Bible Studies for Life Sunday School Lesson for July 12, 2009

Bible Studies for Life Sunday School Lesson for July 12, 2009

Bible Studies for Life
By Steven R. Harmon

Associate Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

EXALTING THE SON
Colossians 1:15–23

The text for this week’s lesson underscores the centrality of Jesus Christ, the fully divine and fully human Son of God, to our knowledge and experience of the triune God. In particular, the apostle Paul focuses our attention on the pre-eminence of Christ in relation to the whole of creation, the presence of Christ in the created order as the focal point of the work of the triune God in relationship to creation and the cross of Christ as the means by which God forms humanity into the community He intended from the beginning — a people in communion with Him and one another.

Christ and Creation (15–17)
The Bible tells us early in its story “God created humankind in His image” (Gen. 1:26 NRSV). This means He created human beings in such a way that they mirror something about the very character of God in their own lives. But in light of how the story continues, we know that something has gone horribly wrong. God’s image is still there but it’s distorted. Do you want to know what humanity as God intended it to be is like? Look to Jesus. Paul tells us in verse 15, “He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” In other words, Jesus is prototypical humanity — humanity as God intended it to be from the beginning. That’s the goal of Christ’s redeeming work, for we are being transformed into the image of God as it is embodied in Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18).

Indeed God’s intentions for the whole created order are disclosed in Christ, for in a way that transcends time, the humanity of the incarnate Son is also prototypical creation: He is “the firstborn of all creation.” Yet at the same time, Christ as the eternal second person of the Trinity is the divine agent who brought everything into being, things “visible and invisible” (language that supplies one of the phrases of the Nicene Creed). He is not only the source of creation but its goal, for “all things have been created through Him and for Him.”

This text helps us understand that the work of the triune God is not divided into thirds. It is not only the Father who creates or the Son who redeems or the Spirit who sustains, for example. Rather, while each person has a distinctive role to play in the divine drama, the being and work of each person are inseparably intertwined with the other two so that every particular expression of the divine work is the work of the triune God. Thus, in this passage, the Son plays a prominent role in the work of creation as well as the work of redeeming creation (vv. 20–22) and sustaining creation (“in Him all things hold together”).

Christ in Creation (18–19)
For four centuries now, Baptist confessions of faith have tended to highlight verse 19 as a concise expression of the truth of the Incarnation of Christ: “in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” In history, time and space and as part of the created order itself, all that God is was made manifest in the human flesh of Christ. Since the creation of the world, the triune God always has been present in and intimately involved with the created order. But in the historic event of the Incarnation, He definitively demonstrated that to be so for our sake and the sake of the rest of the created order, too. There is a sense in which this historical presence of Christ within creation did not end with His ascension into heaven. He is the head that is joined to a body, which is the Church, and the Church as the body of Christ is the community in which the Spirit is present and at work for the sake of the world.

Community Through the Cross (20–23)
If the presence of Christ in the created order is the focal point of the work of the triune God, then that work has its center in the cross of Christ. Here Paul employed the image he most frequently used to portray what it is Christ’s work on the cross accomplished — the relational image of “reconciliation.” The basic condition of sinful humanity is estrangement. We are estranged from God and one another, but on the cross, Christ did what was necessary to reconcile these alienated relationships and make these reconciled people into a new community that enjoys right relationship with God and one another.