Word on the Web

18 May 2009: The Lordship of Christ (Colossians 1:18)

We are the members of that Body and the Holy Spirit is the life of that Body and we operate, first and foremost, in dependence on him and in interdependence upon one another. ‘And this’, says Paul to the Colossians, ‘is where you are losing the substance of the gospel. You’ve introduced human logic, human reasoning, philosophies that are based on the principles of this world to make you totally acceptable to the man in the street, because everything you do is totally predictable and logical.’ But when you are living in union with Jesus Christ, the folks in the street are going to scratch their heads and not understand what is going on, because it is a spiritual, supernatural enterprise where Jesus Christ himself is the head, the model of true humanity. ‘And,’ says Paul, ‘you’ve lost his deity, you’re in danger of losing his humanity and you’re losing his Lordship and, if you lose that, you will end up with a hollow religious enterprise. It will be spiritually dead.’ It is the activity of Jesus himself in the Christian, and therefore in the Church, that makes the Church of Jesus Christ what it is.

Charles Price on Colossians
Taken from the Keswick 08 Ministry Book “Creation, Chaos and Christ”