Jesus, both human and divine

Colossians 1:15-17 (NLT)

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation for through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth.  He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.  Everything was created through Him and for Him.  He existed before anything else, and He holds all creation together.

I admit that my finite brain cannot comprehend what this passage is saying.  How can any finite human being comprehend what it means to exist before anything was created?  How can any human being comprehend the claim that through Jesus Christ God created everything in the heavens and earth?  Who can understand things we cannot see such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in an unseen world?  What is Paul writing about?  What in the world does it mean that Jesus holds all creation together? 

If I don’t know what Paul is writing about here, how can I write anything further?  Well, I am simply going to write about what I do understand.  First, Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.  Jesus said in John 14:9 that “He who has seen Me has seen the Father also”.  God the Father came to the earth in the form of a human being who was/is Jesus Christ.  This is a key belief of Christianity, that God the Father and Jesus the Son are the same person.  Maybe a bad analogy, but it’s like saying that a man is a father and also a son or a woman a mother and also a daughter.

Paul wrote in Philippians 2:6-8 that (and I’m paraphrasing) Jesus was God, but emptied Himself from being God to take the form of being human.  The Message Bible says: “When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!  Having become human, he stayed human.  It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”  So I can understand that God became visible to all mankind through Jesus Christ coming to the earth to live for 33 years just like any other human being although He committed no sin and was willing to die a sacrificial and very horrible death to save all sinful people from eternal death.

Second, while I cannot comprehend how He existed before anything was created, I can accept that Jesus is eternal.  Since humanity and all of earth are temporal we don’t know what eternal means, but we can accept it since we are not God.  If you reject this claim, you have no basis other than you choose to be arrogant in your intellectual limitations and cannot accept anything based on faith alone. 

Third, I can accept the claim, without needing to understand, that if Jesus is God, He created all things.  The creation story in Genesis 1 is very familiar to followers of God.  Yet how many have carefully read what Genesis 1:26 says---“The God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image…”.  Did you notice that the pronouns are plural?  God is not speaking of Himself alone.  He also is not speaking of Himself in a third person way.  He also spoke using plural pronouns in Genesis 3:22, Genesis 11:7, and Isaiah 6:8.  Who is He including?  He is including Himself, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  So if Jesus was involved in the creation of human beings, He also was involved in the creation of all things. 

No, I nor anyone else can explain these claims about Jesus’ divinity and humanity.  All we can do is believe them based on our faith that the Word of God is true.  Do you have such faith?  If your answer is “yes”, you are blessed.  If your answer is “no”, you have a choice of never believing or continuing to pray and seek the God and the faith He can give you through His Word imparted by His Spirit into your spirit (prayerfully study Romans 8).