Cutting room floor, 18th Jan 26

Yesterday I preached from Colossians 1:15-23, an absolutely glorious passage and one in which you could easily spend multiple weeks without exhausting everything it has to say about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here are a few issues and topics I would have liked to spend more time on that didn't make it into the sermon.

The firstborn over creation - verse 15

That's the way our church Bible (NIV) translates this phrase, in line with various other English translations (e.g., CSB).  I was aware, though, that people using other translations (e.g., ESV) might be reading 'firstborn of creation'.  Both legitimate translations.  Sometimes verses like this will be picked up by movements which subscribe to heretical views of Christ - for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, who hold something very like the ancient Arian heresy.  In this view, the Son of God is a created being, albeit the first and most highly exalted creature.  'Firstborn of creation' certainly sounds like it leans that way!  However, the very next verse makes it clear that every created thing was created in, through and for the Son - placing him very clearly with God the Father as the Creator.  Some of our English translations try to avoid the confusion by translating 'over creation'; this is not an attempt to be deceptive, but reflects the background to Paul's use of this title in, for example, Psalm 89:27, where the Davidic King of Israel is given the title of God's firstborn to reflect his rule as the greatest of the kings of the earth.  To be the firstborn of creation is indeed to be supreme over creation - not as the greatest creature but as the great Creator.

All the fullness - verse 19

All God's fullness dwelt in Christ - that, of course, makes sense, since Christ himself was the eternal Son of God.  But doesn't God dwell fully in every believer by the Holy Spirit?  Yes, he does - but not in this way.  In Christ, we see the personal union of human and divine nature; he is truly God in the flesh.  And in fact his humanity has no independent existence - it is not like there was a human being called Jesus, who was subsequently indwelt or taken over by the Son of God.  No, the fullness of God dwelt in Christ in an utterly unique way, such that his whole life was the life of the eternal Son lived out in our flesh.  On top of that, Christ in his human nature received the Spirit without measure, whereas believers, it seems, can be filled to a greater or lesser extent by the Spirit.  (It is hard to explain exactly what that can mean, since the Spirit can not be split up into parts, or be partially present; perhaps we should think of it in terms of the human experience?)  Moreover, our being filled with the Spirit is dependent on his fullness - he is the original and the ongoing power of our fullness.

The interplay between the universal and the particular

Christ is supreme over all creation (universal), but he is specifically head of his church (particular).  In Christ all things are reconciled to God, in heaven and on earth (universal), but to continue to enjoy that reconciliation in their own lives the Colossians believers must persevere in their trust in Christ (particular).  It seems very important to me that we not underemphasise one or the other of these angles.  If we lay all our stress on the universal, we might end up denying the importance of the church, and we may well end up teaching that everyone will be saved no matter what - a viewpoint which is at odds with the general perspective of Scripture.  If, on the other hand, we only talk about the particular, we run the risk of becoming quite narrow, missing the doctrine of creation (or at least missing its link to the gospel in Christ), and only valuing 'churchy' activities; we might also make the gospel quite individualistic, as if everything in the end depended on our decision.  We need to say both that Christ is universally Lord and reconciler, and that he is particularly Lord in his church and invites particular faith.

Jesus and reality

Reality is Jesus-shaped.

That really struck me a couple of weeks ago as I was preparing to talk about Christian views of sexuality.  (You can find the audio here should you so desire).  Reality is Jesus shaped.  By that I mean that the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth both undergird reality, and that the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth shape reality.  Here is part of Colossians 1:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,making peace by the blood of his cross.

Note, first of all, the subject of this paragraph.  It is Jesus Christ.  Specifically, it is the man Jesus Christ.  There is no room in this paragraph for a fleshless Logos.  He is the one who shed his blood on the cross, the one who was firstborn from the dead, and - most decisively - the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  We are talking here about Jesus of Nazareth.

But then note that it is through and for him that all things exist.  He is before all things.  He holds everything together.  Paul is not expounding some sort of odd theory about the eternal pre-existence of Jesus' human nature (although some others have done just that).  He is saying that the eternal Son of God created the universe as the one who would enter that universe and as the one for whose incarnation that universe exists.  The universe is about Jesus; it is about the coming into the world of the incarnate Son of God.

Which means that the central story of the universe - the beating heart of reality - is the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection.  That event is what reality is all about.  And that event shapes reality.

The more I think about it, the more I think it's vitally important for our churches to get this right.  If we forget that reality is about Jesus, our religion may become disconnected from life.  We will just be a club, holding our distinctive beliefs - perhaps very sincerely - and carrying out our worship - possibly with great devotion - but without any of it really touching real life.  We will lose contact with the world, and be unable to communicate our message (I say this as if it were hypothetical; of course, sadly it is not).  We will not know how to speak as Christians into the different situations of the world, because we do not understand that those situations are already part of a reality that is driven by the gospel.  Our theology will stop being about articulating the gospel in the language and culture of today, and become merely a repeating of the Bible.  And our lives will become barren because only 'spiritual' things will be valued.

The end result of a massive disconnect like this can only be that we will abandon the faith (because reality is so much more... real - and Jesus doesn't seem to have anything to do with it), or we will abandon the world (because Jesus is so much more important, and he doesn't seem to have anything to do with reality).  We will become atheists or pietists.

And neither will do.  Because it is all about him.

Being myself

The only problem is, which 'self' should I be?

At the most basic level, all of us come up against the phenomenological self.  That is to say, the person we experience as ourselves.  The bundle of experiences, characteristics, and attributes - physical, mental, and spiritual - which are 'me'.  This is not the same as the person other people encounter; by (provisional, and in need of later tweaking) definition, a 'self' can only be self-experienced.  It is who I am to myself.

But then, I am also aware of another self, the sort of self I want to be, the aspirational self.  Sometimes I am just aware that the self I experience does not match up with well the person I like to think I am.  Sometimes, more painfully, somebody else describes me, and I realise that I am indeed 'like that', even though I feel that is 'not really me' - I am forced to own their description, even as I really want to disown it.  So a gap opens up between 'who I am' and 'who I want to be' - except more often than not, I do not see it that way.  Rather, I see 'who I am' and 'who I really am'.  Perhaps this is a delusion, but it is an important one; I harbour the thought that 'I' am really other than - better than - the self I experience.

The gospel of the world is that I can be, and should be, my aspirational self.  'Sanctification' is about being more myself, more the person I like to think of myself as being.  And when I hit a roadbump - when there is something in my phenomenological self which I don't seem to be able to adjust - I should adjust my aspirational self instead.  The goal is to bring the two together, one way or another.

But then there is what I will call the Christological self.  In Christ, my identity is not about my self-identity.  My true self has already been identified in him.  I don't see it now, because it is hidden.  But that doesn't mean it isn't real.  My self is determined, not by me, but by Jesus Christ, his life, death, and resurrection.  Because here is someone - the only person - who really and truly knows me better than I know myself.  As my creator, he knows the self I was made to be; as my redeemer, he knows the self I have been eternally determined to be.

So the true gospel says: be yourself.  But not the self that is determined by the mere phenomena of your existence, or even by your dreams and aspirations, but by who Jesus has determined you to be.  And these are not the same.  Just because I see something in me doesn't mean it belongs to my truest self.  Just because I dream something doesn't mean it is who I really am.  I am who I am in him, and to be a disciple is to look to him and to walk like him.  And so to be myself.