The Christ Who Is Everything

Is Christ truly enough?

This is a question that lies beneath much of the Christian life.

We may never put the question into words, but we answer it by the way we live. When life becomes difficult, what do we look to for security? When we feel spiritually weak, where do we turn? When the world offers us a hundred competing voices, how do we know which one to listen to? When we look at the church and see imperfect people, how do we remain committed to one another? And when we think about eternity, what gives us confidence that we will actually make it to the end?

The first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians gives a remarkably simple answer. Christ is enough because Christ is everything. He is the foundation of our hope, the centre of our faith, the object of our love. He is the Creator and sustainer of all things. He is the head of the church. He is the Saviour who reconciles sinners to God. And he is the Lord who works in his people and through his people to keep them faithful until the day he presents them holy and blameless before himself.

The Christian life begins, continues and ends with Jesus Christ.

A Hope That Changes the Present

When Paul begins his letter, he does not immediately address the problems facing the Colossian church. Instead, he gives thanks. He has heard about their faith in Christ Jesus and their love for all the saints. But Paul does not see their faith and love as isolated virtues. He traces them back to something deeper: “because of the hope laid up for you in heaven” (Colossians 1:5).

This is one of the great insights of the Christian faith. What we believe about the future changes how we live in the present. The Colossians had discovered that the Gospel was not merely a set of religious ideas. It was “the word of the truth, the gospel” that had come to them and was now bearing fruit in their lives. The Gospel had given them a sure hope. They knew that, in Christ, they had been redeemed. Their sins had been forgiven. They had been transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. They had been given an inheritance that could never be taken away.

And that future hope was producing present faith and present love. This is the strange power of Christian hope. It does not make us indifferent to the present. It transforms the way we live in the present.

A farmer works in the heat because he expects a harvest. A mother endures the pain of childbirth because she knows that something precious is coming. Christians endure the difficulties of this life because they know that something infinitely greater is coming.

The Christian looks at the present through the lens of eternity. This does not mean that our suffering is imaginary or insignificant. It means that our suffering is not the final word. The Christian may be grieving, but grief is not the end. The Christian may be persecuted, but persecution is not the end. The Christian may be sick, weak or afraid, but sickness, weakness and fear are not the end.

Christ is the end. Glory is the end. Resurrection is the end.

And because we know where the story ends, we can live faithfully in the present.

The Saviour Who Is Greater Than Our Salvation

But then Paul seems to pause. He has been speaking about salvation, hope, redemption and forgiveness, and then he seems to ask the obvious question: Who is this Christ who has accomplished such a great salvation?

His answer is breathtaking. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

Jesus is not merely a messenger from God. He is not merely a great teacher who tells us about God. He is not merely a created being who stands somewhere between God and humanity. He is the one who makes the invisible God known.

The God whom we could never discover by our own efforts has made himself known in Jesus Christ. The eternal Son stepped into our world. The Creator entered his creation. The one who made human bodies took on a human body. The one who created eyes saw the world through human eyes. The one who created ears heard the sounds of his creation. The one who created wood was nailed to a wooden cross. The one who holds the universe together by the word of his power allowed himself to be held by nails.

This is the wonder of the incarnation. The invisible God became visible.

But Paul goes even further. “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…” (Colossians 1:16). Everything exists in him, through him and for him. The stars exist for him. The oceans exist for him. The angels exist for him. The nations exist for him. The church exists for him.

You exist for him.

And Paul says that “in him all things hold together”. The same Christ who created everything is the Christ who sustains everything. Every breath you take is sustained by him. Every heartbeat is sustained by him. Every atom in the universe is held together by his sovereign power.

And yet this infinitely powerful Christ is the one who went to the cross for sinners.

That is why the greatness of our salvation is ultimately determined by the greatness of our Saviour. The Christ who saves you is the Christ who created the universe. The Christ who reconciles you is the Christ who sustains the universe. The Christ who died for you is the Christ who conquered death. The Christ who is your Saviour is the Christ who is God.

The Cross: Where Everything Comes Together

Paul’s vision of Christ reaches its climax at the cross. The one through whom all things were created is the one through whom God reconciles all things, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).

Our greatest problem was not that we lacked information. It was that we were alienated from God. We were hostile in mind. We lived in rebellion. We wanted the gifts of God without wanting God himself. We wanted life without the giver of life.

And yet Christ came to reconcile us. Not by overlooking our sin. Not by pretending that evil does not matter. But by bearing our sin in his own body.

The cross is where God’s justice and mercy meet. There, the Son of God stood in the place of sinners. There, the Creator was crucified by his creatures. There, the one who had every right to judge us bore the judgement we deserved.

And the result? Peace. Reconciliation. Redemption. Forgiveness.

This is the heart of the Christian Gospel. We are not saved because we became good enough for God. We are saved because Christ was good enough to save us.

The Gospel does not point us towards ourselves. It points us towards Christ. And that is why Paul can say, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Not Christ plus something else. Not Christ plus religious performance. Not Christ plus mystical experience. Not Christ plus human wisdom.

Christ.

Christ is our hope.