Christ is All
Christ is All
To fully please God, we must stop being his enemies and include ourselves in the reconciliation which only Christ could achieve. It was God’s "good pleasure that in Christ all the fullness should dwell, and to reconcile all things to himself by him" (Col 1:19-23).
Not all God's enemies will be reconciled. Paul says, "the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience" (Col 3:6). That would not be true if all God's enemies will be reconciled to him. On the other hand, Paul teaches that anyone and everyone is allowed to come to God through Christ's atonement, to have all blame removed, and thus be reconciled to God.
God welcomes anyone and everyone into reconciliation. Listen to Paul describe his ministry of reconciliation: "We preach Christ, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" (Col 1:28). Paul's aim was to teach everyone, and Paul believed that every person he taught was capable of being presented to God perfect in Christ. God's welcome is wide, wide as the ocean; high as the heavens above.
Christ "made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col 1:20). Those who were "alienated and enemies... he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death" (Col 1:21-22). Now how far is God pleased to take this? He sent his unique and beloved Son to die on the cross. The precious body was killed, the precious blood was shed. How does God look upon that sacrifice? Does God say, “Well I'll let a few of my alienated enemies be reconciled by it, but for most of them it just won't do” ? If the hope of atonement is limited to some and not others, then Christ made an insufficient sacrifice.
Paul gives a person two options: "You will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality" (Col 3:24-25). The only possible way there is no partiality, is if God gives you the choice of serving the Lord with its reward, or doing wrong with its punishment. If God himself were to make that decision, he would be partial. Let me explain...
The Colossians had been alienated enemies of God like everyone else (Col 1:21). Like everyone else in Colosse, they had been sons of disobedience (Col 3:6-7), dead in their trespasses (Col 2:13). Now if God allowed them to be reconciled and forgiven but disallowed this privilege to others in the city, that would be partiality. But "there is no partiality" (Col 3:25). This leads us to observe three things:
If God broke any one of those principles, there would be partiality on his part. The third principle is controversial, and we will say more about it in part 2 of this lesson.
Series outline