Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (1/50) – The Lordship of Christ

‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the first of the fifty emails…

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible… all things have been created through him and for him… And he is the head of the body, the church… God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 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.
Colossians 1:15-16, 19-20

Jesus… Well, where else could we start exploring the main contours of the biblical story? With creation, perhaps? Yes, and we will get to it soon – though we shall find Jesus there before us. Or, on the basis that we best understand the beginning from the perspective of the end, could we start with the consummation of all things? Again yes, and that will be in our sights – though we shall find Christ there ahead of us.

Paul wrote letters not narratives, but it is the biblical story that funds his pastoral engagement with churches, and that story sometimes bubbles to the surface as it does here in Colossians 1:15-20 (and Philippians 2:5-11), where we are taken from creation to consummation through the cross in six verses. And at the heart of it all is Jesus.

So, we begin with the one who embraces both beginning and end, who stands at the heart of God’s plan for the ages, himself the image of the invisible God, the Lord of creation and redemption – for the sake of his church. Since all things were made through him and all things will be finalised in him, there is nothing left that does not come under his lordship. The creator, sustainer, and reconciler of all is none other than Jesus, the Lord of all.

And what goes with the confession of Jesus as Lord is the assurance that there is no part of ordinary, everyday reality that falls outside the orbit of his loving oversight. As Paul makes clear in the rest of Colossians, Christ’s lordship has implications for every area of life – to the extent that what funds our discipleship, our marriages, our working days, and our engagement with culture is not just the truth about Jesus as creator and redeemer of all things, but our relationship with him as Lord and with each other as his people.

Jesus is Lord – begin here.

For further reflection and action:

1. How does Colossians 1:15-20 broaden our horizons, and what difference might that make to how we go about our next task, our next conversation, our next meeting, our next purchase?

2. Read and reflect on Philippians 2:5-11, noting from the immediate context (2:1-4 and 12-18) how those who are ‘in Christ’ are shaped by the story of Christ.

3. In the first-century Roman imperial context, where Caesar is in charge, there are political implications in confessing Jesus as Lord… What are the imperial rulers – the ‘Caesars’ – of today? How do they exercise their ‘lordship’, and how does Christ’s rule subvert theirs?