“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” Colossians 1:16-18
This is going to be a very different article as I want to say something as much to myself as to you dear reader, something that I think has been and remains a subtle but dangerous adjustment in the lives of many Christians in the West, particularly in the UK.
Now, we’ve all read this passage from Colossians I am sure and naturally, I think our minds tend to focus in on verse 16 & 17 and we almost always perhaps read verse 18 as a kind of “theological full-stop”, intellectually we might relax at “He is the head of the church.” and glance subconsciously at “He is the beginning,” and a we kind of go “Yeah, I get that” and read the rest of the passage from the perspective of the first two elements but, let’s take a moment, sit and ponder, let’s really examine verse 18 and in particular one word, what it means for us as believers.
So, you see that at the start of verse 18? “He is the beginning” – we get that of course, Jesus IS the creator (John 1:1-3), He IS the beginning of all things, we believe that, we hold on to it and we know that it sits really comfortably with our view of God because well, that’s a Christian perspective.
And moving on a bit, even the “firstborn from the dead” we are comfortable with at a superficial level, but what does that mean and if you think about it hard, you might go “Oh, but hang on, firstborn, from the dead? Didn’t Jesus raise three others from the dead; The son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’s daughter (Matthew 9:18-26) and of course Lazarus in John 11:1-44. Well, yes, He did. Those others were indeed dead and then not dead, they were raised, but a very important distinction here is that Jesus rose Himself from the realm of death, He resurrected Himself to show complete mastery of death.
Those recorded three He made alive again from the dead, they were resuscitated whereas Jesus, Jesus was resurrected, they were raised miraculously back in their earthly, mortal bodies which would grow old and die again but Jesus was raised in a glorified immortal body, and as such he conquered death and lives in forever.
Now, for context in Colossians 1:18, the title “firstborn from the dead” (Greek: prototokos ek tōn nekrōn) carries a specific legal and theological meaning that sets Jesus apart from the three people He raised during His earthly ministry. In ancient Jewish culture, the “firstborn” was the heir who received the highest position, supreme authority, and double inheritance. It does not always mean the first one born chronologically (which is how we read this with our Western eyes).
“that in everything He might be preeminent.”.
Preeminent. It doesn’t mean accidentally be important, it doesn’t mean “maybe” important, it means IS the most important thing, is the primacy, is the prime, He holds the highest position, nothing above, nothing else to obtain, nothing else needed. Jesus is THE One. He in Himself is our goal, the end, and what this means for us as Christians is that JESUS is everything, it’s all about Him. All our goals, desires, wants and needs are nothing compared to Jesus.
Wanting wealth or health is OK but not getting those is OK too because Jesus is enough, not having the wealth you want, the house or car, the health you want, that doesn’t mean you are unloved, that doesn’t mean that God thinks less of you but it does mean that Jesus is enough. In our pain, in our loss, in our agony, in our want, in our need, in our life and in our death, Jesus is enough.
Following Jesus is most likely not going to make you wealthy, it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be healthy but the message here and in the Gospel is that Jesus is enough. Following Christ will not mean that everything goes right, but following Him means that you know, that you acknowledge and accept that He is enough no matter what. That’s the message of the Gospel, that Jesus and His work on the cross is sufficient, not that everything’s going to be okay.
We can pursue healing, we can pray for it and we can beg for it and maybe we get it, maybe we don’t, but Jesus is enough if we don’t. This is the message: that Jesus is sufficient. If you are blessed enough to have seen believers suffer and die whilst holding fast to their faith, holding fast to Jesus and rejoicing in their infirmity and imminent death then you have seen someone who truly KNOWS that Jesus is enough.
In Acts, the apostles, they get arrested and this court says, if you don’t quit this preaching stuff, if you don’t stop talking about Jesus, we’re going to beat you to death. And their response was simple: “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20) and so, they beat the snot out of them and released them, and then what did the apostles do? they rejoiced – they got beat nearly to death but they rejoiced.
And remember that almost every Apostle in the Bible dies an uncomfortable death (excluding John who dies of old age AFTER being boiled in oil), they don’t walk into the street and get run over by a car. They get beheaded, they skinned alive, they get pierced by spears, they get crucified upside down, they get sawn in half. They die poor, and they’re slaughtered for Jesus.
This was the fruit of the Gospel in their lives: beatings, beheadings, stoning, agonising death and yet they rejoiced, and this is the evidence for us, in the Bible, that Jesus can transcend the most horrific or difficult of circumstances.
For them, and for us, Jesus was and is enough.
Christianity has been built by the power of the Holy Spirit and has carried through the generations on the blood of believers, not on the simple wealth of people. There’s this absurd idea that we are solely responsible for the growth of the Gospel, that it is up to us, that we must do, we must say, that somehow we are the only way the Gospel is spread but that notion, that idea makes Christ not preeminent but subordinate to our efforts, our means, our words, and in the end we begin to think of Jesus only in terms of how He can help us spread His word abroad, of what He can give to us to do the work for Him – you know what, that is not Christianity, that is something entirely different, and it’s wrong.
Jesus is enough.
The Gospel isn’t about what Jesus gets you – it’s just about Jesus, preeminent, top of the chain, nothing else to want, nothing else to pursue, nothing else to desire.
He is enough.
