Healing Rays of Righteousness

Read Colossians 1:15-23a, 25-27

Paul soars to his highest thoughts in his effort to describe the person and work of Jesus Christ. I am almost breathless as I read this passage regarding the supremacy of Christ, exalted above all “thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities.”  I become even more breathless when I realize that this superior, boundless Jesus Christ is also very personal in reconciling me to God.

The heart-core of the New Testament gospel and the whole of Christian experience, is that Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, by whom and through whom all things were created; this Jesus who is before all things and in whom all things hold together; this Jesus, in whom God was pleased for all His fullness to dwell, and through whom to reconcile to himself all things by making peace through Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross;  this Jesus, lives in me and you by the Holy Spirit.  Wow!

For the apostle Paul, the word “reconcile” is key to his thought about what Christ has done for us.  He uses the same image when writing to God’s people in Rome, “while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son,” (Rm. 5:10).  Paul is fully convinced that through Christ’s death and resurrection, the broken relationship between us and God is forgiven and restored.

However, in verses 25-27 we discover that there is much more to this reconciliation theme which Paul elaborates on in the balance of his letter.  Paul says that “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations” has now been revealed to us by God.  He says the glorious richness of this mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Our reconciliation is by the death of Jesus Christ, but our complete redemption, our salvation, our being presented “perfect in Christ” (v.28) is by the life of the risen Christ living in power within us.

Again, we hear this truth expressed in the verse I partly referenced earlier from Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10).

Paul’s most vivid description of his own life in Christ was written to the Galatians:  “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

In one of the boldest prayers ever prayed, Paul interceded for God’s people in Ephesus, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  …that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:17, 19).

Paul believed that in all his dealings with humanity God had been working on a deep plan, with a secret purpose that can only be discovered by the illumination of the Spirit. Throughout his epistles he lays emphasis on the deeper understanding of the gospel – this mysterious secret which has been hidden for ages, which men have sought to probe and decipher, and has now been revealed.  It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

We talk about becoming Christian in ways like:  accepting Christ, inviting Christ into our lives, receiving Christ as Savior, surrendering our lives to Christ, giving our lives to Christ, being born again by allowing Christ to be born in us.

But whatever the language, our faith and experience is that as we confess and repent of our sins, we are forgiven and accepted by God and ushered into a new relationship with Him.  Being forgiven and reconciled by God’s grace, he then lives in us by the transforming power of his Spirit as the indwelling Christ.

What feelings does this truth of “Christ in you” awaken in your soul?  For me, it’s feelings of thankful praise and worship, singing “Amazing love, how can it be, That thou, my God, should’st die for me?”

“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – September 12, 2018