Colossians 1:15-20

In our time in the Word last week, we began to explore the idea that Jesus was indeed sent by the Father into the world both as wonderful savior and as perfect judge. Among important things we learned that Jesus fulfills those offices in some ways, at different times. His first coming was as savior of the world and His 2nd coming will be as judge of the world.

Today, we’re going to focus in more on this present age in which we live, and in particular on Jesus as savior and judge of believers and the church. Now obviously when I say that, you immediately detect that the terrible judgments at the 2nd coming have to be qualitatively different from His judgment of the church. There has to be a different purpose, intention and method in Christ’s judging the church. After all – see Acts 20:26-31. So we see from this that the terms “judge” and “judgment” and so on can have a wide range of meaning, depending on the context.

So with God’s help, let us begin to hear what the Spirit says to us in the church about Christ Jesus as our savior and head and judge and the great beauty and glory of what Paul describes of Christ in Colossians 1:18.