5. The human race was created for Him.—Man created, preserved, redeemed. (1) How exalted should be our ideas of Christ! (2) How carefully should we learn to view everything in connection with Christ! 3. What ground for confidence, gratitude, and fear.—Ibid.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF VERSE 18.
The Relation of Christ to the Moral Creation.
After showing that Christ holds the position of absolute priority and sovereignty over the whole universe, the apostle now proceeds to point out His relation to the principal part of that whole—the Church, as the symbol and embodiment of the new, moral creation. From this verse we learn that Christ is the supreme Head, and primal life-giving Source of the Church, and as such is invested with universal pre-eminence.
I. Christ is the supreme Head of the Church—the new moral creation.—1. The Church is the body of Christ. “The body, the Church.” Much controversy has prevailed as to what constitutes the Church; and the more worldly the Church became, the more confused the definition, the more bitter the controversy. The New Testament idea of the Church is easily comprehended. It is the whole body of the faithful in Christ Jesus, who are redeemed and regenerated by His grace—the aggregate multitude of those in heaven and on earth who love, adore, and serve the Son of God as their Redeemer and Lord. The word ἐκκλησία constitutes two leading ideas: the ordained unity, and the calling or separating out from the world. Three grand features ever distinguish the true Church—unbroken unity, essential purity, and genuine catholicity. (Cf. Eph. i. 22, 23, iv. 15, 16; 1 Cor. xii. 12–27).
2. Christ is the Head of the Church.—“And He is the Head of the body, the Church.” That the world might not be considered this body, the word “Church” is added; and the materialistic conception of a Church organism thus refuted. As the Head of the Church—(1) Christ inspires it with spiritual life and activity. (2) He impresses and moulds its character. (3) He prescribes and enforces its laws. (4) He governs and controls its destinies. (5) He is the centre of its unity.
II. Christ is the originating, fontal Source of the organic life of the Church.—In respect to the state of grace, He is the beginning; in respect to the state of glory, He is the firstborn from the dead. He gives to the Church its entity, form, history, and glory; except in and through Him, the Church could have no existence.
1. He is the Author of the moral creation.—“The beginning.” Christ has been before described as the Author of the old material creation. Here He is announced as the beginning of the new spiritual creation. The moral creation supplies the basis and constituent elements of the Church. In the production, progress, and final triumph of the new creation, He will redress all the wreck and ruin occasioned by the wrong-doing of the old creation. Of this new moral creation Christ is the source, the principle, the beginning; the fountain of life, purity, goodness, and joy to the souls of men.
2. He is the Author of the moral creation as the Conqueror of Death.—“The firstborn from the dead.” Sin introduced death into the old creation, and the insatiable monster still revels and riots amid the corruptions he perpetually generates. The Son of God, in fulfilment of the Divine plan of redemption, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He descended into Hades and placed Himself among the dead. On the third day He rose again, “the firstfruits of them that slept.” He was “the firstborn from the dead”; the first who had risen by His own power; the first who had risen to die no more. By dying He conquered death for Himself and all His followers. He can therefore give life to all that constitute that Church of which He is fittingly the Head, assure them of a resurrection from the dead, of which His own was a pattern and pledge, and of transcendent and unfading glory with Himself in the endless future.
III. The relation of Christ to the Church invests Him with absolute pre-eminence.—“That in all things He might have the pre-eminence.”