We continue to look at Paul’s letter to the Colossians. This is the third week of three which build upon each other, so they are aimed to be read together, but also stand on their own.
The letter to the Colossians is the high-water mark of divine revelation in the New Testament.
Paul presents one of the most sublime, unparalleled revelations of the Lord Jesus in all of Scripture. He gives believers a stunningly elegant vision of Jesus Christ – exalted, glorious, high and lifted up.
Paul began by pointing out that if the church would lay hold of Christ and become absorbed with Him, they would bear fruit. They would:
be filled with the knowledge of God’s will
receive spiritual understanding and wisdom
walk worthy of the Lord and live pleasing in God’s sight
receive God’s infinite power, endurance, patience and joy
be provoked to thankfulness.
We continue...
Jesus Christ entered into His own creation to reconcile it back to Himself and to His Father.
The Creator became the creature to make peace with an alienated creation.
But how?
By a wooden stake on a hill near Jerusalem, where blood was spilled.
This Jesus, the Jewish craftsman from Nazareth, was slaughtered outside of the city gates.
And by that horrible death,
He reconciled a fallen cosmos to God.
The Son of God, who had become a human being, in that moment became the embodiment of sin and corruption. Every vile, foul, dark, evil, hideous vestige of the fall laid upon His sinless body like a monstrous mantle of wickedness.
The Spotless One “became sin” incarnate.
But by His death, He slew all negative things.
He brought old creation to a complete end.
Better, the old creation died having made peace with its Creator.
and then, by His resurrection, He brought forth from the womb of death and unprecedented creation
- of which you are a part.
So when there was hostility He brought peace.
where there was separation He brought union.
where there was death He brought life.
But here’s what blows the mind:
Because of that hill
Because of that blood
Because of that cross
You stand:
holy
spotless
blameless
without reproach and accusation
in the sight of a holy God.
Yet that’s not all.
This Messiah created a new humanity, a new creation, a new race like Himself.
That new humanity is His own body, the ekklesia of God.
It is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh – kin to divinity.
And this Christ is the head, the authority, and the source of that body.
But wait, there’s more.
This Christ Jesus triumphed over the greatest enemy that God ever faced – death, the offspring of sin.
He conquered its power,
extinguished its sting
and dismantled the fear that was attached to it.
Jesus Christ passed through death and came out in resurrection -
and He is the first to return from the dead to never taste mortality again.
BUT that’s not all.
In His resurrection, this Christ – the only begotten Son – shook of the chains,
no longer bound by time and space.
He became a “life-giving Spirit,” the firstborn among many sisters and brothers
– all of whom will be raised from the dead after Him.
This glorious Jesus defeated
death,
the grave,
the curse,
the entire world system;
sin,
satan,
and all condemnation;
He slew shame
He conquered guilt and
He shared His everlasting victory and towering triumph with you.
Here is a Messiah so grand and glorious that He is beyond the reaches of human comprehension.
All things are in this Christ.
All things are through this Christ
All things are for this Christ.
And He has been given the first place in everything.
What an incredible Lord!
Part 3 of 3
Part 1 and 2 were 2 Aug & 9 Aug 2020
Based on "Jesus Manifesto" by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet
This weeks YouTube link with songs for worship is available here
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHnJn7EgQjAyGvUh8IkIeG2HynWEKOosM
Have a blessed week
Jacquey
No comments:
Post a Comment