The Centrality of Christ
Centrality is about Christ’s right to be kept at the center
of who we are, where we are headed, all we are doing, and how we are blessed.
Supremacy speaks of so much more.
It proclaims Christ’s right to keep us at the center
of who he is (focus), where he is headed (fulfillment),
what he is imparting (fullness), and how he is blessed (fervency).
Matthew 16:13-19
Who Do You Say He Is?
Jesus’ penetrating question: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered with the familiar words, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But did he or the others really grasp the full implications of that brief sentence? Based on what many Scriptures teach about the meaning of those two titles—“the Christ” and “Son of the living God”—Peter’s response was equivalent to saying to the Lord Jesus:
• You are the Superlative One.
• You are the Incomparable One.
• You are the Exalted One.
• You are the Preeminent One.
• You are the Sufficient One.
• You are the Triumphant One.
• You are the Unifying One.
In another place, the Lord Jesus answered his own question when he said to John: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13). Not only was he at the beginning, he himself is the Beginning. Not only will he be waiting for believers at the end, he is the End.
All history streams from him and is directed toward him, to be completed by him. The eternal past has no other eternal future but Christ alone. There is only one in the entire universe of whom God has ever said without qualification: “In you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Thus Christ and Christ alone can insist on being the One to whom all supremacy (supreme power and authority) belongs, whose supremacy encompasses all.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
In Jesus Christ the reality of God entered into the reality of this world …
Henceforth one can speak neither of God nor of the world without speaking of Jesus Christ. All concepts of reality that do not take account of him are abstractions.
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“I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE FIRST AND THE LAST, THE BEGINNING AND THE END.”
