Abner Chou Explains Colossians 1:15-20 in the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB)

00:00:00.720 | Hi, this is Abner Chow, one of the translators for the Legacy Standard Bible.

00:00:05.520 | Now, I know you're not looking at me, and there are really two reasons for this.

00:00:09.520 | For one, you're looking at something far better looking, which is the scriptures.

00:00:13.920 | And second, that relates to the question that has come across my desk.

00:00:19.440 | And the question kind of goes like this.

00:00:22.160 | Earlier, you were talking with Dr. MacArthur in a video

00:00:26.080 | about the layout of Colossians 115 through 20.

00:00:30.000 | Could we see that and get more detail on what exactly you meant by that?

00:00:34.320 | Now, and I'm just kidding here, I don't know if this is just pure curiosity,

00:00:40.880 | or if this is a clever way of seeing more of the Legacy Standard Bible.

00:00:45.360 | And again, I'm just kidding here quite a bit.

00:00:48.560 | But in all seriousness, in the end, this is a great opportunity for edification,

00:00:53.920 | and that is the goal of these videos, and so the question is so worth it.

00:00:58.160 | And in light of that, let's just think about this together.

00:01:01.840 | But before jumping in, there is one side note that I should mention,

00:01:06.240 | which really sets the tone for this entire discussion.

00:01:09.760 | And that is this, that we often try to memorize things like the Bible

00:01:14.240 | through all kinds of mechanisms.

00:01:15.840 | We use acronyms, we use alliteration,

00:01:18.560 | we use rhyming to help us memorize lots of different things, including the Scripture.

00:01:24.480 | But what I found to be best for learning and memorizing the Bible

00:01:29.600 | is to rigorously study it.

00:01:32.000 | Because when we know what it says, and why it says what it says,

00:01:35.840 | and why it says what it says in the order that it says it,

00:01:39.040 | the Scripture just flows out from our heart,

00:01:41.440 | because we thoroughly grasp and comprehend it all.

00:01:45.600 | That's the best way to memorize the Scripture, is to thoroughly learn it.

00:01:50.000 | And I hope to lay a foundation for that through this.

00:01:52.960 | In Colossians 1:15-20, the context of it, the context of the entire book,

00:01:58.960 | is about the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:02:02.480 | Paul is defending Christ against false teachers and false teachings,

00:02:08.000 | which would try and attempt falsely to compete with his preeminence.

00:02:13.680 | And Paul is so focused on this goal, that even in his opening prayer in Colossians 1,

00:02:19.600 | he is urging us, praying for us, that we would give thanks to God

00:02:25.280 | for putting us in the kingdom of the Son of his love.

00:02:29.040 | Why should we be so thankful that God put us in the kingdom of God's Son?

00:02:34.800 | That we should be so thankful to know the Lord Jesus Christ?

00:02:38.560 | Well, it all revolves around who Christ is.

00:02:41.600 | And that leads us to the very discussion of Colossians 1, 15-20.

00:02:47.360 | Now, how does this all work, and how is this laid out?

00:02:50.960 | This is what we call a chiasm.

00:02:53.680 | A chiasm.

00:02:57.120 | It's after this Greek letter here, which kind of looks like an X.

00:03:00.880 | And it's meant, no matter how you slice and dice it, to be a mirror image of itself.

00:03:06.800 | And that's the nature of a chiasm.

00:03:09.200 | You have two parts that mirror, or many parts, that mirror each other.

00:03:14.800 | Another way to think about a chiasm is a sandwich.

00:03:18.320 | A sandwich has bread on top, usually, and bread on bottom, and something in the middle.

00:03:23.360 | And just like you don't name a sandwich after its bread,

00:03:26.960 | you don't say, "I want a white bread, or a wheat bread, or a rye bread sandwich."

00:03:30.640 | We name it after what is in the middle.

00:03:33.120 | In the same way, a chiasm often punctuates what is at its center.

00:03:38.240 | And that's exactly what we have here in Colossians 1, 15-20.

00:03:44.080 | Notice with me that we have this opening line of "Who is the image of the invisible God?"

00:03:52.000 | And down here, we have the same phrase.

00:03:54.800 | "Who is the beginning?"

00:03:56.880 | Notice right here, we have the word "firstborn."

00:03:59.600 | And notice down here, we have the word "firstborn."

00:04:03.360 | Notice right after that, we have the word "for" in verse 16.

00:04:07.600 | And in verse 19, it begins with the word "for."

00:04:10.640 | We have this really important set of parallelism,

00:04:14.720 | where these two sections have the same key words in the same exact order, bracketing them off.

00:04:22.240 | And in the middle, "and, and, and."

00:04:26.320 | You can see it.

00:04:27.280 | "And he is," and then the bottom of this section, "and he is,"

00:04:30.800 | and in the center of it all, "and in him," because it's all about Christ.

00:04:36.160 | And with that, we have this nice chiastic, or sandwich structure,

00:04:40.960 | with two parts with the exact kind of verbiage on the outside,

00:04:45.040 | and on the inside, a very punchy and powerful declaration about Christ.

00:04:50.560 | "And he is," and "in him," and "he is."

00:04:53.040 | And we try to preserve this in the layout of these verses.

00:04:57.760 | And this chiastic structure, this sandwich structure, declares the glory of Christ.

00:05:05.280 | Because the opening section, this first part, shows that he's over all creation.

00:05:11.360 | It actually declares that.

00:05:14.160 | Who is the image of the invisible God?

00:05:16.080 | The firstborn, the preeminent one, the first of all creation in that regard.

00:05:21.440 | And why is he this preeminent one of creation?

00:05:24.480 | Well, verse 16 explains that to us.

00:05:26.640 | Because all things that were created were created in him.

00:05:31.120 | By the way, that means Christ could not be created,

00:05:34.000 | because he created everything that was created.

00:05:37.600 | So he is outside of that category of creation.

00:05:41.040 | He is creator, not created.

00:05:44.160 | And furthermore, it is not just that all things have been created through him,

00:05:48.560 | but they've been created for him.

00:05:50.400 | He is both the foundation of all creation, and the goal of all creation.

00:05:54.640 | Therefore, he is the most preeminent of all creation.

00:05:58.240 | He is head first, unquestionably so, of creation.

00:06:02.720 | Well, what about the parallel section at the bottom?

00:06:05.200 | That shows he's over new creation.

00:06:09.200 | Again, look at the text.

00:06:10.800 | Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead?

00:06:13.760 | He's the one who starts a new creation.

00:06:15.760 | And furthermore, he's the firstborn from the dead.

00:06:18.240 | Those who are dead and then come back to life in a new life,

00:06:22.240 | in a new beginning, in a new creation.

00:06:25.760 | And how can he do this?

00:06:26.960 | Well, verse 19 explains, because he is God himself.

00:06:31.200 | The full embodiment of everything divine is him.

00:06:35.040 | And because God is the only one who can begin a new creation,

00:06:37.840 | God is the only one who can overcome death.

00:06:40.160 | And so Christ alone, as God,

00:06:42.880 | is the one who initiates and establishes and sets a new creation.

00:06:47.200 | Well, since Jesus is over creation, and since he's over new creation,

00:06:51.600 | if you're over old, and if you're over new, you're over everything.

00:06:55.680 | And that is the point.

00:06:56.720 | He is preeminent.

00:06:58.000 | He is exalted.

00:06:59.520 | There is no one like him overall.

00:07:01.680 | And that's exactly what the center of this sandwich or chiastic structure says.

00:07:07.200 | Verses 17 and 18.

00:07:08.800 | And he is before all things.

00:07:12.240 | He's head over creation.

00:07:14.080 | And he is the head of his body, the church, the redeeming work.

00:07:17.200 | He's head of that too.

00:07:18.400 | The work of new creation.

00:07:20.000 | He's head of that as well.

00:07:21.600 | And that's why in the middle, it says,

00:07:23.600 | "And in him all things hold together."

00:07:26.160 | Everything that there is, everything that exists,

00:07:29.280 | everything in the plan of God revolves around Christ.

00:07:32.560 | There is no one like him.

00:07:34.240 | He is exalted overall.

00:07:35.920 | He is totally sovereign.

00:07:37.600 | He is in a category altogether himself.

00:07:40.000 | He is first, exactly like the text says.

00:07:44.000 | He is first in everything.

00:07:47.680 | That is the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:07:50.000 | And that's why in context, Paul is urging us, praying for us,

00:07:54.160 | that we would give thanks that God allowed us to be in the kingdom of his son.

00:07:59.600 | Because instead of trying to look for the next best thing,

00:08:03.280 | trying to look around to find satisfaction somewhere else,

00:08:06.000 | trying to be distracted by all these other things,

00:08:08.720 | we should instead be the most content and thankful people

00:08:11.440 | because all we have is Christ.

00:08:13.360 | And Christ is everything.

00:08:15.840 | And Christ is exalted.

00:08:18.080 | He is the most preeminent, glorious one over all created cosmos

00:08:23.440 | and over all new creation, over everything in the plan of God.

00:08:27.760 | It is all about him.

00:08:29.360 | And he is, and it's all in him.

00:08:31.840 | It is all that way.

00:08:33.520 | And so all we have is Christ.

00:08:36.560 | And he is more than we need.

00:08:39.200 | It is our honor to know him.

00:08:43.440 | Well, I hope through this, we have learned a little bit about this passage,

00:08:48.400 | even how it's organized.

00:08:50.080 | And we know, yeah, the first part, creation.

00:08:53.360 | The last part, new creation.

00:08:55.280 | The middle part, it's, and he is, and in him, and he is.

00:08:59.040 | And we remember these things.

00:09:00.400 | And that begins to help us form a foundation to memorize this whole text,

00:09:06.080 | to learn it all really well and really easily.

00:09:09.280 | And the goal isn't just to memorize it.

00:09:12.480 | The goal is to worship Christ.

00:09:14.400 | And I hope through this, that's what we end up doing,

00:09:18.960 | that we love Christ with greater clarity.

00:09:21.920 | We worship him with greater precision.

00:09:24.400 | We exalt him for all the preeminence that he has and that he is.

00:09:29.120 | And so I expect that in days to come, in the providence of God,

00:09:36.000 | Lord willing, that we'll have more questions and more discussions.

00:09:40.400 | But in the meantime, my hope is that we study this text more and more,

00:09:45.760 | and we focus on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Abner Chou Explains Colossians 1:15-20 in the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB)

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