Yet it says all things were created by him and in him! :)
[sup]15[/sup] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. [sup]16[/sup] For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. [sup]17[/sup] And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. [sup]18[/sup] And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
Yes, and that is the really important thing to see. But we do end up missing out on some precious truth which helps us to better understand God and his ways if we do not have the entire picture. I am one that believes we will be given another thousand years to understand this if we are not able to accomplish it here and now as the saints do so long as we are sincere and have the basics of obedience understood. So do not think I am dogging you or anyone on this point.
But as I said, there is so much more that we can learn once we have the correct view of God and the Son. Here is part of something I posted on another thread:
"From the moment God said, "
Let us make man
in our image,
after our likeness:
and let them (
them = the man and his helpmeet corresponding to God and his helpmeet Jesus through whom he created all things) have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (
Genesis 1:26) the one and only gospel was established for all eternity.
And when sin caused a deviation from it, God drew us right back to it, saying, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
his heel." (
Genesis 3:15)
That seed is Jesus and all the details were permanently established then and there as to how God would reclaim Adam's offspring.
Nothing that has taken place, and no promise that was ever given has deviated from that plan in any way.
It is the selfish carnal flesh that desires special recognition aside from that plan and purpose of God. It has always been nothing but steps being taken within that one and the same gospel designed to lead us to Christ and the holy nation created in him."
What i want you to see in that is that to understand the relationship of God and the Son all we need do is look at the union of man and wife (or, man and helpmeet). For that is the image man and his helpmeet are patterned after.
And there is no sex (neither male nor female) in heaven. You probably know the Bible says that. Yet masculine gender was given to God in the Bible as appointed by God to represent his image. At Proverbs chapter 8 Jesus is personified as wisdom (the Word of God) in the feminine gender. And here is why you miss knowledge by not correctly understanding this:
Whenever you read things like in the Proverbs that speak of listening to your father it is picturing our need to listen to the Father God, but when it says to obey the law of your mother it parallelisms Jesus the Son who is his Father's appointed mouth piece as well as his Father's right hand in all that the Father does.
That is the way we being created in their image honor our faithful sons, especially our firstborn.
God in his wisdom created us in a way that would make it easier for us to understand Him and his Son. We ought to not just throw the value of that away. It cannot help us to do so and it surely complicates things for us.
You know we are not literally in Jesus. We are in Jesus in the sense that the authority over us is given of his Father to exist in him. But the Trinity complicates understanding such simple things thus serving the goal of it's true author.
