FIRST PLACE IN EVERYTHING

“He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.” (Colossians 1:18 HCSB)

There were always a few kids in school that seemed exceptional.  While there were some nerdy kids who made straight A’s, they couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time (had chewing gum been permitted back in those days).  You wanted them around if you needed help with your homework, but you didn’t want them on your kickball team.  Then, there were those jocks that could run fast and jump high, were strong as a rock and as dumb as one.  You could sit beside them during a test and never be tempted to copy their paper, but if you wanted to win in touch football on the playground, you better pick them.  A lot of elementary school students were like me—our strong suit was mediocrity.  Then, there were the few—the best and brightest.  They made straight A’s and could also make free throws.  They hit homeruns in classroom assignments and on the baseball diamond.  They always seemed to wear the best clothes, were the most popular, the most likely to succeed, having impeccable poise and politeness…ad infinitum.  We called them, “teacher’s pets.”

But, rare as boys and girls like that were—superlative above all others—they were mere mortals.  They were not perfect.  None of us are.  Some of us are less perfect than others. 

Yet, there was the One, the Only, He who was perfect in every way, who is “to have first place in everything.”  He is incomparable.  Take the most brilliant mind of any other genius in history and His intelligence would be far greater than the mental level of an Einstein would be above an amoeba.  Find the most eloquent writer who ever put print to paper or gifted orator who mesmerized the masses with a speech and he or she would appear to be a monkey with a crayon, howling in a tree, compared to the wisdom of His words.   Find the most skilled physician, and he or she would not have the ability to bring healing as He did—that by the touch of His hand opened blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears, made the mute to talk, the lame to walk, restored missing limbs, reattached a severed ear, cleansed the leper and even raised to life a man dead and entombed for four days!  Stand the world’s strongest man on the beach as a storm roars ashore and have him stop the wind and waves by the force of his will—that’s not going to happen.  But, One did by just commanding the tempest, “Peace; be still” and it did.  Line up the greatest men and women of history—you will have to dig them up to do so—and they would not be like this One who died and three days later flexed his lifeless limbs in a sepulcher sealed with a massive stone, secured by armed guards, and shattered the shackles of death that held Him.  This dead Man sat up on the slab, stood up on the floor, took the Grim Reaper by the throat and choked the power out of him.  Satan could not stop him and the demons shrieked in despair.  Even so, such descriptions exhaust human vocabulary to convey and human intelligence to conceive—such is the degree of superiority above any other born of woman which He merits.

He is Christ, the One and Only who claims and deserves first place in everything.  He is Lord of all.  This Jesus was and is and forever will be preeminent!  The Spirit testifies to this ultimate reality through the pen of the Apostle Paul.  It is his theme in Colossians.

CHRIST IS PREEMINENT IN HIS PERSON as portrayed in chapter one.

The central truth in Colossians is found here, “He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.” (v.18)

The Apostle begins by praying the church will have knowledge, wisdom and spiritual understanding—it surely is needed—in order to grasp and grow in the knowledge of God and His work in His Son.  My brain circuits begin to smoke as I try to process the marvel of the preeminence of Jesus Christ!  If I cannot grasp all that He is, at least may I be grasped by the wonder of His person and respond in worship!  No wonder we will need the endless expanse of eternity to explore the majesty of an Infinite Being!

Read it again and soak it in:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For everything was created by Him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.  He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.  For God was pleased [to have] all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile everything to Himself by making peace through the blood of His cross —whether things on earth or things in heaven.” (1:15-20)

You expect me to expound that?  If every volume of every book that has ever been published, had each page devoted to explaining this text, we would need double, triple that—and much more—to even begin to explain His fullness—the very fullness of God!  At this moment it seems like an elusive attempt akin to talking about the masterpiece of Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, reducing it to a description of the kind of hair used for the paintbrushes and the ingredients in the pigment of the paint, along with how the scaffolding was assembled to lift the artist above that he might adorn the ceiling.  NO!  You just look up and marvel at it!  Still that is but as a toddler finger-painting compared to the Masterpiece of the Master of the Universe!  Be overwhelmed by this One and Only—first place in everything!  Look up and worship!

CHRIST IS PREEMINENT IN HIS PEOPLE as presented in chapter two.

“For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by Him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” (2:9-10)

Staggering truth this!  We have already sought to comprehend the incomprehensible and measure the immeasurable—and now we are told that all this fullness has been poured into earthen vessels—His Church for which He died to establish and now is building with His Almighty hands.  All that He is—and that is all there is—is now our birthright as the people of God.  All the Preeminent One did has been to elevate us to sit by His side and reign with Him!

I cannot claim to be the author—I first heard Bible teacher John Phillips say it (and he may not have originated it, either)—but, I never tire of repeating it: “The infinite became an infant; the Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God.”  Glory to His name!

Drink deeply of this:

“Having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.  And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him and forgave us all our trespasses.  He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; He triumphed over them by Him.”  (2:12-15)

The Eternal One dies.  The Sinless One made sin.  Love given to those who hate.  But in this paying the price to redeem us, and rising from the dead, He claims preeminence over the purchased.

I once listened to a story of an old, grizzled African chieftain.  One of the young men thought it was time to supplant him—the tribe would be better served by his vigor rather than being led by the wrinkled, worn out man.  In a gathering of the village, the sleek and strong young warrior challenged him, “Old man, who gave you the right to rule over us?”

The years seemed to fall away, summoning strength from the reservoir of his character, as stooped shoulders rose up and the voice recalled the strident tone of decades past.  The old chief spoke, “You were but a child, and you do not remember when a lion suddenly came into the village.  He would have killed many—maybe even you.  But I fought the lion and killed him with my bare hands.”  Then lifting those arms before the crowd, scars of that struggle still visible, he cried, “By my wounds I demand the right to rule over you!”

See the nail prints in His hands—and hear Him say, “By my wounds I demand the right to rule over you!”  Jesus— He is preeminent among His people, claiming first place in everything.

CHRIST IS PREEMINENT IN HIS PRINCIPLES as proclaimed in chapters three and four.

There were those who were trying to take legalistic regulations and precepts of men, foisting them as burdens upon the church and distracting them from the simplicity of faith.  Paul had confronted this error in chapter two.

“Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.  Let no one disqualify you, insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his unspiritual mind.  He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God.

If you died with the Messiah to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations:  ‘Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch’?  All these [regulations] refer to what is destroyed by being used up; they are commands and doctrines of men.  Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.” (2:16-23)

The principles of Christ are preeminently better!  Not only is the standard set, the strength to do it is supplied.  The very life of Christ the Perfect One indwells us and so we can live above the world even as He is seated above all things—that is our union with Him. 

“So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God.  When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.”  (3:1-4)

The Christian life is the Christ in you life.  He is our life!

What a difference this makes in every dimension of our existence.  It makes a difference in our passions and our speech, our attitudes and activities (3:5-17).  The love of Christ in our hearts makes a difference in bringing love to our home (3:18-21).  His work in us makes a difference in our work in the world (3:22-4:1).  Christ in us makes a difference in how we relate to saints in worship (4:2-4) and sinners in the world (4:5-6).

This isn’t just theoretical.  There are living examples provided—a roll call of those who have inculcated the principles given by the One who incarnated those truths (4:7-18).

Jesus claims first place over all things.  Is He first in your life?