According to God, Christ occupies the first place in both the old creation and the new creation; Christ should have the preeminence in our personal universe, and we should give Him the first place in all things.
What a wonderful, all-inclusive, extensive Christ we have! He is preeminent in everything; even in the Godhead, the triune Godhead, Christ has the first place, for the Father exalts the Son, and the Spirit always testifies concerning the Son.
The entire Godhead – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit – dwells in Christ; in Him the fullness was pleased to dwell.
The fullness of all that God is – everything that God has, is, has accomplished, and has done – dwells in Christ in a bodily form. Wow! This Triune-God-man, this Father-Son-Spirit-man is the center of God’s plan and He has the first place in all things.
God highly exalted Him above all things and all people, and He gave Him the highest name on earth; Christ was given to be Head over all things!
Maybe we are wondering, however, how does this understanding of Christ help us in our daily life.
If we dive into the word of God and pray over the book of Colossians for a period of time, we will be revolutionised, reconstituted, and transformed.
We will see a vision of who He is, and at the same time we will see who and what we are. We will despise the things that issue from the self; we will despise not only our hatred and evil things, but even our love, kindness, and patience, which issue from the self.
We will simply be constrained to love the Lord. When we see a vision of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, we will love Him simply because He is everything, so we don’t need to struggle or strive to do anything except come to Him, enjoy Him, and let Him be so much in us and to us.
May we be those who pray over the word of God and allow God to work this all-inclusive, extensive Christ into our being.
What we need is not more regulations and teachings; rather, what we need is that we would be infused and saturated with Christ as the all-inclusive One.
When He infuses Himself into us, we will drop anything that is not Christ, and He will be constituted into our very being.
This is the way for us to accomplish God’s purpose and build up the church – not by religion (which gives people doctrines and teaches them how to behave) but by being infused with the all-inclusive Christ!
May we realize that Christ is in us, and may we see Him, know Him, be filled with Him, be saturated with Him, and become absolutely one with Him!
Christ Occupies the First Place in both the Old Creation (the universe) and the New Creation (the church)
According to Col. 1:15 and 18, both in the old creation and in the new creation Christ occupies the first place; this means that both in the universe and in the church, Christ occupies the place of preeminence.
On one hand He is the Creator of all things, and through Him all things were made; on the other hand, Christ is the Firstborn of all creation, which means He is a creature. Christ is God – the complete God; as the complete God He’s not a creature but the Creator.
At the same time, Christ is man, a genuine man; as such a One, He is a creature. We have no idea how this can be, but this is how it is, and our Christ is wonderful!
As a Man Christ is a creature, and He was born like you and me. Adam was directly created and formed by God, and we all were created by God, for our birth is a continuation of God’s creation; the same was with the birth of the man Jesus!
How can He be the first of all the creatures if He was born only two thousand years ago? Because God lives outside of time and space – He actually invented time and space – there’s no time element with Him.
According to God, before the incarnation of Christ, He as a man appeared to Abraham in Gen. 18 and had a meal with him; this is because there’s no time element with Him.
Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15); this is related to the image in Gen. 1:26 according to which man was created.
We were created in the image of God, that is, in the image of Christ! This is so that Christ would have the first place in all things – both in the old creation and in the new creation.
For Christ to be the first means that He is all; since Christ is the first both in the universe and in the church, He must be all things in the universe and in the church (Col. 3:10-11).
According to our understanding, when we say “first” this means that there is a second, a third, and many follow; in God’s eyes, however, the one who is first means that he is all.
For example, Adam is the first man, so Adam is all men; we all are born in Adam, for Adam includes all men. Adam is the totality of all the Adams to come.
Similarly, when God slew the firstborn of the Egyptians, He actually included all the Egyptians in him.
When we say that Christ is first, this means that Christ is all. This is what we see in Col. 3:10-11, which speaks of the constitution of the one new man – Christ is all and in all, He is every single member of the new man! Hallelujah for such a Christ!
Lord Jesus, we praise You for being the Firstborn of all creation and the Firstborn from the dead to occupy the first place! Hallelujah, Christ has the place of preeminence both in the old creation and in the new creation, and He has the first place both in the universe and in the church! Oh, what a Christ! We praise You for being the first and everything in God’s creation – both in the universe and in the church. Amen, Lord, may You be all things in the universe and in the church to us in a practical way!
Christ should have the Preeminence in our Personal Universe: give Him the First Place!
It is wonderful to hear that Christ has the first place in God’s old creation and in His new creation, but how does this affect us?
Well, we all have our own “personal universe”, and Christ should have the preeminence in our personal universe.
The big universe out there doesn’t affect us very much, and merely knowing how many galaxies and stars there are doesn’t affect our daily living.
What we care about is our personal universe in which we live every day, and Christ must be preeminent in all the things related to our personal universe.
It is not very hard for Christ to be preeminent in the galaxies of the physical universe, for these don’t have a will like you and me; it is much harder for Him to have the preeminence in our personal universe.
Who decides what has the preeminence in our personal universe? Is it God? God could do this, but He won’t; the person who decides in my personal universe who has the preeminence is me.
So whether Christ is preeminent in our personal universe is up to us, not up to Him.
As those who have been chosen by God to be His people for Christ’s preeminence, we are under God’s heavenly rule (Dan. 4:26; Matt. 5:3). Even though we may not always cooperate with His heavenly rule, we are in God’s kingdom, and we are under His rule.
Christ, the preeminent One, must be the centrality and universality in our personal universe, that is, in our church life, family life, and daily life (Col. 3:17; 1 Cor. 10:31).
What about our family life, our marriage life, our job, our business, our serving, the way we spend our money, the way we dress, our demeanor, how we interact with each other, and all the things in our personal universe? We must decide who has the first place.
The whole universe coheres in Christ; He is the holding center of the entire universe – it’s not gravity, it is Christ (Col. 2:17). He must also be the One who holds our personal universe together, otherwise our personal universe will disintegrate.
May we take Christ as our holding center in our family life, our marriage life, our personal life, our work life, and our church life; if He is not our holding center, things will just disintegrate.
Under the heavenly rule of God everything is working together for our good; this is especially true of the things in our personal universe, which includes ourselves, our families, and the church (Rom. 8:28).
When we read this verse in Rom. 8:28 we should not use our own natural dictionary concerning the word “good” but rather take God’s dictionary; the good here is that Christ would be preeminent, that He would have the first place.
In our personal universe many things happen day by day for the purpose of making Christ preeminent (Eph. 1:11; Rev. 4:11).
When we see this and realize that God arranges all things for His purpose, we will be submissive to God’s heavenly rule.
Sometimes something difficult may happen in our personal universe, and we feel as if the enemy threw a grenade in our situation…but as we fellowship and pray, we may realize that this is the Lord’s answer to our giving Him the permission to do what He wants in us to accomplish His purpose.
Our God answers our prayer; He causes all things to work together for good, and when difficult things happen, or “bombs go off” in our personal universe, we need to realize that He is helping us to make Christ and only Christ the preeminent One in our whole being.
In order to give Christ the preeminence in all things, however, we must be willing to be adjusted, to be broken, and to be made nothing, so that the Lord can have a way in us, through us, and among us for the building up of His organic Body (Eph. 3:17; 4:16).
May we be willing. May we see a vision of the preeminence of Christ and allow this vision to revolutionize our living and our church life, realizing that in all things Christ must have the first place.
Lord Jesus, grant us to see a vision of the preeminence of Christ so that our living and our church life may be revolutionized. May we allow You and even give You the first place in all things in our personal universe. Amen, Lord, thank You for arranging all things in our personal universe for our good, for the purpose of having Christ be preeminent in all things in us. Be our holding center, Lord; may our personal life, family life, marriage life, and church life have Christ as their holding center. Oh Lord, we give You the first place in all things by faith!
Read this article in the Romanian language / citiți acest articol și în limba română la următorul link, Cristos ar trebui să aibă preeminența în universul nostru personal: să-I dăm primul loc.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, msg. 9 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ (2019 Thanksgiving Conference), week 3 on the topic of, The All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Having the Preeminence in All Things.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Thou art before all creatures, / In Thee all things consist; / Of all Thou art the center, / By Thee all things subsist. / Thou art the sole beginning, / The Firstborn from the dead; / And for the Church, Thy Body, / Thou art the glorious Head. (Hymns #189)
– He the great beginning is, / And the Church’s living Head; / He her life and content too, / And the firstborn from the dead…God intends in everything / Christ should have preeminence, / And that such a Christ of all / We should now experience. (Hymns #495)
– I give You the first place in all things by faith. / Let nothing take Your place in all my heart. / Infuse me with Yourself abundantly / ’Til we meet, dear Lord. / I’ll love You with the best love. (Song on, The best love for the Lord)
