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It Is Written

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven & Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

Eric Flickinger

Clinton Wahlen

01 Persecuted but Not Forsaken

06 Confidence Only in Christ

02 Reasons for Thanksgiving and Prayer

03 Life and Death

04 Unity Through Humility

05 Shining as Lights in the Night

07 A Heavenly Citizenship

John Bradshaw

Great Characters of the Bible: Abraham

08 The Preeminence of Christ

09 Reconciliation and Hope

10 Complete in Christ

11 Living With Christ

12 Living with Each Other

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We're glad that you are here to join us today.

We are taking a look at the Sabbath School lesson, lesson number 8 of 13.

And this week we are looking at the preeminence of Christ, beginning to focus now in the book of Colossians.

Father, we're grateful to be here today as we open your book once again and learn more about you.

You are seeking to help us understand how you want to unite heaven and earth.

And through the books of Philippians and Colossians, we get an opportunity to see Jesus in a brand new light.

We ask that your blessing would be upon us today, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

We're glad that you're here, but we are also glad that the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson is here, Dr.

He is an associate director of the Biblical Research Institute.

We've spent several weeks in the book of Philippians, learned more about Jesus and his plan for us to prepare us to be citizens for heaven.

This is the book of Colossians and we get some new views of Jesus as we get into the book of Colossians.

There's a lot in this week's lesson, so I want to kind of dive into it.

In verse 15, Paul says, speaking of Jesus, He is the image of the invisible God.

Now, there are those who might misunderstand or misinterpret what Paul means here.

Help us to understand what he does mean and what he doesn't mean here by describing him as the image of the invisible God.

Well, Eric, the word in Greek is eikon, we get our word eikon from it.

Here, Paul says the image of the invisible God, well Jesus is the visible manifestation of God.

We can't see God face to face, can't see the Father, but Jesus is the visible manifestation of that.

When we think of the image of God, of course, we also, our minds are kind of directed to Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27, where when God created human beings, he made them in his own image.

Male and female, he created them, it says.

And so all of us are made in God's image.

It's the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word we mentioned, of Ekon.

And it refers to physical, mental, and spiritual totality or holistic being.

He's the image of the invisible God in a higher sense because it refers to his divinity.

In Hebrews 1.3, it also has this idea that it expresses.

Hebrews 1, verse 3, who being the brightness of His, that is God's glory, speaking of Jesus, and the express image of His person, this express or exact image.

He is the exact representation of God to us.

So this is when we think of Jesus as the image of God it doesn't lessen him in any sense.

It refers to how he manifests God personally to us, visibly to us, and in exactly the way we can understand God.

It's also Jesus himself speaks of this, in fact, in Matthew chapter 11, where he's speaking of his relationship with the Father.

Matthew 11 and verse 27, all things have been delivered to me by my father and no 1 knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and the 1 to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." This is how we know God.

This is how we know the Father is through Jesus because he is the exact representation of God to us.

So if Jesus is the exact representation of God to us, then this concept that some people have that the God of the Old Testament was this vindictive, harsh, difficult, uncaring God, and the God of the New Testament is this kind, loving, forgiving God.

That kind of all falls apart, doesn't it?

Because if Jesus is the image of the Father, then that same Father that we see in Jesus, He existed back in Old Testament times.

So we've got a beautiful picture of God from Genesis to Revelation and really beyond through seeing Jesus.

And in fact, Paul says, you know, for example, about Israel's wanderings in the wilderness in 1 Corinthians 10, that it was Christ who was with them every step of the way, that he was the manifestation of God in Israel's time.

As it says in Hebrews 13, he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So this image of the invisible God, Jesus gives us a clear picture of who the Father is and what he is like.

That passage or that verse, verse 15, also includes another phrase in there.

It says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Now there again we could we could find something sticky or make something sticky if we wanted to.

It doesn't have to be difficult to understand.

Unpack this phrase, the firstborn of all creation.

Well, again, this is 1 of those cases where if we take a snippet of a verse out of context, we may come to a misunderstanding.

But all we have to do is read verse 16, because it immediately follows.

He's the firstborn over all creation for, and so Paul is explaining what that means, for by him, that is by Jesus, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him." So Firstborn in scripture does not always refer to birth or the natural birth process.

David is the classic example of that because we know when Samuel was called to go to Jesse's household and anoint the next king of Israel, he went through a whole line of Jesse's sons And it was actually the eighth, the youngest son, David, that he was to anoint as king.

We can look at Psalm 89, verse 27, where it refers to this.

It says, also, I will make him, speaking of David, my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

And David was, in fact, the preeminent king of Israel.

Of all the kings of Israel, He was the preeminent 1.

And in fact, of his, you know, Jesse's sons, he was the preeminent son, even though he was the youngest.

And then in verse 29, it refers to his seed or descendant, also I will make to endure forever, and his throne shall be as the days of heaven." Speaking of Jesus, who was in the line of David.

So it's a messianic prophecy connecting David as the firstborn king, really preeminent king of Israel, with Jesus.

And Jesus is the 1 whose throne will be as the days of heaven, whose throne will endure forever.

So Jesus, as the firstborn, it doesn't mean that He was born in any sense.

It means He is the preeminent 1, the 1 over all creation.

Paul explains that because He created all things.

All things were created through Him and for Him.

And He is before all things, he goes on to say.

So it's important that we don't impose a 21st century interpretation of a word on a phrase that was used years and years ago in different contexts to mean different things.

Otherwise we can find ourselves in very confusing situations.

So best to let the context and similar Bible verses help us to interpret that.

Yes, in fact, I think it would be helpful if you could read on Monday, the second paragraph after the question, I think that also helps to explain this very clearly, where he says, you know, Paul has just said that Jesus is the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven, on earth, visible, invisible.

Read this paragraph that unpacks that a little bit.

This is Paul's statement is as comprehensive as possible.

And functionally, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers.

The latter terms normally refer to angelic beings.

As if to make sure he cannot be misunderstood, Paul also indicates that Jesus existed before all things.

The Greek expression can mean precedence in rank as well as in time, but in every other instance in Paul's writings it refers to time.

Series

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2026: Uniting Heaven & Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians

08 The Preeminence of Christ

Transcript

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