the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Colossians 1:18
The pre-eminence of Christ (III)
Read Revelation 5:1-14
Our Lord said, ‘All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him’ (Matthew 11:27). God reveals himself to men only in Christ (John 1:18; John 14:6). Christ is the Word, the revelation of God (John 1:1-3). All that we know of God is Christ. He is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his person. In the revelation of God, Christ is pre-eminent.
In the worship and service of God Christ is pre-eminent. God deals with men only in and through his beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me’ (John 14:6; John 10:9; Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 7:25; Hebrews 10:19). ‘God will not speak to, nor will he be spoken to by any man apart from the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Scott Richardson). The whole of our salvation is in Christ. He is made of God ‘unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’ (1 Corinthians 1:30). And the only way we can approach God is in him. God will not receive any worship, prayer, sacrifice, or service offered to him by man, but through the merits and mediation of Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Everything done for God and offered to God must be performed and offered in the name of Christ with a conscious realization that we have no access to or acceptance with the eternal God but by Christ. All that God does for us is in Christ, too. All the blessings of grace and glory are freely bestowed by God upon his sinful people for Christ’s sake and through his merits alone (Ephesians 1:3-14; Ephesians 4:32).
And when this world is folded up like a worn-out garment, when time shall be no more, and all men stand before God in judgment, Christ will yet be pre-eminent. Even at the bar of judgment God will deal with men only in Christ. The Judge who will sit upon the great white throne in that day will be none other than the God-man, Christ Jesus our Lord (John 5:21-22; Romans 14:1-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10-11; Revelation 20:11-15). God has determined that in all things he must have the preeminence.
