THE COSMIC CHRISTSample

The supremacy of Jesus, the Son of God, comes from his pre-eminent role in creation. He is also the prince of the church – a people who are to share in his resurrection from the dead. 

And that leads to the next thought - the Son not only holds creation together, he also redeems it. Firstly, the whole essence of God dwelt in Jesus (Colossians 1:19). Not only was the Son of God made fully man, but in becoming fully man he did not lose anything of his divinity. In Jesus, we do not see a part of God or a semblance of God. We see God in all his God-ness, compressed in the human nature of the Son. This one person contained both divine and human nature fully. 

And because he was the human being that human beings should have been, as the image of the invisible God, he was also the one who by his death could achieve reconciliation of all things. By his blood he reconciled all things to himself in both the heavenly and the earthly realms. It was not just that he died for the people he came to save. His death had the effect of making the creation what it was always supposed to be. The fall of humankind had put all things into chaos and disorder.  All things were reconciled to Jesus by his blood, shed on the cross.  All things were restored through Jesus’ atonement for human sin. 

The Christ of this passage is cosmic. He is Lord, not just of a part of the world but of all of it. We are reminded of the hymn of Revelation 5, where the Lamb is found worthy -

“ ...because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God…” (Revelation 5:9-10).

We can only respond with praise. 

Prayer

Lamb of God, you are worthy to receive my praises, because you died to reconcile all things in all the earth to yourself, once and for all. Amen.