Colossians Study Outline

Jesus Christ the Creator God and as such is totally Incomparable

I had an elderly gentleman who was well into his 70’s, say, "I have just all of a sudden, as a result of your postings, gotten a hunger for the Word. It’s the first thing I do when I get up in the morning and the last thing I do before I go to sleep. To think that I wasted all those years with no interest in spiritual things." To this I said, "You know you remind me, (and we’ve shared it with some of those people) of something that Winston Churchill said. You’re going to smile because you’re going to remember when he said it. He said, "Youth is wonderful. But what a pity that it had to be wasted on young people!" My grandfather use to say, “so soon we get old and so late we get smart.” Now isn’t that exactly what we’ve done? They've wasted all those good productive years just simply spending them to satisfy the flesh and then when they get older they suddenly realize that, "Hey, this is far better. Why couldn’t I have experienced this for the last 40 years?" Well, it’s one of the questionable things, of the human experience. And this too we can a test to also had we understood the Words of our Lord back in 1966 or 1985 when He first told us to come out from among them, no, we would not have wondered around the mountain again. But we did not and therefore we do what we do and say what we say because we to wasted His time and ours or so I feel. Thank God He is recapturing the time lost in His way. Paul put it this way in Titus where we find this statement in verse 14 of: 2:11-15 “For the Grace of God that brings Salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise you.” (Look at Numbers 25:13 again in this light and then Titus 3:8 and when we do Ephesians 2:10 will mean more, as will 1Peter 2:12.)

 

2Corinthians 5:18b

"….who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ (It doesn’t stop there. As soon as we are reconciled what has God given us?) and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation."

In other words, we are to help others to be reconciled. And there’s no more thrilling thing you can do. Like I’ve already mentioned, if you can bring an estranged husband and wife together, and maybe there’s some little kids at home that are torn between all this, is there anything more thrilling than to reconcile those two people and save the home and recreate a joy and happiness? That makes you feel pretty good. Well, it’s the same way if you can do this with a lost, believing unbeliever who walk in wickedness. If we can be instrumental in bringing that kind of person to a true knowledge Christ and His Salvation and to be able to say, "I’ve reconciled them, or have had a part in reconciling someone to God." And this is our ministry, that we are to be reconciling both lost and professing believers who are actually in unbelief as unbelieving people to their Creator God. Any one who knowingly or unknowing makes light of Christ and this Gospel have a second chance just look at the Lord's own Words, “seventy times seven” was His expression in Matthew 18:21-22 and Luke 17:1-4. 

Now we are looking at righteousness which comes through being reconciled and we find this in:

 

2Corinthians 5:19-21

“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He has made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness* of God in Him.”

*This springs form Isaiah 46:13 where it states beginning at verse 10 with: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executes My counsel from a far country: yes, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. Hearken to Me, you stouthearted, that are far from righteousness: I bring near My righteousness; it shall not be far off, and My salvation shall not tarry (be delayed): and I will place Salvation in Zion for Israel My glory*.”

*This is seen in what 2Thessalonians 1:12 reveals through Paul which states this: “That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” This springs from what Jesus Himself stated in John 17 verse 10 where we find this: "All mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.” Again Paul bears this out in Romans 3:21-26 which states: “The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely through His Grace through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him (those) which believe Jesus.”

To this Jeremiah states this in 33:16 beginning with verse 14: “ Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up to David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness. For thus said the LORD; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. The word of the LORD came to me, Jeremiah, saying, Thus says the LORD; If you can break My covenant of the day, and My covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also My covenant be broken with David My servant, that there should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, My ministers.” To this it can be said this, From the destruction of Jerusalem to the present time, a period of nearly nineteen hundred forty-six years have passed. And the Jews have had neither a king nor any form of government whatever; nor have they had the office of a high priest, or priest of any kind offering sacrifice, been exercised among them during the same period. Because this must all be understood of the spiritual David, Jesus Christ, who is both the king (for spiritual Israel) and High Priest of His Church, "the Israel of God," (Galatians 6:16). In Whom the covenant of royalty with David and his seed, and that of a priesthood with Aaron and his seed, have received their full accomplishment; and all the sacrifices of that old now dead dispensation were superseded by His "one oblation of Himself," the efficacy of which remains forever as witnessed to in Isaiah 9:6-7; Daniel 7:14 and Luke 1:32-33 and Revelation 5:10 all disclose.