It Was The Father's Good Pleasure: A Sermon on Colossians 1:19-20

Col 1:19For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. 

When we understand the truth of God in Scripture we may think of the Father’s good pleasure.  It is seen throughout divine Scripture.  Everything that God does is according to His good pleasure.  God does not have evil pleasure.  He does not do anything that is mischievous or wicked or sinful or corrupt.  We know that man acts according to His desires.  Man is not a creature that is free from wickedness.  Elect angels, because of God alone, are holy and they do not act wickedly, but reprobate demons and Satan himself act according to their sinful desires; for they are fallen and depraved, and they have no hope of redemption, and they will be condemned on the last day to hell.  We know in Scripture that Satan and demons are condemned to hell.  We know that the Lord Jesus did everything according to His good pleasure. He never acted wickedly.  We know that the Triune Lord acts in righteousness, in holiness and in perfection.  Calvin wrote,

19. Because it hath pleased the Father that in him. With the view of confirming what he has declared respecting Christ, he now adds, that it was so arranged in the providence of God. And, unquestionably, in order that we may with reverence adore this mystery, it is necessary that we should be led back to that fountain. “This,” says he, “has been in accordance with the counsel of God, that all fullness may dwell in him.” Now, he means a fullness of righteousness, wisdom, power, and every blessing. For whatever God has he has conferred upon his Son, that he may be glorified in him, as is said in John 5:20. He shews us, however, at the same time, that we must draw from the fullness of Christ everything good that we desire for our salvation, because such is the determination of God — not to communicate himself, or his gifts to men, otherwise than by his Son. “Christ is all things to us: apart from him we have nothing.” Hence it follows, that all that detract from Christ, or that impair his excellence, or rob him of his offices, or, in fine, take away a drop from his fullness, overturn, so far as is in their power, God’s eternal counsel.

Now let us understand the context of these verses.  Consider Colossians 1:15-18 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.” 

Let us understand what divine Scripture says of the good pleasure of God.  We will find references about it. Luke 12:32, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”  It was according to His good pleasure to give the kingdom to His people.  In the order of being the Father is the First Person of the Trinity, the Son is the Second Person of the Trinity and the Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity.  The Son and the Spirit act in accord with the Father’s will.  The Son and the Spirit never act in opposition to the Father’s will.  The Son and the Spirit act according to their good pleasure that is the will of the Father.  God’s people seek to act in a good manner according to the Father’s will in sanctification.  God’s people ought to seek above all things what the Father’s will is.  The Father acts according to His good pleasure.  It was the good pleasure of the Father to give the kingdom to His apostles, to His people, to the church.  We ought not to fear.  We are in good company and protection because Christ will keep us.  We are His little flock.  We ought to think of how great the followers of the world are, but how few God’s people are.  Yet Scripture speaks of an innumerable people.  We must be a people who submit to divine Scripture. 

Let turn to Ephesians 1:5, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will…”  God predestined a people unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.  It was not according to a wicked pleasure but according to His good pleasure.  His good pleasure was of His will.  God acted in accord with His good pleasure.  Ephesians 1:9, “Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself…”  Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”  2 Thessalonians 1:11, “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power…”  We in the Old Testament, Psalm 51:18, “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.”

So was pleased the Father that all the fullness should dwell in Him.  When we speak of “in Him” it is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Here are the other versions that render verse 19:

“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” ESV.

“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,” NIV.

“For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell” KJV.

“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” NKJV.

“For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell” ASB.

“For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him” NASB.

We some difference in the order of words but the verse speaks plainly of the good pleasure of the Father, and that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in the Lord Jesus Christ.  I think it is clear that the fullness of God dwells in the Lord Jesus.  It is a high statement of Him, a statement of deity.  The Lord Jesus Christ is God Incarnate.  God the Son was God from everlasting to everlasting.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”   Augustine in his homilies on the Gospel of John wrote about the natural man who cannot receive the things of God:

When I give heed to what we have just read from the apostolic lesson, that “the natural man perceiveth not the things which are of the Spirit of God,” and consider that in the present assembly, my beloved, there must of necessity be among you many natural men, who know only according to the flesh, and cannot yet raise themselves to spiritual understanding, I am in great difficulty how, as the Lord shall grant, I may be able to express, or in my small measure to explain, what has been read from the Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” for this the natural man does not perceive. What then, brethren? Shall we be silent for this cause? Why then is it read, if we are to be silent regarding it? Or why is it heard, if it be not explained? And why is it explained, if it be not understood? And so, on the other hand, since I do not doubt that there are among your number some who can not only receive it when explained, but even understand it before it is explained, I shall not defraud those who are able to receive it, from fear of my words being wasted on the ears of those who are not able to receive it. Finally, there will be present with us the compassion of God, so that perchance there may be enough for all, and each receive what he is able, while he who speaks says what he is able. For to speak of the matter as it is, who is able? I venture to say, my brethren, perhaps not John himself spoke of the matter as it is, but even he only as he was able; for it was man that spoke of God, inspired indeed by God, but still man. Because he was inspired he said something; if he had not been inspired, he would have said nothing; but because a man inspired, he spoke not the whole, but what a man could he spoke.

We know that the world reject the Lord Jesus as the Word.  They reject the Him who was, is and forever shall be.  He is ontologically God.  That is, that He is the Eternal Self-Existent One as the Second Person of the Trinity.  The Lord Jesus was not a God among many Gods.  We do not believe in Tritheism but Trinitarianism.  We do not be in Henotheism as Jehovah’s Witnesses, but we are Monotheists.  We can easily and correctly say that Jesus is the one true God; the Father is the one true God, and the Spirit is the one true God.  But when we say this we do not mean that there are three Gods.  We must understand that God is one in being, and three in person. 

I think it is Scriptural to say that the Trinity and the Incarnate god hand-in-hand.  We know that the Trinity speaks of Christ as truly divine, and that the Incarnation speaks of Christ as also fully human. Divine Scripture proclaims the true Christ.  We know that the New World Translation and the Book of Mormon does not teach who the true Christ is.  But the 66 books of the Old and New Testament speak of who the true Christ is.  The Son accomplished the will of God: He became our substitute; who died on the cross so His people may live.  The Trinity doctrine was declared at the Council of Nicaea at AD 325.  But we know that Scripture clearly proclaimed this doctrine.  We know that the church fathers believed this doctrine as well.  The Nicaea Council was to counter Arian theology.  We must understand that Jesus is not less then God, and merely a creature.  When we make distinctions within the Godhead it is within the divine unity.  There are three distinct persons within the Godhead.  The Father is God in the same way the Son is God, and the Father and the Son are God in the same way the Spirit is God.  The Father and the Son are “of the same substance.”  We see in the Old Testament that the Messiah is referred to as the Everlasting Father.  He is of the same substance as the Father.  We could turn to the Nicaea Creed which proclaims that Christ is “begotten, not made.”  By this, it clearly shows the unmistakable deity of the Son.  Augustine wrote under “Chapter 5: The Trinity the true object of enjoyment”—

5. The true objects of enjoyment, then, are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all, and common to all who enjoy Him, if He is an object, and not rather the cause of all objects, or indeed even if He is the cause of all. For it is not easy to find a name that will suitably express so great excellence, unless it is better to speak in this way: The Trinity, one God, of whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. Thus the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and each of these by Himself, is God, and at the same time they are all one God; and each of them by Himself is a complete substance, and yet they are all one substance. The Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is not the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son: but the Father is only Father, the Son is only Son, and the Holy Spirit is only Holy Spirit. To all three belong the same eternity, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father is unity, in the Son equality, in the Holy Spirit the harmony of unity and equality; and these three attributes are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all harmonious because of the Holy Spirit.

We could turn to the Council of Chalcedon where it confessed the doctrine of the Incarnation.  It countered the Nestorian heresy: that Jesus was two persons.  It countered the Eutychian idea that Jesus’ humanity swallowed up His deity (TNGSB, 1660).  The Council rejected both and affirmed that Jesus was one person in two natures.  We know that the two natures are united together.  We know it is without mixture, without confusion, without separation, or without division.  Each nature has its own attributes.  The Definition of Chalcedon speaks and affirms and defends Jesus’ complete humanity.  We must understand that the Incarnation is at the very heart of biblical Christianity.  The Incarnation is central to the New Testament witness.  The Lord Jesus is the divine Logos.  The Gospel of John speaks of the “I AM” statements.  It clearly refers to His deity.  Thomas declared that Jesus was His Lord and God.  We could turn to Col. 2:9 that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” 

Athanasius wrote on a Statement of Faith about the Son as Almighty God; for he wrote:

1. We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself. And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful (Heb. iv. 12), the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’ (Joh. v. 23): very God of very God, as John says in his general Epistles, ‘And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and everlasting life’ (1 Joh. v. 20): Almighty of Almighty. For all things which the Father rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’ (Joh. xiv. 9).

The honor the Father receives, the Son receives the same honor.  Every knee will bow to God; therefore every knee will bow to the Lord Jesus; for He is God the Son.  Paul speaks of Him whom he calls “Lord,” and it is to Him who we ought to pray for salvation just as we would with Yahweh.  Romans 9:5 speaks of the Lord Jesus as the God over all; and Titus 2:13 speak of Jesus as our “God and Savior.”  We see that Paul understood that Jesus was God because He prays to Him, and receives divine grace.  Faith is the deity of Jesus Christ is essential to the Gospel of peace and grace.  The Gospel of John, Hebrews, Colossians, Philippians, and Revelation declares that Jesus is fully divine.  I think it is safe to say that all of Scripture only show to support and uplift the Messiah as divine.  Ambrose wrote, “With regard to his Godhead, therefore, the Son of God so possesses his glory that the glory of the Father and the Son is one: he is not, therefore, inferior in splendor, for the glory is one, nor lower in Godhead, for the fullness of the Godhead is in Christ” (ACCOS, pg. 20).  We must understand that in the Lord Jesus all the fullness of righteousness, peace, holiness, perfection, power, sinlessness, omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience dwells in the Lord Jesus Christ.  There is nothing that is God that is not in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Chrysostom wrote, “By the term fullness some speak of the Godhead, like as John said, ‘Of his fullness have we all received.”  That is, whatever was the Son, the whole Son dwelt there, not of sort of energy, but a Substance” (ACCOS, p. 19).  Also some believe that the fullness of him refers to the body of Christ.

Now we shall turn to this:  “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”  We know that the reconciliation that Christ has brought was to reconcile us to the Father.  We know that His atonement was in behalf of God’s people.  Today people reject the all-sufficient atonement of Christ.  But Christ died to reconcile His people to His Father; to bring them to Himself. 

20. And by him to reconcile all things to himself. This, also, is a magnificent commendation of Christ, that we cannot be joined to God otherwise than through him. In the first place, let us consider that our happiness consists in our cleaving to God, and that, on the other hand, there is nothing more miserable than to be alienated from him. He declares, accordingly, that we are blessed through Christ alone, inasmuch as he is the bond of our connection with God, and, on the other hand, that, apart from him, we are most miserable, because we are shut out from God. Let us, however, bear in mind, that what he ascribes to Christ belongs peculiarly to him, that no portion of this praise may be transferred to any other. Hence we must consider the contrasts to these things to be understood — that if this is Christ’s prerogative, it does not belong to others. For of set purpose he disputes against those who imagined that the angels were pacificators, through whom access to God might be opened up.

Making peace through the blood of his cross. He speaks of the Father, — that he has been made propitious to his creatures by the blood of Christ. Now he calls it the blood of the cross, inasmuch as it was the pledge and price of the making up of our peace with God, because it was poured out upon the cross. For it was necessary that the Son of God should be an expiatory victim, and endure the punishment of sin, that we might be the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21.) The blood of the cross, therefore, means the blood of the sacrifice which was offered upon the cross for appeasing the anger of God.

In adding by him, he did not mean to express anything new, but to express more distinctly what he had previously stated, and to impress it still more deeply on their minds — that Christ alone is the author of reconciliation, as to exclude all other means. For there is no other that has been crucified for us. Hence it is he alone, by whom and for whose sake we have God propitious to us.

Matthew Henry writes,

In reconciliation to God. God by him reconciled all things to himself, v. 20. He is the Mediator of reconciliation, who procures peace as well as pardon for sinners, who brings them into a state of friendship and favour at present, and will bring all holy creatures, angels as well as men, into one glorious and blessed society at last: things in earth, or things in heaven. So Eph. i. 10, He will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.

Let us turn to divine Scripture where we see God reconciling us to Himself. 
Romans 5:10, “For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”  We were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.  God’s people shall be saved through his life.  He rose again bodily from dead, and He lives to God, and intercedes for us as He lives to God in our behalf.  2 Corinthians 5:18, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…”  We were reconciled to God through Christ.  His ministry was a ministry of reconciliation.  We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” Ephesians 2:16, “and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”  Colossians 1:22, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—“ 
We must understand that we have peace through the death of Christ. That which brought Christ sufferings; death; shame and humiliation, brings us peace because it satisfied God’s divine justice.  True peace is always through the Lord Jesus Christ alone.  Outside of Christ there is no true peace.  Romans 5:1 speaks, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” The gospel is the gospel of peace:  Romans 10:15, And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! We in Romans 14:17 that the kingdom of God is the way of peace, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  Hebrews 13:2-21 speaks of the God of peace, “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 
The peace that Christ offers is not the peace of the world.  The biblical peace of Scripture is only provided by Christ only.  One day there will be a day of perfect peace.  Right now we have imperfect peace though we have peace through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Peace comes through Christ alone not through works of satisfaction.  Christ satisfied divine justice.  No other person did that. We must understand that we have peace because it was the Father’s good pleasure.  The Bible speaks of peace, mercy and grace.  All of them go together and it only comes from the heavenly text of divine Scripture in the purity of the gospel of grace, peace and mercy.  The Bible speaks of the God of peace who will crush Satan.  We must realize that the way of Satan is the way of trouble and hell and eternal condemnation but the way of Christ is the way of peace.  God’s peace crushes Satan.  He cannot withstand it.  It is indeed true peace.  Christ gave His apostles peace but it was not as the world gives, He gave unto them.  We are to be people of peace, mercy and grace.  Let us remember the peace that Christ has provided for us in His selfless act of love in the sacrificial atonement of Christ.  Let us turn to Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Amen.  Let’s pray.