The Forst Born of All Creation

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Colossians 1:15

 

I have been a member and volunteer at Faith Alliance Church for many years and in many varied roles. Most of you are probably familiar with me as a part of the Sunday Morning Worship team. I love being able to use the skills God has blessed me with to glorify Him. Over the many years, one of my favorite roles that I have had the honor to serve in was as a youth leader. If you have spent any time with this age group, you will know that teenagers are unique. And serving and leading youth is not for everyone.

One of the things that makes teenagers so unique is in the way they think. They might look almost grown up on the outside, but they are still very much in the growing process on the inside. As adults, the way we think seems logical and reasonable. But that is because our brains are done growing. When talking to and explaining life and spiritual principles to a teenager, you cannot speak solely from an adult perspective. From the outset, your approach must be adjusted into terms that will resonate with a teenager. It may not be the way that you would naturally approach a situation, but adjusting your approach to better align with the perspective of a teenager is the most effective way to go.

From the very beginning God wanted a relationship with His image bearers but sin severed that connection. Humans were left on their own, altered by the sin of wanting to be the god of themselves, to populate and govern over God’s physical creation. In doing so they created a culture that was very far from God’s original intention. In order to restore His relationship with humans, and restore the intended spiritual connection, sin had to be dealt with. God, in His unfathomable grace and mercy, chose to use the culture that the Humans had developed as a blueprint for redemption. If He was to be effective, God had to communicate in a way that His beloved image bearers could understand. Working with the intrinsic human understanding that, at some level, there was a disconnect, God pursued His beloved. Reconnection could only happen with atonement. A pure and ultimate sacrifice was needed. There was only one way.

Jesus

When God began to execute His plan, the concept of the first-born – as we explored in the previous installment (The First Born of All Creation – The First Born) – was a real and recognizable way in human society to establish family survival and power. The first-born held a place of honor that represented the paternal line. The concept of the importance of the firstborn was understood. The concept of a pure and spotless sacrifice, though, was a crucial and holy concept that God needed to establish with His people.  Throughout the Old Testament, the examples of the seriousness of sin and the instructions for how to work toward reconciliation were detailed and thorough. Even though there were animal stand-ins that represented the requirements needed for redemption, despite their physical perfection, the animal sacrifice could never achieve the ultimate once-and-for-all level of atonement that was needed. By the time Jesus began His ministry here on earth, the understanding of a perfect, spotless sacrifice was understood.

One of the more challenging concepts to wrap our human minds around when considering Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Is the understanding that Jesus is fully God, “the image of the invisible God” and fully human, “the firstborn of all creation.”  With out any understanding of God’s original intention and creation, it’s inconceivable. But if you recall from the first installment of this series, (The First Born of All Creation – Creation) we explored how humans were created to be the image of both the spiritual and physical attributes of God himself, both fully-spiritual and fully-physical. Throughout all of scripture, God gives us small glimpses into the attributes of the three distinct parts of His divinity; three parts, but one God: The Father (Holy Source and Creator), The Son (the representation of the physical and spiritual attributes) and The Holy Spirit (The spiritual connection to the Source). The first small glimpse is right at the beginning of it all in the first chapter of Genesis, “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Gen 1:26). The concept of Jesus being a man and at the same time being God was a hard concept for the people of Israel to grasp, too. In John 8:58 Jesus declared of himself, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus is fully God and fully human. Humans are fully spiritual and fully physical.

To be clear, we were created in the image of God, and Jesus IS God.  The fully human Jesus wasn’t the spiritually disconnected, unplugged from the Source, human like His parents, or His followers, or the Jewish leaders, or any other human on the planet who knew nothing of His existence. When Jesus walked on this earth, He represented what humanity was intended to be, fully human and at the same time, fully connected to the Spiritual source. Because He is fully God, He is without sin. The perfect sinless God in human flesh was among His disconnected image bearers. He was here to reestablish the connection.

From the first animal sacrificed in the garden, humanity has the concept on some level that sacrifice was needed to reestablish a connection, even if they didn’t understand exactly what they were disconnected from.  In every case, it was understood that it had to be valuable, otherwise it wouldn’t really be a sacrifice. In so many ways the concept of the need for sacrifice was reiterated throughout the story of redemption in the Bible in both legitimate and illegitimate ways. The death of the thousands of first-born males in Egypt remembered yearly during the Passover feast and pagans sacrificing children – a practice that God warned against throughout the Old Testament – are examples of humans trying to fill that need in an illegitimate way.   Israelites bringing the best of the best of their animals on a regular basis to the Temple; Levites having their lives committed to service; the firstborn sons of the Head Priest following in their father’s footsteps to become the next High Priest are legitimate sacrifices.  Though so many were costly and very serious, the legitimate sacrifices ordained by God only got you near to God. It did not reconcile a relationship with God.

God is relentless in His love for His image bearers. But the spiritual death as the result of sin could not be atoned for by the blood of an animal. It could only be atoned for by a perfect human representative.

Jesus was the only choice. The only way for a fully reconnected spiritual relationship with the creation that bears the likeness of God was a perfect human sacrifice. The only perfect human was God himself.

Jesus came to the earth with a spiritual connection to God. While on earth He exemplified the possibilities of what humans can do for the glory of God when they are spiritually connected to the Source of life. Jesus had to willingly experience the spiritual disconnection that sin created, all the while having not sinned. The weight of the penalty of sin was to experience both spiritual and physical death. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Jesus paying the penalty for the sin that causes spiritual death, leading to a way for spiritual reconnection through the blood of His sacrifice, brings the promise of spiritual restoration and eternity with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All the attributes of God Himself fully reconciled with the beloved creation that was made to bear His image. The only condition is we must see ourselves for who we are, sinful. We must come to terms with the truth that there is no sacrifice we could make to atone for the sin that brought us spiritual death. We must accept that it was only through the blood of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus that we can have our spiritual lives resurrected and reconnected to the Source. And we must strive to follow the example Jesus set as a human living out a fully spiritually connected life here on Earth. We will never be able to entirely live up to Jesus’ example, but with each day that we choose to live for God and die to our sinful nature, we can exemplify the Love of Christ to those around us whom God loves and longs to be reconnected to. While we are here on this earth, God wants to us to join Him in his quest to reconcile his beloved creation to Himself. What an honor and a gift that we do not deserve. Praise the Lord!