Colossians 1:18

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"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? ( Col 1:18 ).

When the Apostle says, "He is the head," we are to understand that the "he" is emphatic. It is also emphatic in the seventeenth verse, where we read, "He is before all things." We are indeed in this instance to read "he is" as if they were but one word, and that one word is the emphatic term in the statement: thus he, and he only, is; really is; essentially is; is, according to the very nature of the being of God, all else is called forth or created, or is in some sense an expressing of Divine and active power. When we read in John 8:58 , "Before Abraham was, I am," we are not to regard the word "before" as expressive of higher excellence or nobler dignity, we are rather to take it as a time-term, and as indicative of the fact that Jesus Christ lived before Abraham lived. It is beautiful to see how Paul associates what is, at present, the very small idea of "the Church" with all the glory and grandeur of the sovereignty and empire of Christ. Jesus Christ is the "beginning," or the firstfruits; he is "the firstborn from the dead," he is the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. The resurrection was, in his sense, the second birth of Christ; the beginning of that phase of existence which, by glory, eclipsed all that had ever one before. We may start the earthly history of Christ from his nativity or from his resurrection. Each point is equally strong, but the second infinitely exceeds in glory. A marvellous idea it was to associate death with him who is the image of the invisible God, by whom 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. How daring the imagination to introduce the element of death into a panorama burning with such ineffable glory! Yet here is the sacrifice of the Saviour; here is the Cross of Christ; here the agony, the shame, the weakness, the forsakenness of the Son of God! Yet it behoved him who is the captain of our salvation to be made perfect through suffering. Had he known everything but death, how could he have known men who were taken out of the earth, and shaped out into the Divine likeness, and made alive by the Divine breath? Jesus Christ became pre-eminent through suffering. Without the Cross, the chief gem in the crown of Christ would have been wanting. The Apostle makes this part of his statement even more vivid and poignant by specific references: