I want to read five scriptures and see if we can tie them up a little. The first is in the book of Colossians. If you don’t want to turn it, it doesn’t matter, but if you do, Colossians 1:15. And they’re all speaking about the Lord Jesus. So Colossians 1:15.
The background to Colossians by the way is, Colossians was in Turkey. It was linked with two other churches, Laodicea and Hierapolis. And it would seem that one of the founding members, if you like, was someone called Epaphras. We don’t know for definite, but it seems as if he was there at the beginning.
But anyway, this verse says of the Lord Jesus,
"who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation."
Back into John’s Gospel, chapter 1. John’s Gospel, chapter 1:18, John 1:18, a well-known verse.
"No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him."
So the first in Colossians was "who is the image of the invisible God", the Lord Jesus. And here it says of him who is in the bosom of the Father. And then over to Hebrews 1. Further back in the Bible. Hebrews 1. And this time verse 3.
"who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."
And then back a little to Philippians 2 ... Philippians 2:6 -
"who being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God".
So that’s, who is the image of the invisible God in Colossians, who is in the bosom of the Father in John’s Gospel, and here who being originally in the form of God, and then, lastly Acts 10. And this time verse 36, say it. And then it says,
"The word which he sent,"
this was God sending to the children of Israel,
"preaching good tidings of the Gospel of peace by Jesus Christ," and it says "he" in the translation, but how good is this: "Who is Lord of all."
So I want to say something today about the fact that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord, and he’s Lord of all. And behind that, just to bring in the factor of why we’re here this morning, why we’ve come to remember the Lord Jesus, why we make the effort to get ourselves up and out, and to remember him. He is the image of the invisible God. That’s a Greek word that’s spelled E-I-K-O-N - eikon. And it means something that is derived from something else. So in other words, all that God is, and he is therefore one God, but there are three persons in the Godhead. All the Lord Jesus, he is the physical representation of the invisible God. All that God is, “who is the image of the invisible God”, and then it says he’s “the firstborn of all creation”. That’s nothing to do with being born first. That’s not what firstborn means in the Bible. It’s a word called prototokos, and it’s to do with the fact that he is before everything else. He stands as the first of anything and the first of everything. He is the firstborn. It’s a title of the Lord Jesus, a title of his deity. He’s the firstborn of all creation. So, what about that? Well, there’s a context to that, of what he is in his essence. It says,
“Who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.”
Now, that’s God, it’s speaking of God doing that, but it’s the Lord Jesus who carried that out. He has delivered us through his death on Calvary’s Cross. He’s taken us out of the thraldom of darkness, spiritual darkness, and he’s brought us into the sphere and the ambience of spiritual light. He’s translated us into a kingdom that’s called “the kingdom of the Son of God’s love”. It’s a wonderful thing. Then, he not only delivered us, but the Lord Jesus redeemed us. He bought us. He paid a price to reconcile us back to God. And it says just before,
“who is the image of the invisible God, in whom we have our redemption”.
So, he’s redeemed us. And then it says, “The forgiveness of our sins.” So, he’s delivered us, he’s redeemed us, he forgave us of all our sins and of all the wrong that’s in our nature and in our life. But even more than that, he’s reconciled us to God. And that’s later on down that chapter. It says this, Paul is writing to these saints in the church of Colossae in Turkey. And he says,
“And you, has he reconciled, who were alienated and enemies in your mind by evil works, He's reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.”
So, the Lord Jesus had to come into humanity to take a human body so that he could do the work of reconciliation and bring sinners, you and me and everyone else, reconciled to God. So, he’s delivered us, he’s redeemed us, he forgave us, and he’s reconciled us. This is the person of the Lord Jesus that we remember and have remembered today.
And we were just listening to a program on the way here. It’s a lady called Dr. Nikki Fox from Hertfordshire in England. She’s head of science at NASA at the Great Space Centre in America. And she was talking about her experience. She says, as a wee girl of eight months, her father lifted her out of her cot to see the first man who was walking on the moon, Neil Armstrong. And ever since she was small, she had a great interest in space technology. And now she’s the head of science at NASA. And she says, “It thrills us.” She says, “I’m flooded with tears when I see rockets going off.” Because she says, “We’ve spent maybe 20 years to get that rocket into space. And all the pressures,” she says, “in the job of hoping this will work and that will work, the technology that was involved, the cutting-edge technology, in most cases with each one.” And she says, “You know, to see it all.” And you wonder - I don’t know where she stands Christianity-wise - but Colossians tells us,
“In him,” the Lord Jesus, “all things were created. Things in the heavens, things upon earth, things visible, things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and unto him.”
I summarize that in three letters. BTF:
B
all things were brought into existence BY him. In him were all things created.
T
Number two, all things have been created THROUGH him. He's the agency. He's the mediator of everything that's in this world.
F
And then the third thing is, FOR him.
By Him, through Him, for Him.
And then it says, “In him all things consist.” That means this table here, why does it hold together mind you, particles of dust, and is built into a substantial element, and it holds up. It says, “In him all things are held together.” That's why this world exists, because of Christ, who's done all these things. And then later on in that same chapter it says,
“And it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness of the Godhead dwell.”
All that God is, essentially, intrinsically, all that God is, it’s seen in Christ, in his life here, in his body. He’s God and man, God-man. And there’s a fullness of the deity, of all that God is, in the person, history of the Lord Jesus. Absolutely wonderful. That’s why we come here. That’s why we remember him.
And then we come back into John’s Gospel, as we know that’s the Gospel of the Son of God, and the focus is very much so on the Lord Jesus. Tells us so much about him. Tells us that he’s the Word “in the beginning.” Now, there’s no definite article before “the beginning” in the Greek language. It’s “in beginning”. It’s not things are beginning, he is a beginning. It’s "in” beginning. He’s already there. And he’s going to do something. It’s not that "in the beginning” was a point in time, when he did that - there was a point in time - but there’s no beginning. He is without beginning. And it says, “in beginning, the Word was with God”. Now, the preposition that’s used there, as we know, as Jo knows, it’s eis - E-I-S, and it means that everything that was connected with the Lord Jesus in his pre-eternal existence was all linked with God the Father and God the Spirit. “In beginning was the Word”. Now, that’s logos. That means intelligence. And it means an intelligence that comes through revelation from God. “In beginning was the Word.” That’s Christ, again. “And the Word was with God”, so he was with the Father and the Spirit:
“and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.”
So John is quite clear, so he’s the One. But more than that, it says also of him, as we read in John 1, 14, 18,
“No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father...”
Now, that preposition “IN” there, is amazing because it's directing us to this. It's the thought of the Lord Jesus: never was he ever NOT in the bosom of the Father. Even when he suffered on the cross, and he was forsaken: “My God, my God” - he didn't use “my Father, my Father”. That would have broken the Father's heart.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The Lord was still in the bosom of the Father. He never, ever was out of it. And it’s a verse like when we’re away from home. It’s like me going home. When I go in the door, Joan’s maybe not there, she’s upstairs, but I know she’s at home. And even if I’m away from home, she’s in my bosom. The word bosom is like a special place. It means....something that’s set apart. There’s something about the word bosom that has to do with the very centre point of the heart. And so, when I’m away from home, she is still in my heart, in my bosom. And that was the Lord Jesus. All his life here, even on the cross, in the deepest aspect of his intensive sufferings, he was always in the bosom of the Father. Never anywhere else.
“No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.”
So, he’s there, in the beginning. He’s in the bosom of the Father. He is the Lamb of God. Remember John the Baptist with two of his disciples at the time, when he saw Jesus walking.
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
He knew that he was the Saviour. And then a day later, he saw him again as he walked, and he says,
“Behold the Lamb of God.”
So, he is the Word. He is the only begotten, not born, only begotten, in the sense he’s always been there, without any birth, his pre-existence. And he is also the Lamb of God. And do you remember Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, when he went and came across Christ, he says, "Peter, we found the Messiah." The word means anointed. It has to do with his sovereignty, his kingship. He says, “We found the Messiah.” And then when the Lord Jesus saw the disciple, Nathaniel, and said, “I saw you under the fig tree long before I had come and spoken to you.” And Nathaniel got up. And in a moment, it’s like the thief on the cross who believed in the very eleventh hour of his life, the last hour, the last moment of his life.
Here was someone as soon as he saw and listened to Jesus saying, “I saw you under the fig tree.” He [Nathaniel] says, “You are, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.” That was divine revelation, and it happened instantaneously. Amazing. So the Lord Jesus is all that.
So; when you look at it in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, you see, you think of the Lord Jesus. “He was in the world. The world was made by him. The world” generally, “knew him not.” Really didn’t want to know him. And it says also in the Book of Hebrews, and we’ll refer to that in a moment, “When he bringeth the firstborn into the world,” which is the inhabited earth, the world, the meaning there in the original language is,"When again he bringeth his firstborn into the world, let all the angels of God worship him."
Now … there’s difference of view on it: is it referring to his first coming, (his incarnation) - or - referring to his next coming to the earth, to reign during the millennial period? We leave that to whatever you think.
Let’s go to Hebrews where it tells us this of the Lord Jesus,
“who is the effulgence of his glory, the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification for sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”
And that just encapsulates, if you like, everything about the Lord Jesus. He is the effulgence of Godhead’s glory. The word means, it’s like the radiating of light, it’s light being emitted from a source, and that light is absolutely brilliant. And that’s what the Lord Jesus is, in his person, in his humanity, he’s showing the effulgence of Godhead glory. And he’s “the very image of his substance” so that’s a different word from "who being in the image of the invisible God”. This is the word charaktér, it’s spelled with a K in the Greek, ...., but this is to do with the character of Christ in his being, in his humanity. He became something that he had never been before, and yet he remained what he had ever been. He took humanity, but he did not divest himself of his deity. He did it for the external glory, that’s a different matter. The external glory, he left that aside to come into this world, but he always remained, even though he took humanity, he remained in his essential deity.
So, Hebrews tells us amazing things. Number one, he’s the light of deity, he’s the effulgence of his glory, he’s the very image of his substance, or his character, that’s to do with the Godhead, and then he has power, and then he has dealt with sin, “when he had made purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty and high”. This is the Saviour. You know, it says later on in that same chapter, whoever the writer to the Hebrews was, this makes, talks about that too, but anyway, it’s inspired by the Spirit of God, and it says, you know, “you have laid down, Lord …
"you’ have laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands, but they are going to perish, and they’ll wax old as a garment, and as a vesture, they’ll be rolled up, and they shall be changed,"
there’ll be a change, “but you remain, you remain, and your years shall not fail.” And imagine using our sense of time and motion in the context of God, who has no beginning and who has no ending, “your years” the writer says, “shall never end, - never fail.”
“You are the same, and your years shall never fail.”
So that's true of the Lord Jesus. And then that chapter also tells us this, that
“God has spoken at the end of these days in his Son, whom he appointed, heir of all things, through him also, he made the ages.”
The Lord Jesus - that's why we come to remember him. That’s why we make the effort to try and be here, because of him. So, who is the image of the invisible God? Who is in the bosom of the Father? Who is the effulgence of his glory? Philippians we read from, where it says of him, the Lord Jesus, “Have this mind in you”, writing to the people of Philippi, who were in Greece, of course, ... “Have this mind in you, which was also Christ Jesus. Who being [originally] in the form of God”, though that word has more to do with his glory, is to do with the outward glory of Christ - is always God, but
“who being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped that, to be on an equality with God.”
He didn’t make an issue, and didn’t self-advertise or self-promote who he was and where he came from - Of course, he spoke about it, he did, but in the sense, this is him, divesting himself of that outward glory, and it says he took the form of a servant. It’s a change here. Took the form of transformation, it took the form of a servant, and then it says, being made in the likeness of men. Now it doesn’t say, because it can’t say, being made in the image of men. The Lord Jesus was never made in the image of men. He is the image of the invisible God, but here the likeness has to do with resemblance. He’s like us, but he’s different.
“Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient, even unto death, yes, the death of the cross.”
The death of the cross. So what Philippians centres on, is the taking of Christ’s humanity, the divesting of the external glory, not the internal glory of his person, and he’s coming into this world, and he stoops more and more. He becomes a servant, never a servant of men. He was a servant of Jehovah. The servant of Jehovah. But he served, there’s no question. He ministered. He did that which was service, but it was all God’s - what Jo was thinking about this morning and speaking about in his thanksgiving - all to do with doing the will of God. And then the answer to that is exaltation, subjugation, confession.
“Wherefore God has highly exalted him, and given to him the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every tongue should confess, every knee shall bow to the glory of God the Father.”
Wonderful words. The answer of Christ's humiliation and humility is now exaltation and glory.
So we come to the last chapter, the last reference in Acts 10, where it says, those lovely words, we were thinking about Israel this morning - Neville was mentioning that - and we know it says - God sent this word to the children of Israel: “preaching peace” - “preaching peace by Jesus Christ.” So Peter is giving them ... when he’s saying this, and he’s saying it’s the gospel that has been brought. Firstly for the Jew, then for the Gentile nations. Principally for the Jew. That’s why Christ came for the Jewish nation, as part of the Jewish nation. And God is sending this word by his Son, preaching good tidings of the gospel of peace by Jesus Christ. He’s Jesus Christ. Then Peter speaks of Jesus of Nazareth, and that’s him as the man.
“How that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and he went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed, for God was with him.”
And all that Lord Jesus was doing was in conjunction with the Father and the Spirit too. And here he is. And then Peter goes on to say in his warning, and he says, “And God has ordained that he will be the judge of the quick the dead.” Now the quick are those who have been made spiritually alive, because when we get saved, we are asked to serve the Lord, and then one day believers will have to answer at the judgment seat of Christ, the bema of Christ. But the dead are those who are spiritually dead, who have not responded to the word of the gospel. And then he ends, and he says, “to him,” this is Christ, “all the prophets bear witness that through his name, everyone who believes in him shall receive remission of sins.” And that’s true today. The person who accepts Christ and who believes that he’s the Son of God and that he’s the Saviour of their souls, they receive the remission of sins. All to do with this person, the Lord Jesus, whom we’ve remembered today. Why we’re here. Why we wanted to be here. Why we got up out of bed early and make a move. All to do with him, “who is the image of the invisible God, who is the bosom of the Father, who holds all things by the word of his power.”
And then what I omitted in there, who in that last chapter of Acts 10 [v. 36] it says,
“He is Lord of all.”
He is Lord of all. Jesus is Lord. That’s [the Greek word] kurios. That’s someone who’s the master, who’s the proprietor, and that’s what he wants to be of our lives as far and as much as we can let him do that, and it’s all to his glory. So thanks very much for listening.