Solus Christus: Christ Alone
Colossians 1:13-22
There is an interesting art piece that hangs in the Menzel Gallery in Berlin. It was done by German artist Adolf von Menzel called “King Frederick the Great Addresses His Generals”. 
The artist, obviously, intended to portray King Frederick motivating the generals. But, it took Von Menzel so long to get the painting done that he died before he had finished it. When you look at the painting, you can see the detail of the generals and the landscape. But, something important is missing. In the place in the picture where King Frederick, the central figure, should have been is a blank! The painting is supposedly about King Frederick – but King Frederick is not in the painting at all!
I thought of that painting as I began to prepare this sermon. Is it possible that though we may claim that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, when we really look at where we put our focus in daily living, there is a blank where Jesus should be? Is it possible to be a church that says Jesus is the Lord but, when people look at the things that consume our time and resources, the one who should be King of this place is not there? Like Menzel’s painting, do we ever leave a blank where Jesus should be? That’s my question today.
When we read church history, we can see that almost every group that once claimed to be biblically grounded but then moved away from the gospel into sectarianism, has begun to go wrong by turning away from the centrality of Jesus. When churches or denominations have begun to focus on secondary things, e.g.: details about when and how Jesus will return, dwelling on rules about what we can and cannot wear, what we can or cannot do on the Lord’s Day, what we should or should not eat. Those are secondary things. I’m not saying that none of those things have any importance. Many secondary things are important. But, when they move into the center of our focus, they quickly become divisive doctrines that have little to do with the most important One in our faith, in our lives and in our church. Who is that person?
The Five Solas Series
That question brings us to today’s message. Here at LAC, in celebration of the 500th birthday of a group of God’s people calling the church of their day to be reformed by returning to the main pillars of our faith, we have been looking at what many have called the “Five Solas” of their proclamation. “Sola” is not an English term but a Latin one – and it simply means “only” or “alone”. We are going through the “solas” one-by-one to make sure that we as a local church will have the Bible’s main pillars be our main pillars.
- Week 1 was Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone is the final authority for what we believe and how we live.
- Week 2 was Sola Fide – It is only by faith in Jesus that we can be saved.
- Week 3 was Sola Gratia – It is only by the grace of God that we are saved, i.e., salvation is a free gift from God that we desperately need and that we have no resources to obtain on our own.
Today we come to Solus Christus – Christ alone. Today, I want to be sure that in your life and is our church, there is not a blank where Jesus should be. This pillar of faith is crystallized in two concise verses:
1 Tim 2:5 -- There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.
Acts 4:12 -- Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name (other than Jesus) under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Setting the Stage
The single most famous act leading to the reforming of the church took place on a Saturday morning, October 31, 1517. On that day, Dr. Martin Luther, a 33-year-old Roman Catholic priest and theology professor at the University of Wittenberg -- stood in front of the doors to the Castle Church and nailed a paper with 95 theses handwritten in Latin. 
Dr. Luther’s first thesis was that Christ the Lord calls for all of life to be marked by repentance, i.e., from a turning away from a current way or direction of life and a commitment to living with Jesus Christ as Lord, i.e., Jesus and Jesus alone is worthy to be the Lord of our lives and of our churches.
500 years ago, the main issue Luther and others were addressing had to do with the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to save us. The problem then was not that the church didn’t believe in Jesus or in what he had done in his life, death and resurrection. It was that, in order for people actually to be forgiven of sin and assured of a new life with God, church leaders said that we also have to add works to faith. And, because people’s works never were completely perfect, the church taught that, when people died, there was a purgatory to be endured so that guilt might be purged away. Over the years, the church had developed a system by which people who were still alive would be able to pay money, called indulgences, to get their loved ones out of purgatory.
While trying to raise money for the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, a church fundraiser named Johann Tetzel used a slogan that infuriated Luther and others. German: “Wenn die Münze im Kästlein klingt / die Seele in den Himmel springt.” English: “When the coins in the coffer cling, souls from purgatory spring.”
When you read the 95 theses, you’ll find that they really are 95 reasons why paying money will not get people to heaven. To all this, those calling the church back to biblical faith declared, “Solus Christus”, i.e., Christ alone. They said, “The perfect life of Jesus Christ, his death on our behalf and his resurrection from the dead to defeat sin and death are enough for our salvation. What Jesus did is sufficient to save us!”
In our day, the issue we wrestle with is not so much the sufficiency of Christ as it is the uniqueness of Christ. We live in a more pluralistic world in which we feel people should be able to believe whatever we want to believe. Our 21st C mantra is: “Whatever you believe is OK if it works for you! If you want to believe in Jesus, do it! That’s great.” But, the teaching that Jesus and Jesus alone was both God and man, that he and he alone lived a sinless life, that he and he alone was able to atone for our sin, and that therefore Jesus and he alone is able to forgive our sins and make us right with God – this teaching is offensive in our world as much as the teaching that our own works can do nothing to save us was offensive 500 years ago.
What We Believe at Lake Avenue Church (A “Solus Christus” Church)
I hope you all know that we have a “Statement of Faith (SOF)” here at LAC that sets the groundwork for what we teach in our church family. You should ask the question, “Is Jesus mentioned in our Statement of Faith?” My answer is that, in one respect, all ten articles are about him. We declare that all the main things we believe are statements about the gospel, the good news that the entire Bible is all about. And, when you read 1 Corinthians 15, you see that the gospel centers in the person and work of Jesus.
But, in case that isn’t clear enough, we have two articles in our SOF that I want you to see:
Article 4: We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one person in two natures. Jesus, Israel’s promised Messiah, was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our high priest and advocate.
Article 5: We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed his blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.
One of Many SolUs Christus Bible Passages (Colossians 1:15-23a)
I don’t want us to leave without taking a few moments to let what the Bible says about Jesus speak and touch our lives. No text in the Bible is more majestic about its description of Jesus than what Paul wrote in Col. 1:15-23. It was written to churches in which the church people were struggling with some teachers who were denying both the sufficiency and the uniqueness of Jesus. Most of us think vv.15-20 was a hymn of praise about Jesus sung by our brothers and sisters in Christ in the early church. We read this beautiful passage earlier but now let’s briefly look at what it tells us about Jesus, the Christ.
Summarizing the text, it tells us that Jesus is 1) God, 2) Creator and 3) Re-creator.
#1: Jesus is God: When I read the passage, it feels to me like a breathtaking ride in which the Apostle Paul seeks to put into words what he believes about this man who did what only God could do and was what only God could be. Remember that Jesus had utterly transformed Paul’s life. Notice Paul’s three awe-inducing statements:
Statement 1: Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (v. 15) – I know that some read this and say, “Aha! Jesus isn’t God – just the image of God.” If so, don’t buy what they’re saying. The word translated image is “eikon”. It’s the word for a visible manifestation of an invisible reality. As such, the Bible is saying that Jesus is the physical presence of God on earth! As the Bible says in in John 1:18, “No one has seen God (the Father) at any time – except God the one and only Son. He makes him known!”
We are made in the image of God – Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus himself would say in John 14:9, “If you have seen me you, have seen the Father.”
Statement 2: Jesus is the “firstborn over all creation” (1:15) – Some may say, “Oh, ok – but look: Jesus is the firstborn. He was born. He’s a creature too!” But you say (or, I hope you will say), “Not so fast. Did you notice in vv. 16-17 that Jesus has made anything that has ever been created?”
So, what is this “firstborn” language about? Those in our church who come from extended family settings -- like all people in the world of Jesus were – can understand this well. The firstborn refers to the one who has the position of being the head of the family. All the wealth, all the inheritance, all the status in a family was under the authority of the firstborn son. In other words, what this hymn is affirming with this word “firstborn” is the great truth that Jesus is not the Father but is one with the Father. Jesus is the eternal Son with all the authority over the family of God. That’s why Paul says immediately in v. 18, “He is the head of the church…”
Statement 3: “All God’s fullness dwelled in him (1:19).” All that God was and is – was and is in Jesus. Charles Wesley had to sing about it in one of his hymns: “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see. Hail, the incarnate deity!” So, Jesus is God. Now, let’s consider his relationship to the created world.
#2: Jesus is Creator
Three little words speak profoundly to us about this truth: in, through, and for.
- In Christ, all things were created (1:16a) – This “creation in him” sounds strange to our ears. But, it means that all that was made was in the sphere of his control, i.e., he had the power and authority to do the creating.
- Through Christ, all things have been created (1:16b) – Before there was anything that could be called a thing, Jesus was. The Bible is saying that when we look at any created thing in this world, we should see that the Jesus who loved us and gave his life for us as its Maker. We see many things in this world about which we may say, “Why on earth did he make that?” And we may have to ask him about those things in heaven. But, now, with our limited understanding, we must see that all creation is a part of his intentional handiwork.
- For (or to) Christ, all things have been created (1:16b) – What an assertion! All creation points to Jesus. It all shows much of what he is like – like his power and sense of order. Like a well-run business points toward its founder, or an exquisite meal points toward its chef, so all creation declares to us something about Jesus. Jesus knows there are currently things in his world that fall short of his glory. But, as we so often declare here at church: Jesus is on a mission to make all things right. The one through whom all things are made is now recreating what has gone wrong. Someday, everything will be made right.
#3: Jesus is Re-creator – All things will be reconciled. Shalom will return.
The hymn of Col 1:15-20 ends with these words: God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (1:19-20). This is the great promise that God will take all that is broken and make it right; all that is hostile and bring peace. He will do it in Christ alone.
The song of 1:15-20 flows directly into application to us in vv. 21-22: Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[g] your evil behavior. 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.
That promise God makes to you and me when we are in Christ. He promises that we will be holy in his sight, without any blemish. No one can bring any accusation against us.” God promises that what he has begun in us, he will complete (Phil. 1:6). He says that though we are not yet all that he made us to be, we are also not yet what he promises we will be! It all happens “sola Christus”, i.e., through Christ alone.
What Does This Say to Us Today?
I pray that one thing you will make sure of today is that your faith is in Jesus. There is no other name given under heaven by which people can be saved. No one else can wash away your sins. No one else can make you whole again. But, Jesus can – and he’s ready to. Hear Jesus’ own words: “Whosoever will believe in him, i.e., Jesus, shall not perish but have eternal life.”
I also think this Sola Christus message says a lot to us about how we speak of our faith to our world. When we do, we should not speak so much of our church programs or our sanctuary or our congregational form of government. We must tell the world about Jesus.
Research shows us that younger adults, millennials, are not very positive about organized religion of any kind. But, most have a different response to the person of Jesus. And, in global outreach, many people groups are negative about the institution they call “Christianity”, seeing it as a way of life that leads to what they see in the entertainment industry or to the political views they see in what they consider “Christianized” countries. But, when we tell them the stories of Jesus, there is often a different response. Indeed, thousands of people from many religions are now coming to faith in Jesus – and they don’t even know that we would call them Christians. All this is to say that we must make sure that Jesus really is the Lord of this church. When he is, we will see people drawn to him.
I could say much, much more about “Christ alone” but I’ll stop there for now. I want us to do something at this point that may not come easily to us. I want us all to speak out four words together today. They’re four words that I pray will not just come across your lips but will flow from your soul. If you take these four words to heart, and if they will be a true expression of what you believe, they will give you hope and guide your life. The words are these: Jesus and Jesus only. I know we’re a pretty quiet church family. I sometimes like that when I’m preaching. But I don’t want you to be quiet right now. I’ll ask a question and, if you feel ready to confess it, say out loud, “Jesus and Jesus only!”
How can I come alive God? Jesus and Jesus only.
How can my sins be forgiven? Jesus and Jesus only.
How can my shame be dispelled? Jesus and Jesus only.
How can my guilt be washed away? Jesus and Jesus only.
How can my life be changed for good and forever? Jesus and Jesus only.
Who loves me so much that he died for me even while I was a sinner? Jesus and Jesus only.
Who can assure me that I never will be separated from the love of God? Jesus and Jesus only.
Who is at the right hand of God the Father interceding for me in prayer? Jesus and Jesus only.
Who will return for me in glory and assure me of an eternal home with God? Jesus and Jesus only.
As your Sr. Pastor, I join with the Apostle Paul when he said to the church in Corinth, “I am determined to make known among you nothing -- except Jesus Christ and him crucified!”
1 Corinthians 2:2