Christ’s Pre-Eminence As The Revelation Of God

“That in all things he might have the preeminence.”     Colossians 1:18

            God has so highly honored, exalted, and magnified his Son as our Mediator that the only way any creature can honor, exalt, and magnify the triune God is by honoring, exalting, and magnifying the Lord Jesus Christ. So determined is the eternal, triune God to make Christ pre-eminent in all things that God can only be known and revealed to men by the knowledge and revelation of Christ. The only way God makes himself known to man is by Christ the Mediator. And the only way God deals with men is through Christ the Mediator. "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand (John 3:35)."

            We are trinitarians. We worship the one true and living God in the trinity of his sacred Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are three separate and distinct Persons in the Godhead. Yet these three divine Persons are one God. The Father is the Father. The Son is the Son. And the Spirit is the Spirit. They are three distinct Persons. Yet, they are one God. There is no way to explain the doctrine of the trinity, or even to illustrate it in human terms. We believe it because it is plainly revealed in Holy Scripture. When our Savior was baptized by John, the Father spoke from heaven, the Son was immersed in the Jordan river, and the Spirit descended in the form of a dove (Matt. 3:16-17). When our Lord taught us to baptize believers, he told us to do so in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). When he was about to leave this world, our Redeemer, the Son, prayed to the Father, that he might send the Spirit upon his people (John 14:15-17). Paul tells us that our salvation was planned by the Father and purchased by the Son, and that it is performed in us by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:3-14). The Scriptures state the doctrine of the trinity with utmost clarity in 1 John 5:7. "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." All true believers are trinitarians. “The matter is not to be pried into,” wrote Tobias Crisp, “by human wit; for this, of all the mysteries in Scripture, is the pure object of mere faith.”

            However, we know, worship, and serve God only as we know, worship, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is God, and there is no other God in the world but what Christ himself is. Thomas called Jesus Christ “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28); and he was right in doing so. Paul says, “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). That means that in the God-man, Jesus Christ, all that God is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, perpetually and eternally resides. Again Tobias Crisp wrote, “You must know that you are never to separate in your thoughts God from Christ. Always, as you look upon Christ, so look upon God; or as you look upon God, look upon him no otherwise than as he is in Christ, not as if there were another God besides what Christ is no such thing.” Jesus Christ our Savior is God. The only way to honor the Father is to honor Christ his Son (John 5:23-24).

Don Fortner