Jesus is Preeminent

Jesus is great and Jesus is glorious ... beyond anything we can possibly imagine. He is the image of God. In Him is ALL the fullness of God. He created all things, including the opposing powers of evil*, and all for His glory. All this is telling us about how great He is. (Colossians 1:15-18)

But we easily miss His greatness. To help us understand His greatness we need to see it in context.

At the fall of man, God pronounced judgment upon the serpent. This set the stage for the rest of time, and the scene was one of an ongoing saga - a battle between good and evil with evil having power on its side. (Genesis 3:15)

Through the ages evil would seem to prevail, but in every generation God would raise up a faithful man, who in the face of evil would stand in faith, sometimes as a lone man trusting God like Noah and Abraham, at other times as a great and courageous warrior like David. Sometimes there would be a small number of faithful people - the remnant, whatever, one way or another God would preserve His people through His people. (Genesis 45:7)

But in the end, all these heroes, one way or another were temporarily defeated or tarnished by sin, and without exception, to a man, no matter how great they were, they were all confronted and defeated by the mightiest of foes - death. No-one could beat this merciless enemy. (Romans 5:12)

But at the fall the stage was set. From the outset it was made clear that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent. That means the ‘Head’ of the serpent would be utterly crushed. The head of the serpent represents all the spiritual forces of evil, and includes the whole unbelieving community of humans in Adam. If the head is crushed - then all under the head, all the seed of the serpent, all belonging to Adam are utterly defeated, only to await final judgment. (Revelation 20:7-15)

In the fullness of time, the long awaited seed stepped onto the stage of History - but not in strength and power but weakness and humility - Jesus!

It was as though the great fixture of all time was about to take place - the serpent (and all the powers of darkness) vs the seed of the woman. They step into the ring. Get the picture - in one corner - Jesus, completely alone - even His Father has not showed up to support Him (not that His Father didn't love Him, but this was a battle Jesus had to fight alone - so that we never have to!) (Mark 15:34) -  against - in the other corner Satan Himself, plus all the powers of darkness, the unbelievers, sin and death. They are surrounded by an innumerable crowd all cheering for Satan.

Then just before the fight begins, Jesus says to the opposition - “I can beat you all with my hands tied behind my back!” They all laugh and mock. Jesus says, “Okay, first tie my hands behind my back, then relentlessly flog and beat me - I promise I will not retaliate at all, then tie my hands to a cross - and then nail them to the cross to make it even harder for me, and then do your worst. And without retaliating - I will smash you”. And so it was - just like that!

There, at the cross, in total weakness, all alone, single handedly Jesus smashed it. When He was as weak as He could possibly make Himself, Jesus KO’d all the opposition all at once and without the effort of throwing a single punch! (Colossians 2:15)

To all intents and purposes, this seemed like an uneven match weighted ridiculously against Jesus. But in fact, it was weighted the other way - JESUS, when as weak as He could possibly be, is gloriously greater than ALL other powers combined - FULL STOP!

The Bible tells us that no man can see God’s face (that is the fullness of His glory) and live. (Exodus 33:20) Remember Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory so the Lord protected Moses and then showed Moses just the back of His passing glory. But the Bible also teaches us that the greatest revelation of God’s glory took place at the cross. (John 17:5) 

It is as though, when it came to God revealing to us the greatest revelation of His glory that we could survive, He had to be very careful because to us His glory is very dangerous. So God took the smallest fragment of pure glory possible by appearing in human form and as insignificant as He could be whilst being true to Himself (Philippians 2:6-8) - and BOOM! The forces of evil, sin and death all defeated. (1 Corinthians 1:25)

Just imagine - if Jesus came, not shrouding His glory and power in utter weakness, but instead showing His full power and glory in all His magnificence! Well the Bible tells us He is coming in power and glory. The Bible using imagery tells us that when He does, the earth will shake, the mountains will tremble and split and the people of the earth will beat their breasts in fear, running to the rocks to hide themselves (Revelation 6:12-17). Then, in power and glory He will judge the earth and all on it. No-one will escape, and His judgment will be both terrible and final. 

Those who refused to genuinely repent, trust in Him for salvation and bow to Him in word and deed as Lord, will be cast from His presence, into outer darkness forever and ever. But those who had faith, repented and joyfully bowed before His Lordship in word and deed - will enter the eternal joy of God Himself. (Jude 13, Revelation 21:14,15)

Halelleuia! What a Savior! Take a few minutes now to acknowledge His greatness, put your trust for salvation in Him again. Repent before Him again and bow before His Lordship.

*Jesus did not create the opposing powers of evil as such, but He created them good, like man, but He did create them with the potential to fall, and fall they did - and He knew they would fall.