Holding it Together

Have you ever felt you couldn’t hold it together any longer, that life was unraveling, you were about to come apart? Our passage today says that ‘holding it together’ is a God thing. This is one of those grand texts that reminds us of just how different the LORD is from anything we could conceive:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹

There is another glimpse of God from Eternity in John 1 that enhances Colossians 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ²

Don’t be surprised by the reference to Jesus as the ‘firstborn’ of all creation for this is one of those words difficult to translate directly from Greek into English. In Greek, firstborn is prōtotokos, a combining of ‘proto’ and ‘tokos’ or in English, original + bringing forth. We most likely think of prototype, the image after which everything that follows is in the likeness of rather than something made in sequence. Jesus as LORD has no beginning, is not created, pre-exists everything other than Father God and the Holy Spirit.

I have a scientific bent and wrote my first thesis in the late 1960s on the big bang theory of the origin of the universe. That was back before the TV series, black holes, most of quantum physics and the theories of the last sixty years. I have continued to ‘follow the science’ and still find it humorous that we presume to know what we don’t know about the science of the beginning. I am quite satisfied with the statement of faith that ‘all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.’ The current state of science also places faith in the presupposition that something existed before anything began and that something caused a beginning. But, science doesn’t call that theory ‘faith.’

Colossians goes further than the beginning by giving us the ‘what next’ and the ‘why’ God did what He did.

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 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. ³

Jesus is not given as a random act placed into the experience of mankind but as the One who makes meaningful life for Eternity possible in Himself. Not only is Jesus established as preexistent but this clarifies that He is also preeminent, that He is sovereign over all that He created. ALL that He created. Yes, there are beings that have chosen to live in rebellion against their very Creator but He remains sovereign and has the authority to limit their activities in time and realm.

Paul concludes this passage with a summary of the impact of all that Truth,

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. ⁴

All that we are and all that we can become is rooted in the Supremacy of the LORD and the ability He has given for us to have ultimate faith in who He is and the difference that makes in all things. He is LORD.