There are so many riches in the Biblical revelation about our Lord Jesus Christ, that one can only hope to touch on a little of that treasure in one article. What the scriptures reveal about Jesus is completely beyond the mind of man and yet we are called to use our minds to contemplate his greatness. The more we know about him the more we realise that we have so much to learn. The apostle Paul expounded the riches of the gospel in his letters, and the more we look at what he said, the more we realise that each letter is an inexhaustible gold mine, in this article I want to look briefly at some verses from Colossians chapter 1.

   The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16       For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17       He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18       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. 19       For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20       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.
21       Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 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—23       if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.  (Col 1:15–23).

 

Firstly, Jesus our Creator: notice that everything in creation owes its existence to the creative  will that all things exist. Paul wants to make it quite clear that everything is created through Christ. this reminds us that Creation is good and that he made a perfect world. Sin came in as a destructive force, but it does not nullify the fact that creation is good. Often Christians have been affected by Greek Philosophy and have therefore seen the material world as something that distracts from the spiritual world. The incarnation itself show this to be false, the fact that Jesus took on flesh to redeem it shows the goodness of creation. That is why Christians should be creative in all manner of ways. We are told that god created this universe by his word,he spoke, and it came to be, the Lord did not have to exert any energy to create, he just spoke everything into being. Just think of it for a moment one second there was nothing the next the universe came into being and then through a succession of spoken commands the world came into being. But not only that our Lord Jesus Christ sustains this world and in him all things hold together.

 Secondly,Jesus our Saviour; Salvation comes to us through Christ alone, he through his work on the earth and through the cross,worked out a salvation for us and redeemed us from the penalty of sin. He paid the ultimate of price of separation from his heavenly Father so that we might know fellowship with God in the power of the Holy Spirit. But he has not paid the price just to leave us where we are, but we have been called to be Saints, our lives are to be transformed by his amazing grace. When we receive Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord we receive eternal life that can never be taken away from us. We owe everything we have to the mercy of the God of sovereign Grace. We sometimes sing amazing grace, and we should do so because we never do anything to deserve salvation rather it is the free gift of God in Christ. We come as beggars to the throne of grace admitting our sin, and we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Thirdly Jesus is Lord of All: Very often we neglect that the Lord Jesus is Lord of all, yet this is a vital part of the biblical teaching< Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth and therefore that means he is Lord of our personal lives, the world we live in and in the Church of God. The supremacy of Christ in the church is stressed in the passage above, so often we want our churches to be pleasing to our culture but the only important thing is that the Church pleases its Lord and Saviour. This means that in all our planning we must ask the question what is Christ’s will for the Church? so often we want our own way and we are willing to campaign to get it. We are called to submit to the Lordship of Christ in his Church, so often we refer to the church as my church,but this surely is wrong the church does not belong to me but to the one who purchased it with his own precious blood. We need to accept that the Lord’s work must be done in the Lord’s way (to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer).

Conclusion: If we begin to grasp the richness of who our saviour is it has the potentiality to transform our lives, the Church and the surrounding world. Lord Jesus help us to grasp more of the rich truth expressed about you in your word,Amen.