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The Preeminence of Christ
by Fr. Reid Hensarling
Colossians 1:11-20
"May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (11-14).
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and from the same source Christians may expect to be strengthened for their task of knowing and pleasing God. Endurance is the refusal to be daunted by hard times, and patience is the refusal to be upset by perverse people. The Christian's growth to spiritual maturity must take place in a world antagonistic both to their faith and to their good works.
God rescued the Hebrew people in the Old Testament from oppression in Egypt, so now he has rescued the new Israel from the dark powers which dominate the present world order and has settled them in the kingdom of Christ. The difference is that their emancipation has not been from physical slavery or political tyranny, but from sin. Believers have been rescued from the domain and rule of Satan by being transplanted as citizens in the kingdom of God. What glorious and life-changing good news!
"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross" (15-20).
Jesus is the very center and crown of creation because he is man as God from the beginning destined man to be. Christ's supremacy is absolute, unequivocal, and universal. He is the embodiment of all the purposes of God which underlie the whole creation, and so he supplies the principle of coherence and meaning in the universe. All things have been created and remain in their created existence through Christ and for him. What Christ has created he maintains in permanent order, stability, and productivity. He is the source of the unity and cohesiveness of the whole universe; thus, the universe has an ongoing relationship to Christ.
These staggering assertions can be made about the place of the man Jesus in creation because in the experience of the church he holds precisely this place of supremacy in God's new creation. He is head over those who through his death and resurrection are incorporated into unity with him, and he is the source of their new life. All this is only the beginning of the process by which God is establishing him in complete preeminence over the universe. God always intended that his heavenly wisdom should find a home in man, and so in Christ God himself in all his fullness chose to dwell, so that through Christ's vicarious death he could bring about the reconciliation of the whole rebellious universe to himself. Incredibly, both the physical universe and the Church owe their coherence to Christ. Jesus has priority over the new creation as well as the old.
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