Colossians 1:15-20
John 1:1-14
April 26, 2015
Pastor Lori Broschat
HIS ONLY SON, OUR LORD
A few years ago in a Maundy Thursday service a group of people presented a drama that I
wrote over 20 years ago called “This is Your Life, Jesus.” It featured monologues by the
people who knew Jesus, like Peter and Pilate and Judas and Mary. The section of the
Apostles’ Creed describing Jesus is something like that play. Here is Jesus’ life laid out in six
statements, the longest part of the creed itself. It reads almost like an obituary; a very
different sort of obituary from what we are used to, but it does encapsulate His whole life.
It tells us how He was born and to whom, and how He died and through whom. That’s not
exactly all that is sufficient for us to know Him by any means. What do we really know about
Jesus? This creed captures some of that information, but Scripture fills in the details. To
supplement the creed we have the gospel record, of course, but in other Scripture today we
have heard both a hymn and a testimony.
These were the most important parts of the Christ story throughout the early days of the
faith, so we see them repeated often. Paul provides us with an early hymn of the church and
John gives us that magnificent prologue to his gospel. We know whose son He is, we know
what His relationship is to us, we know the tremendous truth that He rose from the dead,
and we know that He ascended into heaven and is there now with His Father, and we know
one day He will come to judge the living and the dead.
When I was a child we still said, “the quick and the dead,” and I always thought it was quite
obvious that those who were dead would not be very quick anymore. Imagine if all we had
to go on was the creed; would that create faith in Christ within us? Would it leave us
wondering and wanting more? It doesn’t mention forgiveness of sins or eternal life or even
belief in Him. Why did the authors of this creed choose these things as most significant?
You cannot be a proper Christian without a complete understanding of Christ. These points
of identification are important; in fact, they are vital to the Christian faith and a complete
doctrine. These are the things on which we must agree. The Incarnation, Crucifixion,
Resurrection, Descent, Ascension, and Return of Christ are all covered in this document.
Only two people from Christ’s life are mentioned; His mother Mary and Pontius Pilate, His
persecutor. Why does it not say “denied by Simon Peter, betrayed by Judas Iscariot,
harassed by Pharisees, or pursued by King Herod as a child”? Why is there no mention of the
significant places in His life, like Bethlehem or Nazareth or Jerusalem? Where is the
prophetic description of His suffering Isaiah provides us with each Lenten season?
We can’t possibly do justice to this whole section of the creed in one sermon. There is so
much theology contained in these words that the best we can do is take them all together as
a picture of Christ, kind of like the pixels in a digital image. If we were to rewrite this creed
we might do it differently, but as such it has stood for over 1500 years and so its value to us
is immeasurable. Just look at the relationship between Jesus and God. They are Father and
Son, and yet Jesus has existed since before the beginning of the world, and in fact the world
was created through Him. That can be very confusing given that the first line of the creed
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Colossians 1:15-20
John 1:1-14
April 26, 2015
Pastor Lori Broschat
declares God to be the creator of heaven and earth. How can Christ also take credit for
creation?
The answer has to do not with identity or credit, but in role and responsibility. Jesus and
God, being one and the same as members of the Trinity, both had a hand in creation. This is
not meant to distinguish Jesus as being above God, but to declare His full divinity, His
preexistent presence in the world, and His power to do all things. Remember, creeds such as
these were written to fight against heresy and false teachings. Jesus must be understood to
be equal to God, not merely a human being.
Paul called Him the image of the invisible God. In Him we see God. In London’s Trafalgar
Square there is a monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson, hero of the British navy. His statue
rests atop a 169-foot column. Visitors to the square cannot actually see the statue close up.
Visitors have no idea what he looks like. So the British have an exact replica, a duplicate of
Nelson’s image, at the ground level so that visitors can look him in the eye and see him face
to face. This is the picture of the Incarnation.1 We can’t see God high above us, but we can
see His Son.
The two monumental events of everyone’s life – birth and death – are highlighted in the
creed like bookends. But before Christ died He suffered, in particular at the hands of or
“under” Pontius Pilate. This is a historical reference placing the death of Christ in a
particular time in Israel. This is another statement of verifiable identification. Jesus was put
to death at the hands of a corrupt foreign government and the crowd of His own people
who rejected Him.
Just as Mary’s presence in the Creed calls to mind the power of human choices to obey, the
inclusion of Pilate in the Creed reminds us of the awesome consequences when we make
decisions opposing God’s will.2 His death was no ordinary one. Through His suffering and
death we found atonement for sin and a hope for our future. His suffering was a sacrifice.
His death was an offering.
Redemption is the word we use to describe why Christ died, but as Paul’s letter to the
Colossians affirms, redemption is not simply making creation a bit better, nor is it rescuing
spirits and souls from an evil material world. It is the remaking of creation, having dealt with
the evil that is defacing and distorting it. And it is accomplished by the same God, now
known in Jesus Christ, through whom it was made in the first place.3
Before Christ rose again, He spent time in death. That’s understandable since He did not rise
for three days. We tend to skip over the length of time He spent in the grave as we move
from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. The phrase “He descended to the dead” has been
removed from the creed in our hymnals, though the alternative version still appears.
1
Tennent, Timothy C., This We Believe! Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, pg. 36-37
Ibid, pg. 47-48
3
Wright, N.T., Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, pg. 95
2
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Colossians 1:15-20
John 1:1-14
April 26, 2015
Pastor Lori Broschat
Originally the phrase said “He descended into Hell.” I suspect this is a bit of a deal breaker
for some, the thought of Christ going to Hell when He died.
Among some members of the Word-Faith movement this statement becomes twisted into
false teaching. A man who calls himself Apostle Frederick K.C. Price, heavily influenced by
Kenneth Hagin, wrote, “Do you think that the punishment of our sins was to die on the
cross? If that was the case, the two thieves could have paid our price. No, the punishment
was to go to hell itself to serve time in hell separated from God.”4
So what did Jesus do while He was among the dead? In 1 Peter 3 we find this answer, “For
Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was
put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, through whom He also went and preached
to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah
while the ark was being built.” We should not think of Jesus going to Hell as we imagine it,
but rather understand the word refers to Sheol or Hades, which is a temporary place of
waiting, not one of punishment.
After three days in the grave, Jesus rose again. This week I discovered that I have been
misusing the term resurrection. We see many examples in Scripture of Jesus bringing
people back from the dead, but that was resuscitation, not resurrection. To be resurrected
implies a new and glorious body. All the people Jesus brought back to life would eventually
die again. Jesus was the firstborn from the dead, the first to receive a resurrected body.
This is what makes Christianity stand apart from other religions. Buddha is dead, Joseph
Smith is dead, and Mohammed is dead. Only Christ lives on after death.
John gives us the phrase “the Word became flesh.” It should be mentioned that in
becoming flesh, the Word did not cease being the Word, nor was the Incarnation a
temporary experience for the Word. Neither the resurrection nor the ascension of Jesus
serve to undo His incarnation.5 He is still as much an equal part of the Trinity now as He was
before the creation of the world, before His own birth, and after His own death.
Let me share with you an interesting analogy about the completed work of Christ that
includes His ascension into Heaven. We focus so much on Christ’s birth, death and
resurrection; why do we neglect His ascension? Think of it as a baseball game. His birth is
first base, His death is second base, and His resurrection is third base. Why don’t we
celebrate the complete trip which brings Him all the way home? At the very point when
Satan was so certain of his victory, Jesus hit a grand slam.
Jesus is right now sitting in Heaven, sitting beside God in His place of rightful honor, and He
is waiting as a prophet, He is interceding as a priest, and He is reigning as a King. His next
mission is to return and judge the living and the dead. He is the mediator, not only between
God and man, but between man and man, and between man and reality. He is the sole
mediator in the world.
4
5
http://www.watchman.org/profile/wordpro.htm
Dongell, Joseph, John – A Commentary for Bible Students, pg. 40-41
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Colossians 1:15-20
John 1:1-14
April 26, 2015
Pastor Lori Broschat
On Judgment Day, all sins will be revealed, all those who remained faithful will be vindicated,
and righteous rewards will be given to those who belong to God. Paul wrote, “For we must
all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for
what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” But we are not without hope. James
wrote, “Love has been perfected among us in this; that we may have boldness on the Day of
Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.” He was speaking of our being like Christ
in our expression of love for one another. A great deal of judgment has to do with how we
treat our fellow Christians. The world watches how Christians behave and forms its opinion
of Christ on that basis.
Let’s direct our attention back to Colossians for a moment and we’ll see three things in
particular about Jesus Christ and what God has done in and through Him. First, it’s by
looking at Jesus that we discover who God is. Second, Jesus holds together the old world
and the new, creation and new creation. Third, Jesus is the blueprint for the genuine
humanness which is offered through the gospel. Jesus is Himself the one ‘in whom’ we are
called to discover what true humanness means in practice.6
We can revel in the fact that God has provided us with a Savior who claimed victory over sin
and death and lives now to intercede for us and to come again and live with us forever in His
Kingdom. History calls Him the suffering servant. Every word of Isaiah’s majestic account of
what was to happen some seven hundred years later on Calvary reminds us that God has not
left us alone to suffer. God has stepped into history. We have sinned. But it is God who
suffers with us – and for us. This is what we must believe about Jesus.
6
Wright, N.T., Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, pg. 151-152
4