Firstborn over Creation (Col 1:15-17)

Below is the talk I gave at our Christmas Eve service. We are doing a series on "Firstborn" from Colossians. 

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Merry Christmas everyone. I am really glad you have come tonight. In the time we have tonight, we are going to be thinking about Jesus, the baby we remember at Christmas and why this little baby is such a big deal. Jesus was so unlike anyone else in the history of the world, so much so that, we break our timeline of history around Him. We measure our years based on how far away we are from this Christmas event.

Jesus was Mary’s firstborn son (Luke 2:7), which was pretty significat for Mary, but Jesus is also so immensly significat us and our world. This little baby that we remember is bigger than we think. And so, as we come to Christmas, we are not so much as asking what this baby means, but more this baby is telling us what we mean. Jesus answers our most deepest and profound questions of life. Who are we? Why are we here?

We beleive that Jesus was born of a virgen, and this make so much more sense and gives us way more meaning to life, than to say the whole universe was virgen born; that everything came from nothing and that all things are eventually heading right back to nothing.

Martin Heidegger said the fundamental question of metaphysics is “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, and in our short passage we get the answer and more. We find out who we are and our purpose.

He is the image of the invisible God

The first thing we learn about Jesus in our passage is that

The Son is the image of the invisible God... (Colossians 1:15 NIV)

In one sense, this isn’t saying too much. All people are made in the image of God. In creation, God made people, male and female in His image. We all reflect something of God in how we create, communicate and care for each other, although we don’t do that perfectly.

But in another sense, this is saying so much more. This is saying, God who is invisible is now visible in Jesus. When we see Jesus, we can see God. He is the exact image, or reproduction or “visible expression,” of God Himself. (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Jesus: Lord of Creation (1:15–17))

A few verses later we are told that

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Colossians 1:19 NIV)

All of God was in this Christmas baby. "He shared the same substance as God and made God’s character known" (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Jesus: Lord of Creation (1:15–17)) brining "clarity to our hazy notions of the immortal, invisible God" (Colossians and Philemon The Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn over All Creation (1:15–17))

When the shepherds went to Bethelam to see a baby in swaddling cloth, they saw God. On it’s own, it is wild to think that God would come down to earth at all. But to be born as a baby, and not to just to turn up as some sort of superman with all their super God powers. Instead, God came as feeble, weak and dependent. He came as a cute little baby, with little baby fingers that can wrap around an adult finger, that is something else for God to be.

God entered His creation as one of us. So that must tell us something about God’s value for people. He cares about us, He can idenity with us, He knows first hand about our human condition. We are not ignored or forgotten by the God who made everything. We are valuable in His sight.

Jesus is firstborn over creation

But while Jesus entered creation, we also learn that He is over and above creation. Like how a builder isn’t part of their building, but can enter what they made. The rest of our first sentence says Jesus is

...the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15 NIV)

The word “firstborn” in this sense, doesn’t mean Jesus was the first thing made in creation, that he was part of creation. Instead it is saying He is cheif over all creation, He is superior over everything.

“Firstborn” is a word used in the Old Testament that can be about status. Israel is called God’s “firstborn” (Exod. 4:22), and God calls David in Psalm 89 (:27) the “firstborn” among the kings of the earth (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Jesus: Lord of Creation (1:15–17))

These aren’t talking about biological order, but priority. It was a way of saying that both Israel and David had a preeminent role in God’s plan, not that they were somehow born first on a timeline.

My friend Carlos was my sons under 11 soccer coach this year. In a sense, Carlos was over my son’s soccer team; he was not part of the team, he was not under 11, instead, he directed where everyone should go. Jesus is firstborn over all creation. He rules over all creation, directing where it should go and is not part of creation. And yet, at Christmas, we remember that Jesus didn't stay on the sidelines. He reduce Himself when He entered His creation. Jesus was so far above everything, and yet He came down as a little baby. He joined the team and submitted Himself to the laws of creation. He is bigger than we might think.

Creator and Sustainer

To flesh Jesus bigness more, the rest of the passage talks about how Jesus is over and apart from creation, while still sustaining all of it.

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16–17 NIV)

We see that in Jesus, everything was created. Think about a thing, the Andromeda galaxy, a kangaroo, the presents under the tree tomorrow. All things have been created through Jesus. He made everything from nothing. We humans, we rearrange things, using chemicals, or supplies from Bunnings, or coloured paint or Lego pieces to create, but Jesus made all the things in creation from nothing, with no raw materials. Even the things we can’t see, like gravity and electic forces and dark matter. Everything. We live in His creation, in His masterpiece.

Jesus is the supreme power over the universe. He has no rival, good or bad; all powers are under Jesus.

Not only that, in Jesus, everything is being held together. Without Jesus, everything would fall apart. We have all sorts of universal constants like gravity and magnetic forces and the speed of light, but all of those things are fundamentally working away because Jesus is holding it all up.

"Without him, electrons would not continue to circle nuclei, gravity would cease to work, the planets would not stay in their orbits." Colossians and Philemon 2. The Heart of the Gospel: The Supremacy of Christ in Creation and Redemption (1:15–20)

“He keeps the cosmos from becoming a chaos.” (H. C. G. Moule cited in Colossians and Philemon The Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn over All Creation (1:15–17))

This means all the good things we have have been made by Jesus. The baby we remember on the 25th of December is the creator and sustainer of the world. He is the one holding all the Christmas tress up He is enabling the fairy lights to work; the Christmas lunch that you will eat tomorrow is being sustained by Him. And Jesus is holding all things for a purpose.

Before and For All Things

Our passage says He is before all things, and all things have been created for Him.

Jesus is the beginning of all things and is at the end of all things. He is at the centre of the universe, as He has a plan for where everything is going. This universe was no accident.

When it says everything was made for Jesus, this doesn’t mean it is to meet some unmet need that He didn’t have before creation. That God lacked something and needed creation to satisfy Him. No, everything is for Him in the sense that


"Jesus is the goal of all creation. Everything exists to display his glory, and ultimately he will be glorified in his creation." (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon Jesus: Lord of Creation (1:15–17))

As we sing:
fields and floods, rocks hills and plains
repete the sounding joy
repete the sounding joy

All creation sings and points to Christ as the creator. He is the source and sustainer of it all, and this points to Him. Just as the Mona Lisa points to Leonardo’s skill, or the Sistine Chapel ceiling shows Michelangelo’s genius. Creation’s existence points to the ultimate artist and exists for Christ’s glory.

And so tomorrow, as you gather around a meal, and open the presents, all of that points to Christ. Christ is for family, and for food, and for fun, and all of those good things point beyond themselves, to Jesus. He is the one we can be thankful to; for all of creation and all that is good. He is the one who wants to adopt us into His family, who has prepared a banquet for us where we can enjoy Him forever. He wants us to enjoy His creation and to thank Him for it.

Since all creation is made by Jesus, and is held up by Jesus and is for Jesus, this also includes us. Like the universe, we are not self-sufficent but we depend on Jesus, and we are made for Him. He has a plan that includes people.

That is why He came as a baby on Christmas. We can look around and see some very good things, but we know there are also very bad things in this world. Those are not how it was planned; that was not how creation was made; but that is the reason why Jesus came into His creation. Things are in disarray, they are broken and strained, which is why we need restoration, reconciliation, and recreation.

So at Christmas, Jesus came as a person, taking on humanity so that He could bring about peace on Earth through His blood on the cross. Our God died for us. In doing this, we recieve forgivenss and a relationship with God. To hear more about this, come back tomorrow as that is the next bit in our Colossians passage.

So the goal of creation is Jesus. Everything was made by Him, and it is for Him. He is the end, the reason, the goal, the purpose of creation, and this includes us.

We were made for Jesus. To give Him glory, to thank and sing His praises for all the good that He has done. This little baby in the manger is bigger than you think.

A theory of everything

Scientists have been working on a theory of everything. They have come up with a formula that, if you put all the right variables in it, they will be able to predict any possible experiment. The formula is complicated and unfinished; it’s one of the reasons why they built the Large Hadron Collider, to find the Higgs boson.

And so the hope is that one day, with a unified theory of everything, scientists could go back in time and work out the Big Bang, or they could go forward in time and build a predictive model for any experiment we want.

One of the scientists who worked on the Hadron Collider, Brian Cox, said they do all these experiments to work out a theory of everything so that “We can stare at the face of creation.”

It’s interesting that he wants to put a face to creation (this was taken from Glen Scrivener). This is something we don’t have to go looking for. This is what we celebrate at Christmas, as Jesus, the firstborn of Mary, is the firstborn over creation. He is the image of the invisible God. He came to us, so we can see His face and what He is like. This little baby is bigger than we think.

Jesus gives us a real and better explanation for everything. Because Jesus is the creator, it means that we didn’t start out as nothing. That nothing exploded in a really careful way to accidentally produce life on this mineral-rich planet. Because we are sustained and made for God, it means we are not at the hands of random chance and impersonal forces. It means God started this whole show, and it is going somewhere.

Because of Jesus, there is something rather than nothing. Because of Jesus, it means we have meaning and purpose, not wrapped up in ourselves, but in a baby in a manger. You were made for God. Jesus is the end goal of everything. He came down to rescue us because He cares for us in His creation. And all those who are in Him have nothing to fear. The creator of the universe has rescued us, there is no greater power that can contend with Him.

And hands down, that is better than nothing.

Enjoy your Christmas, and remember that the baby in the manger is bigger than you think.