Colossians 1:16b-17

Colossians chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, our focus will be on the latter part of verse 16 and then verse 17 as well. 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. And he is before all things. And by Him, all things consist. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this morning. There was a little boy who couldn’t play outside because it was raining. His father wanted to take a nap on the sofa, but the child was a bit rowdy and noisy. And so he asked his son to go to another room and play. And the little boy said, like, do what? Like what? And the father said, anything. The son said, well, there isn’t anything to do. Grabbing the newspaper, the man tore out a page with a large map of the world on it, and he decided he would cut it up in all these little pieces here. He said, put this together. That’ll keep you busy. And then he laid back down on the couch, hoping to get his nap. Within 10 minutes, there was a tug on his shoulder, and the dad looked up at the sun and said, you couldn’t possibly have put that all together already. But they looked down on the floor, and sure enough, the boy had put this puzzle all together. He said, how did you do it so fast? He says, easy. There’s a man’s pitcher on the back, and when I got that right, then the world was right. You know, this world in which we live is a puzzle to most people. They can’t solve it. How did I get here? Where did the universe come from? What is my purpose for being here? Where is all this heading? Well, the solution to the puzzle is the God man, who is behind the world. When you have right views of Christ, everything. else makes sense. Otherwise, it is all a jumbled mess. Paul has been teaching you about Jesus Christ, the Lord, and the Redeemer of His people. And it’s essential that you have a proper belief about Jesus Christ. Now, we’ve been talking about Christ the Creator in verses 16 and 17. We’ve looked at the person of Christ. in the first part of verse 16, who is the creator. He is the person of the creator. We looked at the particulars of creation and all the details regarding the visible things and invisible and invisible and so forth, the thrones, the principalities, and the powers. And that brings us now to our third point that we want to talk about. You find here the purpose of creation. Now, verse 16, says that all things were created by him and for him. Now, what Christ as creator reveals, all things were created by him. Here we can see some important truths about Christ here. That Christ is obviously self-existent. That there’s not anything else they can put in this category. Everything else depends on some other thing or some other person. You acknowledge this truth when you talk about the law of cause and effect. If you look at the genealogies of scripture, and you’ll find you read about one person begetting another. This person begets this person. This person begets that person and so forth. And you can trace the family line back. generation after generation is spoken of as being the son of, this person or that. In Luke’s account, you have Mary’s genealogy, which traces Christ’s genealogy all the way back to Adam. Through David, of course, and through Abraham, as the promise of Scripture said. And it’s interesting that Adam is said to be the son of God, because he has been created by God himself. And then it stops. The creator has no cause. There is no prior cause. Christ is the ultimate cause and he himself is uncaused. So Christ is self-existent as the son. The Son of God is also self-sufficient. Christ doesn’t have any needs. Therefore, he doesn’t depend on anyone or anything. Now, you and I are not like that. We have countless needs. For example, you need oxygen. You cannot survive very long without taking a breath. If your supply of oxygen is cut off for a few minutes, you’re going to die. You’re dependent upon light and heat and heat and water. The laws of nature such as gravity. Crop growth depends upon the sun and warmth and rain and so forth. Now, everything in this universe, could go, and Christ would be totally unaffected. Christ was under no obligation or constraint or necessity to create. But he chose to do so, purely as a sovereign act on his part. Christ could have been perfectly happy and satisfied in the covenant life that he had with the members of the Holy Trinity. So we see Christ as creator, and we can be perfectly happy and satisfied in the covenant life that he had with the members of the Holy Trinity. can realize there are many things about Christ that this points out. Some false things that we can deny. It’s a denial of atheism. Of course, there is a creator. It’s a denial of materialism because Christ is set apart from creation. And so we would have to say that matter did not always exist. It was created by Christ. It’s a denial also of pantheism. God is not said to be in matter. God is not the sun. He’s not the moon. He’s not the stars. He’s separate from creation. And therefore, the worship of these things is idolatry. So this is what we see about Christ as the creator. But now we come to this important phrase here. How Christ is the central focus of creation. All things were created. By him and for him. Now, friends, I cannot adequately convey to you the truth of this phrase for him. It’s beyond my capabilities. But we have to realize as we come to the scripture here that Christ is the sole end of all things. in this world. Their only purpose for existence is to show forth his praise in some way manifest his glory. Let me emphasize this. Christ is the only end of all things in heaven, in earth, visible or invisible. You know, just as all the rays of the sun point back to the sun. So all things in this world point back to Christ. They all speak of him in some way. They declare his glory. Now, this is why it’s so difficult for us to grasp such a deep statement that we find here, because it is beyond my capability of explaining this to you fully. But I want you to ponder this. There never was a creature. No matter how small. or how large that was not created in some way for Christ to bring glory to him, whether consciously or unconsciously, willingly or in spite of its own intentions, all creatures serve to glorify the Savior. We know that God decreed and he willed all things in his eternal counsel. But here we see His His spiritual. purpose in willing all these things. The triune God desired to reflect his divine, infinite virtues and life. And he created all things with this high end in mind. Now, the highest thing in God is his covenant life. With the members, this bond of friendship, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, have among themselves. He willed to establish and reveal this covenant life in Christ that he might bring a people into this covenant life to enjoy that bond of friendship. All other things in the Council of God are related to this main purpose as means to this end. Everything is for, him. Now, for the realization of this purpose, the Son would become the Christ, the God man. Be incarnate. Be the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, that in him all the fullness of the Godhead might dwell. For that Christ and the revelation of that fullness, the church is decreed. All the elect, for the purpose of realizing this Church of Christ and the glory of Christ ultimately, the reprobate are determined as vessels of wrath. Finally, in the Council of God, all other things in heaven and earth are designed as a means, both with regard to this reprobation and election, and thus ultimately for the glory of Christ. So that all things, visible and invisible, and all their history, development, the good and evil things, the holy angels, the vile demons, the righteous and the wicked, grace and sin, life and death, heaven and hell, all things were created. and are and forever shall be for him. Now, in itself, we would look at sin and say that is an affront to the majesty of God. Terrible thing. A transgression of his law. And there is no doubt that the results of sin, that we behold in this world, as terrible as it is, is, ultimately, and hence the glory, of the divine character of Christ as a contrast. Sin is necessary in order to show God to be what he is to display his righteousness, his holiness, and his justice. The creation of the sun in the heavens is a glorious type of Jesus Christ, for the scripture says in Malachi he is the son of righteousness. He is the light of the world. The resting. on the seventh day of creation. And the first Sabbath were calculated the foreshadow the rest of Christ from the more important work here, even of redemption. And, of course, the glorious and everlasting rest that the people God would have in Christ. We look at the formation of Adam and Eve. And the institution of God, of the marriage covenant that we find in the book of Genesis. Well, Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is to reflect Christ and the church. It is, in a sense, a picture of Christ and the church, his bride. Now, God doesn’t need a heaven. He is a spirit. So why is heaven created? Well, God ordained Christ to be the head and the same. of an elect people. The son of God would take upon himself the nature of a man and be made like unto his brother. Now a spiritual being does not need a location, but someone with a material substance, a body must have a place to reside. Our Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected bodily. He was the God man. And thus he would need a heaven. And thus heaven was created first and foremost for Christ, but secondarily for His people. Does not Christ pray? And John 17, his high priestly prayer, Father, I will that they also, whom now has given me, be with me where I am. That they may be hold my glory. So Christ is the sole end of all things. I can only give you a sampling of what. I hope you will spend some time pondering in more detail yourself. Now, what we find here then is that there is a purpose in creation. You know, on the campus of Ohio State University stands a strange and puzzling building known as the Wesler Arts Center, or Wexler Art Center. It’s an asymmetrical random design. Staircases that go nowhere. Pillars that don’t hold up anything. A lot of absurdities are in it. So you might think, well, what in the world was the artist trying to portray in this particular building? The building is meant to portray the fact that life is irrational and it is disjointed. You know, when someone believes in evolution, you are confessing that your life is a result of an accident, that there is no purpose in life, that everything is just random processes that takes place. There’s no rhyme. There’s no reason to it at all. You are the product of chance. There’s no higher answer or purpose that exists. Time magazine had a cover story a while back. How did life begin? They began to speculate on this. There were three. ideal conditions when life began when certain molecules just happened to encounter one of these three ideal conditions, life began in a little warm pond, or life began near hydrothermal vents underwater geysers on the ocean floor, or life began in the bubbles that floated to the surface of the ocean and got warmed up, thus life is meaningless. Life is meaningless. As Shakespeare once put it, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If that’s what you believe, then life has no purpose. What a contrast when you come to Scripture. That not only is Christ the Creator, but there is nothing that is created that doesn’t ultimately bring glory in some fashion to the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything has that purpose. So every thing, little detail of life somehow or other fits in the overall purpose to bring honor and glory to your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, your duty is it not? What is the chief end of man? It’s to glorify God and love Him forever. Isn’t this the purpose of creation? Ultimately, everything is to bring all the honor and glory to Christ, our Savior. There is a purpose behind creation. Now, I’m not going to delve into this too deeply this morning, but we see something here about the order of God’s decrees in this particular section of scripture when we read about everything being created for Christ. This tells us here that God always acts for a purpose. God doesn’t just create and then say, well, what am I going to do with this creation? He had a purpose in mind, an ultimate. point that he was trying to bring about and will bring about in creating. Everything is predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will according to Ephesians 111. Everything is working toward an end. And we read in Ephesians 311 according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. It’s for him. So God purposes the glorify Him. through the person of his son, therefore he is the central goal. Now once this is grasp, all the pieces of the plan of redemption neatly fall into place. Election and Reprobation, Heaven and Hell, the fall of angels and man. All that is related to this first point. In the order of redemption, in history, we find that order is the reverse of the order of God’s plan. Theologians have argued for centuries about the order of decrees and what came first, the parts of his plan, does the fall precede election, does the election precede the fall, and so forth. But what is not readily realized is that when an action is done for a particular person, purpose. The order of the action, what we call history, is the reverse of the plan. So the last purpose in God’s plan, creation, is the first step that he undertakes in history. He’s already purposed what creation is going to be all about before he creates. So when he creates, it’s just that’s the, that was the last step of the plan, but it’s the first thing that we see happen when we open our Bibles. For example, suppose a man decided to take a trip, let’s say, to Colorado, right? That’s his chief purpose. That’s the first thing he thinks about doing. After deciding where to go, he has to decide how he’s going to get there, what he’s going to take, what time he’s going to depart. The last thing he thinks of is the first thing he does. I’m going to go out the door. You don’t go out the door and say, no, let me think about where I’m going to go. You’ve already thought where I’m going to go and planned that out, and then you go out the door. This is the way we logically do things. He thinks of his end before taking that first step to achieve that end. Therefore, if everything is created for the Lord Jesus Christ, then creation and the fall cannot be the first two steps in God’s counsel or plan or purpose. That is known as the infralapsarian view. When I use the word, I don’t want to overwhelm you, but infra lapse, when we use the word lapse, think of the word fall. Infra is below the fall. Supra is above the fall. We’re talking about election when it takes place before or after the fall. But we must see that in God’s eternal. purpose with Jesus Christ, the election of a people in Him and glorifying Christ is what is first in the purpose of God. Everything else falls in line after that. So you find the purpose of creation here. What Christ as creator reveals and how Christ is the central focus of creation of creation. Now, you find the purpose of creation here. the preservation of creation in verse 17. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. We see the eternalness of Christ as the Creator here. Again, this is emphasizing his deity deity as the Creator. He’s not only better than all angels and men in his nature and his offices and works and so forth. But he is before them in existence. In fact, he must of necessity be so because he’s the Creator. Not as he before John the Baptist, who was his forerunner in the New Testament, but he was before Abraham, who saw his day and rejoiced. He was even before Adam as the first man. And he was before the angels who were called into being. He was before the heavens and the earth. Where any creature was formed, he was before it. He’s from everlasting to everlasting the true God. So we read in Scripture that he is the alpha and the omega. He is the beginning and the end. But you see the eternalness of Christ. Notice the preservation of creation depends upon Christ. upon Christ. Self-existence, we said, is the property of God alone. Every creature, whether earthly or visible or invisible, would shrink back to nothingness if Christ’s power were withdrawn. If Christ would withhold his power, everything would die. Scripture declares that Christ uphold all things by the word of his power. in Hebrews 1.3. He sustains this creation that he has made. This creation would completely die if he did not do that. The heavens have their stability and continuance in Christ. The sun, the moon, the stars, all the galaxies, everything. The earth maintains its orbit and position because Christ, all the inhabitants of this world would disintegrate without him. The angels are confirmed in their holy state because of Christ. They have their standing and security in Him. All mankind are said to live and move and have their being in Christ. The elect are in Christ hand or under his special care so that none of them are lost and are preserved by Christ. in a special manner. This whole frame of nature that we look at in this world would utterly perish without Christ. You know, men fail to realize how fragile they are. They may curse Christ. They may blaspheme his name, but they don’t realize that every breath they take, they are dependent upon him. And how easily he could snuff out their life. Christ could easily withdraw his preserving power and you would die in a split second. Christ can preserve you in the most dangerous and treacherous circumstances. When we look at Christ’s people down through history, how he has miraculously preserved his people. It’s because Christ can, without questioned, and does preserve all things according to his will and purpose and so he keeps the world going and he preserves his people in a special way. So the preservation of creation depends upon Christ. I want to make this observation. You’ll notice as we look at this, this passage tells us that environmentalism has an erroneous premise. Certain scientists like to play with a notion that there would be some type of global disaster if environmentalism, environmental pollution continues unchecked the way it is today. Or we’re told that the planet is already well advanced towards some type of global destruction. That fossil fuels and overpopulation and the disappearing, the ozone later spells doom for the world. That the sun is going to burn out. And so forth. So unless some type of drastic measures are taken immediately, man is going to destroy himself along with the earth. Supposedly the earth’s temperatures are rising and the polar caps are melting and the sea levels are being raised by a much as 300 feet and eventually this whole world is going to be flooded and everybody’s going to die. Government officials tell us that global warming is more dangerous to us than even the terrorists. This entire theory flies in the face of this text in verse 17. If the Lord Jesus Christ is preserving his creation, then nothing will destroy it until the second coming of Christ. You are called upon as a believer to trust what scripture says and not be frightened by the theories of men. As if the world somehow or others tumbling along and there’s nothing we can do about it or if we do this or that, maybe we can spare a few more years. It’s in Christ’s hands. He’s going to control it. This is what we’re trusting. And God’s purposes will come to. pass and everything will fit according to his plan and he will continue as he has purposed well that little boy that put the world puzzle together by getting the man on the back of the of the newspaper in place correctly there are a lot of of puzzling things connected with this world in which we live how did I get here what is my purpose for being. Where’s all this heading? The solution of that puzzle is right here in scripture. It’s all about Christ. And my friends, Christ is behind everything. If we get the right perspective on him, then we will have a right perspective on the world. Let me ask you, do you know the Savior this morning? Do you know the one that we’re talking about? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you come to believe and trust in him as the Lord and Savior and Redeemer as revealed in Scripture? He is your creator. He is the one you’re going to be answerable to. He’s going to be your judge. And you’ll stand before him and give it an account. My friends, the only hope we have is through the blood and redemption of Christ that we could have forgiveness and stand before him as one of his people. and be accepted in the beloved Jesus Christ himself. Let us close with a word of prayer.