sometimes. In would be, I think, right, Roger, the better, yeah. And then the second by is better if you, if you, this dia, so that's through, that second by, all things have been created by him and for him. that second bi down at the end of the verse is dia, d-i-a and you could also write or write it in in English all things have been created through him is what it's getting at but see in English they they just they just put in the I'm sure other translations have through there and other translations at the head of verse 16 have in instead of by, you know? But it's very, when you look at that, doesn't it sort of really crystallize? I especially like the end, when you translate it in, in 15, because it's in his, you know, in Christ's He had creation plan in him. Whatever was expressed or whatever came out, it was in him.

So it fits much better, I think, when we translate it with the original Greek. Yeah, so if you think of an architect like Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, he has all this, or whoever, whatever artist, or whatever you, Picasso, whatever. artists or composers, Beethoven, Mozart, you think of this stuff that's in their head, all these symphonies and then they write it all out, eventually they put it on paper and they create it, but these things are swirling in people's heads that are just fantastic. When you think of Beethoven and Mozart, So that's what he's getting at. It existed in his mind and he just dreamed it out.

It's hard to say but it was in his mind at one time before he actually created it. Yeah, yeah. But he's, yeah, but he's the only one. Yeah, he has no outside... He's the only one. Yeah, and that's a really good parallel passage too, is John 1 and the Logos and things like that. Same thing. It's amazing. And you could spend a lot of time on it. You could spend a whole study on all that stuff.

Great, so I think we'll close there. Let's close in prayer. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this study in Colossians and thank you that we could all Come here and gather and learn about you and we pray for the 10 o'clock hour and we just thank you for all our fellow beloved saints here at Holly Hills and we thank you for who and what you are. We pray that you'll give us guidance and wisdom this week as we go about our business and gather next week. In Jesus' name, Amen.