Designer Original
Colossians During COVID-19 • Sermon • Submitted
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Designer Original
Designer Original
Colossians 1:15-17 (NRSV)
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Col 1: 15-17 The Message We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created.
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.
He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment.
In 2005, my wife Linda worked in the DeVry University Career Services Dept. as Employer Relations Coordinator. We attended the school’s
Conference on Science, Technology & Faith that year. One of the faculty presented on the controversial perspective of the burgeoning Intelligent Design Movement. He summarized the position of its leading proponent, Michael Behe from his book, Darwin’s Black Box. Behe, who teaches biochemistry at Lehigh University, argued that the eyes of birds as well as flagella in prokaryotic cells are too complex to be randomly formed in their function. This perspective was fairly presented. The DeVry professor then presented his own reflections on what has been termed the “Goldilocks Phenomenon” This designates the exact circumstances necessary for sustaining habitable life on Earth. The phrase originates in the fairy tale of Goldilocks who wants her porridge “not too hot and not too cold but, just right!” The DeVry professor then demonstrated that there are remarkable coincidences regarding the exact distance of earth from the sun, the temperature of gases, etc. I asked if Intelligent Design is true science or an untenable position? He would not give an answer. Another faculty
member challenged my inquiry as “mere philosophy and not reflecting scientific fact!” I just nodded to her and did not engage in eyeball-to-eyeball debate on her philosophical premises.
So we ask is it maybe Something or Someone, Paul the Apostle would shout aloud “SOMEONE!” The Colossian Christians were living next to the city of Ephesus, the center of manufacture of charms toward off evil spirits and invoke angels and the elemental spirits thought to guide the sun, planets as well as our earth. These charm arm and ankle bracelets, rings and necklaces had inscriptions in Greek, Latin and even in Hebrew. Paul the Apostle makes clear that the Lord Jesus Christ is ONLY ONE YOU NEED!
Paul the Apostle is giving them background from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible from Proverbs 8:22-23 with Wisdom is prefigured as personified in Christ: The LORD formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else.
I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began. Wisdom, prefigured as personified in Christ, is the subject of John's Gospel prologue: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Christ was begotten, not meaning having a beginning of life, but as being of one substance and nature with the Father. Christ is distinct from the Father as well as from the Spirit.
Paul’s exhortations to the Colossian Christians focus on three fundamental truths we confess and profess: 1. that Christ was involved from all eternity as Creator of our cosmos together with the Father and the Spirit; 2. that Christ was involved from all eternity as Creator of our Humanity together with the Father and the Spirit; and 3. that Christ, together with the Father and the Spirit, was creating all that exists in His ongoing Image and Likeness! Maybe these are brand new thoughts for you?!The Lord Jesus Christ, the first born of all creation, Who holds all of reality together, has created us to be part of His family, along with the Father and the Spirit, from before all eternity. Emphasizing Christ as Creator would be a way of mediating the endless, convoluting and often fruitless debates over the varieties of Creationism, Intelligent Design and Theistic Evolution as represented by the BioLogos Foundation.
As Christ, with the Father and Spirit, is the mirror image of God’s holy love, so Christ daily creates us to be as His mirror images of love.How often do we hear and have even said of a newborn and as a child is growing up “She/He looks just like________!” We have the DNA of God in Christ by Holy Spirit. This begins in the Sacrament of Baptism. Realization of this continues as we grow in faith. Justification and sanctification by grace through faith are our legacy.
BUT WAIT, PASTOR KEN! What about sin and evil within ourselves and around us? The image of God in all humanity has been broken and defaced by sin. This teaching has been variously termed in the history of theology as; Original Sin in Augustine and Roman Catholicism; Ancestral Sin in Eastern Orthodoxy; The Soul Curved Inward in Martin Luther’s writings; along with Total Depravity and Radical Depravity in the Reformed denominations
Let us think about a broken mirror of whatever kind. It stills shows whatever is held up to it. If we have ever been in a carnival or circus funhouse, we have viewed ourselves or others with the warping mirrors. Heads and torsos, arms and legs contorted to make us laugh at each other. We still recognize ourselves. This is one way to imagine the broken image of God in humanity. Think about the crackles on a _____computer screen or scratches and skips on DVD or CD; the images or sounds come through BUT you know what it should be heard or viewed. God’s image broken by sin is restored in and through Christ by the Holy Spirit.
Let us ponder John Calvin’s timeless thoughts on our union in and with Christ
We must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. To share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us…all that he possesses is nothing to us until we grow into one body with Him. 1
1 John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol. 1
Book Three Chapter 1 Section 1 “The Holy Spirit as the bond that unites us to Christ” p. 537
The Library of Christian Classics Edited by John T. McNeill Translated and Indexed by Ford Lewis Battles Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960, Reissued 2006
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