CHRIST IS SUPREME IN HIS SOVEREIGNTY. Colossians 1:15-20 Who could be greater than our Lord Jesus Christ? He created all things, making Him supreme in physical creation. He sustains everything because He is supreme in power. He is supreme in redemption and is the Head of the church. He is also supreme in moral and spiritual matters: love, sovereignty, grace, holiness, and righteousness.
How can all this be? He is the Son of God, the image of God; He is exactly like God because He is God. The apostle Paul was praying these things, and perhaps he was singing this truth so the believers at Colosse would be brought back to the fundamentals of faith and truth and away from the false teaching they had been listening to. The Lord Jesus Christ is shown to be in a relationship of absolute authority over the universe as the natural creation that testifies to the power of God He has before our natural eyes. He is also shown to be supreme over the new moral order, of which He is the head—the church—His body. In the physical, moral, and spiritual order of things, Christ is the Sovereign Authority. The fullness of God dwells in Him.
Attacks on the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ are nothing new. Engaging in defense and arguing with people who challenge Christ’s eternal existence and deity can turn into a pointless verbal battle that fails to resolve the dispute. To the believers of the Colossian church, Paul addressed the heresy they faced by confronting it before a question was even asked. The heresy claimed that all matter is evil and that God could not create evil. This was almost an early form of evolutionary teaching.
They also taught that Christ was one of the intermediaries, or go-betweens, like angels and other "principalities and powers." According to them, Christ was not the source and way of salvation. They taught that we need tradition, ceremony, miracles, and signs to achieve a connection with God. Many of those same false ideas still exist today in various forms, and people accept that teaching because it puts their future in their own hands. There appeared to be a fascination with angels coming at their “beck and call” and acting on their behalf. Paul addressed this by emphasizing the supremacy of Christ, elevating Him in His deity, creation, and providence—sustaining all things continually—in the church as the Head, in redemption as the Reconciler, and in the Gospel.