Our self-existent God is eternally manifested in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae, he gave firm affirmation of the self-existence of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Colossae church was plagued by Gnostic false teachers who belittled the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and denied His eternal sonship. They asserted the preeminence of human reason above divine revelation and claimed that they had a secret key to knowledge, hence their name “Gnostics.” In minimizing Christ and promoting themselves, these false teachers had the audacity to deny that Jesus was fully divine. Some said that His deity came upon Him only at His baptism. Others took the other extreme and denied the full humanity of Christ, asserting that He was merely an apparition, without a genuine body of flesh.
In writing to the church at Colossae, Paul asserted that Christ was indeed fully man and also fully God. One of the key passages on the preeminence of the Lord Jesus Christ is Colossians 1:16–20. In this remarkable text, the Apostle Paul affirmed the self-existence of the Second Person of the Trinity.
The Image of the Invisible God
Speaking of the Lord Jesus, Paul wrote, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15). Jesus is the only “picture” of God that we have. The second commandment forbids any attempt to portray God using a “graven image” (Exodus 20:4). Instead, God has been revealed to us in the Person of the Lord Jesus. He alone is the image of the invisible God.
The Creator
Paul continued by describing the active role of the Lord Jesus in the creation of the world. “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:16). Christ Jesus was not a created being. Rather, He was the Creator! Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ created all that is in earth and heaven.
The Self-Existent One
Nothing preceded the existence of Jesus. Contrary to the views of the early heretics who asserted there was a time when Jesus was not, Paul declared of Christ, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).
The Head of the Church
Not only is Jesus the Creator of all things and the self-existent God, He is also the King of His church. “And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). No area of life or culture exists outside of Christ’s dominion. He richly deserves the preeminence that He is due.
The Fullness of God
“For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell” (Colossians 1:19). The full deity of the Son robs nothing from the Father. It is by the Father’s pleasure that all God’s fullness dwells in Christ. The divine Son of God possesses all the attributes of His Father, and we should recognize and honor them as we worship Christ.
The Peacemaker
What does all this mean to us? Is the doctrine of Christ’s self-existence and complete, eternal deity of any practical value? Absolutely! In fact, our salvation is staked upon this truth. If Christ is not the self-existent Son of God, then Christianity is merely a sham. A Christ who is a created being is no Christ at all. A Jesus Who is not fully God and fully man cannot make a substitutionary atonement upon a bloody cross.
It is to the cross of Christ that Paul next pointed his readers. “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20).
Because the Lord Jesus is the self-existent God of the Bible, He is worthy of our worship as our Creator, Redeemer, and King of His Church. May God give us the grace to give Him the glory due unto His name!
