Essence

"Essence" – Colossians 1:15-20 “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature… and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” The study begins with the ordinary to reach the eternal: you buy a perfume and the price is the value, because the quality is the essence —how long it lasts, how oily it is, how it stays on the skin. So with our Lord: the portion you have of Him is the portion that comes out of you, and by how we act it is seen how much essence we carry. Jesus is the essence because He is the second person of the deity, and His life, His death and His resurrection are central. From there the study walks through Colossians verse by verse: the image of the invisible God, whom no one has seen and who in Christ is made visible to mortal eyes; the “firstborn of every creature,” which does not speak of birth, because angels are created and we are created, but Jesus is not created —He is Son by eternal relation, and before Abraham was, I am—; the power to create that was in His being, He being the architect and the agent of creation; His timelessness, which transcends the ages and upholds the universe even while they crucified Him; and His headship over the body which is the church, the vehicle through which He has chosen to express Himself on the earth. It closes with what the word essence means: what persists in a being beyond the accidental; and in the evil day as in the good, that essence in us is the powerful blood of Christ.

I. We must love the Word in order to retain it.

A. To have the essence one must be constantly inside the Scriptures.

1. “I had never read this verse”: and you have read it; the Word has so much to teach us each day.

2. It is not dead matter like everything else that is written: the Word is living.

3. We need it every day; not for a little while, not for a day: always.

B. He who does not keep it comes to church, goes out, comes in, and nothing happens.

1. To register the Scriptures in our system we must love them.

2. In loving them is born the desire to prize them as the most valuable thing we know.

II. What essence is.

A. You buy a perfume and the price is the value, because the quality is the essence.

1. It is made to last two, four or six hours; from that comes the price.

2. It depends on the designer, on the flower or the wood, and on what is invested for the highest quality.

3. That is the ordinary; that is here on the earth.

B. The portion you have of Him is the portion that comes out of you.

1. By how one acts it is shown how much of that essence of our Lord we carry.

III. Jesus is the essence.

A. He is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity; His life, death and resurrection are central.

1. They are central because they produce fundamental, principal, primordial action.

2. That is why we have salvation today and why there can be a church at all.

B. When Jesus comes into your life, you have a pleasing fragrance.

1. In the mind, in the heart, in the speech, in the movement and in the deeds, the essence comes forth.

2. You can no longer turn carnal or sin: there is an essence, it is the highest quality.

3. Nothing high, low or deep can separate me from that essence; the earth cannot offer it.

C. If we must fight for anything, it is that the children learn of His essence.

1. If you are the one who strives to seek God, stamp that essence on your own as well.

2. It is not a cologne, not a thin liquid: it is the divine Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Millions think they have Him and do not: when they speak, they speak without essence.

IV. All authority has been given to Him (Luke 10:22).

A. “All things are delivered to me of my Father.”

1. Who has all authority to work here on the earth, in our lives? The essence.

2. God the Father is on His throne; without the blood of Christ we would get nowhere.

3. The Father turned His face from Jesus because He saw your sins in Him; and He turned it for you and me.

B. That is why every prayer must end in the name of Jesus.

1. Otherwise there is no answer: God sees nothing in your life except through the essence.

2. We know the simple and the plain; but we ought to be teachers already.

3. And the Son reveals the Father to whom He chooses: if you have peace and salvation, someone chose you.

V. The image of the invisible God (v. 15).

A. First: the Lord Jesus has made us able to see what God is like.

1. For your prayer to reach the Father it must pass through the essence.

2. At conversion we were taught His blood cleanses from all sin: so we enter that heavenly atmosphere.

B. Second: God is spirit, and therefore invisible; no one has seen God.

1. The essence has been seen, because He came to the earth.

2. In the Scriptures, when they speak of the Lord, it is of Jesus; even when Daniel speaks.

3. In the person of Christ, God is made visible to mortal eyes: to see Jesus is to see God.

4. But it is an image: what God is as such we will see when we are up there.

VI. Firstborn of every creature: He is not created.

A. The expression has nothing to do here with birth.

1. He came in Mary’s womb, true; but Jesus, in heaven, was never born.

2. Angels are created, archangels are created, we are created; Jesus is not.

3. He is Son of God by eternal relation: He is, has been, and will be forever.

B. His essence is the Father’s: they are one, absolute essence.

1. “Before Abraham was, I am”: Abraham has just arrived, and He is from ages past.

2. It is not chronological priority nor being first: He is. That is why He is the essence.

VII. By Him all things were created (v. 16).

A. This verse makes clear that the Lord Jesus is no creature, but the Creator Himself.

1. The power to create was in His being: He was the architect and the agent of creation.

2. All was created by Him and for Him: thrones, dominions, principalities, powers.

3. That is the Jesus who went to the cross for you.

B. And that creating act goes on constantly.

1. As the psalmist says: You wove the little veins and the color of the hair.

2. He lives creating; He is working all the time on behalf of the earth.

3. And if all was created for Him, He chooses: He walks the earth and tells the Father, this one I select.

C. Here the matter is doctrine: it is not that they are divided.

1. God is on His throne with millions upon millions worshiping; the one who works is our Lord Jesus Christ.

2. God did not go to the cross; the miracles on the earth and in the church are His.

3. He cleanses us, forgives us, sanctifies us, and allows the Holy Spirit to come into our life.

VIII. He is before all things (v. 17).

A. All things have their consistency in Him: they are solid in Him.

1. The gifts are stable and sure because it was the Lord Jesus who made them for us.

2. Do you think there could be a church if He were not the one who made it?

B. It says “He is,” not “He was”: because He has always been.

1. He was not made; He has been involved in everything that must be done on the earth.

2. He gave His life, went to death, and endured thirty-three years in such cruelty.

3. The present tense describes the timelessness of the deity: it transcends and passes through the ages.

C. He is the sustainer of the universe and the source of its motion.

1. He controls how many stars there are; He carries and keeps them, and decides when one ends.

2. From how many accidents has He delivered you? Who can watch over you twenty-four hours?

3. While they spat on Him and scourged Him, He went on controlling the laws of the universe.

4. If you say “Lord, You have not heard me,” accuse yourself; never accuse Jesus.

IX. He is the head of the body, the church (v. 18).

A. His dominion covers not only the natural universe: it extends to the spiritual realm.

1. When you feel something, it is the head speaking; and you say, “this is just me.”

2. Then your hands are paralyzed: there is no fruit, there is nothing to pay you for.

B. The body of Christ is the vehicle through which He has chosen to express Himself to the world.

1. Wherever you go, to your work, to your family: you are the voice of Jesus here on earth.

2. The more you yield, the more He becomes in you; and we become wise men and women.

3. How many times we open our mouth and wound, offend, shout and stamp.

4. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten”: He corrects because He loves.

C. He is the beginning of the new creation, the firstborn from the dead.

1. He died once for you; if you sin, you take Him to the cross again.

2. It is called the Church of Christ because He paid, He was crucified, He distributed the gifts.

3. The Holy Spirit would not have come but for the blood and death of Christ.

4. In the three days He led captivity captive, and the dead walked through all Jerusalem.

X. The essence remains.

A. Essence is what persists in a being beyond the accidental.

1. Whatever the surface changes, the essence is the traits that make a being what it is.

2. In the evil day as in the good, that essence in us is the powerful blood of Christ.

B. Hanging on the cross, He did not stop working.

1. They crowned Him and drained the blood from His body, and He said: forgive them, they know not what they do.

2. We would be weeping and complaining; He said: forgive them.

3. Whatever happens in life, the essence of our Lord stays intact.

C. In life there are no complaints and no laments.

1. Why should I complain about the Lord? There is no reason at all.

2. What do you lack? What you have not asked Him for.

3. If you have no appetite for the spiritual, the earth is still too pleasant to you.

4. Break loose, so that you may have the essence of the Son of God: Emmanuel, God with us.