giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.  (13) He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, (14) in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (15) He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  (16) For by Him 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.   (17) And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  (18) And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 

The letter to the Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul.  Paul is dealing with heresy in Colosse and seeking to show that the solution to false doctrine is a fuller knowledge of Christ Jesus.

Our verses today tell us that Jesus is the image of the invisible God – and implicit is that Christ Jesus is the essence of God – that He is God.  God is invisible to the eye of man and also to the understanding of man.  God is revealed to us in Christ alone.  And in Christ, this Son of love, we are loved. All parts of our salvation are in Christ, who through His blood made the perfect sacrifice for our redemption – Christ Jesus paid the SOLE price for mans reconciliation with the Father.  Man has passed from death to life, from darkness to the light because of this sacrifice and God’s grace. There is nothing we could ever do to earn this.  In doing my research I came across this quote from Calvin that “wherever His grace is not, darkness is.”

Christ is all in all.  All creatures were created by Him – and because this is so, He is not one of the creatures.  Paul writes that He is the firstborn meaning Christ has sovereignty – preeminence over all creaction in heaven or on earth – that heavenly creatures and spiritual creatures also have been created by the Son of God.  All fullness dwells in Christ because it pleases the Father.  God shows Himself through Christ and those who detract from Christ are trying – in vain – to overturn God’s eternal counsel.  Paul tells us that we are blessed through Christ alone – He is our connection to God – the blood of the cross is the blood of acceptable sacrifice.