This week the blog is sponsored by The Gospel Project, who also wrote this article adapted from Gospel Foundations Volume 1: The God Who Creates.
Why did God create? Was it because He was lonely? Because there was something deficient in Himself? To fulfill some need that He had? Far from any of these reasons. God created not because He was lacking but because He was overflowing—spilling over with the perfect fellowship between the three Persons of the Trinity from the very beginning.
It’s not uncommon for people to misunderstand the nature of the Trinity—one God in three Persons—to mean that at creation, God was the Father, then in Bethlehem, God became the Son, and then in the book of Acts, God became the Holy Spirit. This is not true and is actually an ancient heresy called modalism. Contrary to this, the Bible teaches that God has always existed in these three distinct Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even more, the Bible teaches us that God created everything through the Son and for the Son.
“He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation,” wrote the apostle Paul (Col. 1:15-17, CSB). “For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.”
These verses work in concert with the account of creation from Genesis to show us this truth:
- Christ was “before all things.” He is not created; He is the eternal Creator. Whenever the beginning took place, He was already there making everything become a reality.
- Christ not only created all things but He also maintains the entire cosmos. He sustains the order in the universe. He holds it all together. Doesn’t this give you hope? If He holds the universe together, surely He can hold our lives together as Christians! Whenever we are tempted to give up hope, to feel like we can barely “hold it together,” like the world is spinning out of control, we ought to remember that God is God and we are not. Jesus holds everything together by the power of who He is!
- Jesus is the perfect image of the invisible God, the only One who rules wisely over creation perfectly relates to God and others, and through His work, earns our everlasting rest. By the Son, for the Son, and through the Son, all things exist and hold together.
It is through Jesus that all things were created; it is through Jesus that all things hold together, and it is for the glory of Jesus that everything exists.
The most basic implication this truth has for us is that we, like everything else in creation, exist through and for Jesus. It would be a drastic mistake for us, then, to read the story of the Bible as if we were the main character in Scripture. We are not. We are supporting players, and we only find true meaning and purpose when we align our lives with God for the glory of Jesus rather than trying to find how He fits into ours.
When we read the Bible, we should not be asking primarily how this passage or text relates to me and my story. Instead, we must read Scripture as the revelation of God that we might know Him and His Son. Consequently, our question shifts from asking what these verses say about me and my life to what this passage says about God and His story, and then how we fit into that overall narrative.
Jesus is the main character in Scripture. He is the center of the story. Everything revolves around Him.
From cover to cover, the Bible is the story of God’s plan to redeem sinners through Jesus—the gospel. Gospel Foundations tells that story. From the creators of The Gospel Project, this six-volume resource is comprehensive in scope yet concise enough to be completed in just one year. Each seven-session volume is video-enhanced to help your group engage in discussion with a clear understanding of how each text fits into the storyline of Scripture.
Learn more at gospelproject.com/gospel-foundations
