Class Outline:

Sunday December 11,2022

MAT 6:9-13

"Pray, then, in this way:

'Our Father who is in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

10 'Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

11 'Give us this day our daily bread.

12 'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 'And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

 

“On earth as it is in heaven” - the creation has fallen into a conflict with heaven.

 

“Our Father … is in heaven.” He is going to accomplish all His good pleasure. It is a great mystery to us, but we know that everything that has happened and will happen in the world has been planned and decreed by God. He didn’t cause the fall of angels and men. He didn’t cause sin, nor does He need it to exist. He made man in His image and gave man a choice. Without choice man is just another animal.

 

There is an enormous amount of sin and evil in this world, and we are all going to cause our own suffering and others will cause suffering for us. 1PE 4:12-16 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

 

MAT 5:10-12

"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 

In prayer we desire God’s will in our life. This minimizes the suffering we cause for ourselves. We also desire God’s will in the lives of others, even our enemies. This gives us the ability to handle the suffering they bring upon us with grace and power. It is the key to handling undeserved suffering; to love the one sinning against you and desiring God’s will in their lives.

 

Heaven and earth are in conflict, but Christ, and only Christ, has made peace. We can only have peace in Him and we must patiently wait for the day of His return, and while we wait, to live for Him.

 

The supremacy and rulership of the resurrected Christ over the kingdom of God is not the result of God reacting to the fall of His creatures, but has been His divine purpose for all time. COL 1:15-20 is one of the great Christological passages in the New Testament. In it the Lord Jesus is revealed as the preeminent creator and inheritor of all of creation, heaven and earth, as well as the preeminent inheritor of all of the new creation. God’s solution to the fall of mankind, and the subsequent conflict between heaven and earth, was to make man brand new, or born again (JOH 3:3, 5; 2CO 5:17).

 

At first glance it may seem that for want of a better alternative, God had to save His failed experiment with humanity through a reluctant sacrifice, having no other course to take. The truth is that God was pleased to send His Son as the true image of God into the world to Himself be crushed under the weight of all men’s sin that He might reconcile the world and come to have supremacy in everything. In COL 1:15-20, and other parallel passages, God has but one purpose, and the rulership of the risen Christ over a kingdom filled with a new humanity, regenerated in perfect righteousness, was His design all along. There is great mystery here, all the details of which none can know, and this passage states it without apology or explanation. Jesus Christ is God. The man Jesus was the perfect expression of God. As God, He died and rose again and through His death He made perfect peace. What it would take from God to accomplish it, nothing less than the judgment and death of His only Son, was also His design all along (ACT 2:23). For all believers, the Lord Jesus Christ is “all things” and as they are tempted by the worries of the world or the deceitfulness of riches, and when life seems nothing but vanity; they can remember the poetic lines of this passage and know the eternal counsel of God and be comforted. God has been and always will be in control of history, and He will accomplish all of His good pleasure, and He will do so through Jesus Christ our Lord (ISA 46:10; COL 1:19).

 

Christ, the preeminent one, above all things, creator of all things, and firstborn of the old and the new, is the only one who could ever have accomplished it.

 

COL 1:15-20

And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —  all things have been created by Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

 

The Lord Jesus is the only expression of deity that we can see. He is the image.

 

This poem has two parts: Creation and New creation.

 

Firstborn (prototokos) means He is heir of all things.

 

Arius and the Jehovah’s witnesses think that this means He is created, but that cannot be since “all things have been created by Him and for Him. Paul is pointing out that Jesus is the heir.

 

All on earth and in the heavens were created in Him, by Him, and for Him (vs. 16). Fullness is in Him, peace is through Him, and reconciliation is for Him (vs. 19-20).

 

The Colossians had been delivered from their pagan gods and placed under the grace of God by faith. The false doctrines that have invaded their members are designed to place them back under bondage, but Paul points out that Christ is the creator of the old and the new.

 

The old creation, including the demons that are behind false religion were created by Christ. It is somewhat odd that Paul would use en as his first preposition instead of dia. All things are created in (en) Him instead of the usual through (dia) Him. Many scholars think that Paul is making a allusion to GEN 1:1.

 

GEN 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

 

Jesus is the beginning in vs. 18.

 

Parallel Between Creation and New Creation

 

Christ is the creator of all things and the ruler and creator of the new creation, and therefore, through Him the old things have passed away and new things have come (2 Cor 5:17). The link between the old and the new, which is the same link between the old covenant and the new covenant, is the “blood of His cross” (COL 1:20; HEB 8:6; 9:12). The parallels of the first part of the poem (vv.15-16) and the second part (vv.18-20) are clear. He is the great I am of both the old and the new. He is the firstborn of the old and the new (“from the dead”).

 

COL 1:15-20

And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —  all things have been created by Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

 

Firstborn of all creation - heir of all things.

Firstborn from the dead (resurrections) - heir of the new creation.

 

HEB 8:6-7

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

 

A New Covenant

 

HEB 8:10

I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,

AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.

AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,

 

HEB 9:11-12

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

 

The firstborn calls God His Father.

 

PSA 89:26-29

"He will cry to Me, 'You are my Father,

My God, and the rock of my salvation.'

27 "I also shall make him My firstborn,

The highest of the kings of the earth.

28 "My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever,

And My covenant shall be confirmed to him.

29 "So I will establish his descendants forever

And his throne as the days of heaven.

 

 

MAT 28:18-20

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

 

Application.

In prayer we desire God’s will in our life. This minimizes the suffering we cause for ourselves. We also desire God’s will in the lives of others, even our enemies. This gives us the ability to handle the suffering they bring upon us with grace and power. It is the key to handling undeserved suffering; to love the one sinning against you and desiring God’s will in their lives.

 

Heaven and earth are in conflict, but Christ, and only Christ, has made peace. We can only have peace in Him and we must patiently wait for the day of His return, and while we wait, to live for Him.