Too many people in society hold the belief that Jesus, God incarnate in human form, is only interested in the salvation of individual souls and proper Christian piety. That that is what the Gospel is.
This is wrong, especially from a proper Chrisitan worldview. If Jesus is actually Lord, then He is Lord over all of life, and all of life equally. Not just “spiritual” things like prayer, personal salvation, morality and thoughts about the after-life. He is the Redeemer of all things. As we will see, both scripture and Christian tradition are clear on this fact.
The oldest and most fundamental creed of the Christian Church is just three words long: Jesus is Lord.
But Lord of what? Early Christians well understood that whatever you can attach to that proclamation is correct because Jesus is the creator and Lord over all of reality. The Apostle John tells us this clearly in the beginning of his gospel,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
I Corinthians 8:6 tells us the world has “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” All means all. There is no part of creation or human experience that is excluded from Christ’s universal Lordship. There is no part of creation or human experience that does not hold His intense interest.
Colossians 2:8-10 instructs us directly,
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
Jesus’ Lordship and divine rule are absolute and absolutely comprehensive.
Harry Blamires, a personal friend and mentee of C.S. Lewis, writes in his great book The Chrisitan Mind, “At a time when Christianity is so widely misrepresented as life-rejecting rather than life-affirming it is urgently necessary to right the balance.” Blamires explains that because Jesus is Lord and the creator and sustainer of all that exists, “there is nothing in experience, however trivial, worldly, or even evil, which cannot be thought about Christianly.”
That is a BIG truth.
Blamires adds this important note that should shake the minds of every Christian who seeks to apply Christ’s Lordship to the fullness of life: “Nothing which is truly human is outside the scope of theological synthesis.” What this means simply is that if Jesus truly is the creator and Lord over all of life, then all of life can be thought of theologically, Christianly and redemptively.
In simpler terms, God relates to everything. Every. Thing.
This is why the great Dutch thinker, Prime Minister and founder of Amsterdam’s Free University, Dr. Abraham Kuyper, pronounced in a famous talk entitled Sphere Sovereignty at the dedication of that educational institution on October 20, 1880,
Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: Mine!
It is why John Calvin explains to us that the Trinitarian God “created the whole world for this end, that it may be a theatre of His glory” and the stability of nature and the world itself depends on “the continual rejoicing of God in His works.”
It is why God, through Jesus, is not only redeeming individual souls as John 3:16 tells us, but His fully salvific and redemptive work has a much broader view as Revelation 21:5 explains,
Behold, I am making all things new.
God told John the revelator, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
This is the first truth of Christianity: Jesus is not just Lord over religious or spiritual life, over our own personal eternal destiny. Jesus is the righteous Lord and Redeemer of all things, of all of creation.
This means the Gospel of Jesus Christ is potent for every sphere of human experience, for every aspect of His creation. For culture. For nations. For society. For the arts. For intellectual interests. For the family. For friendships. For industry and innovation. For everything. There is nothing over which Christ does not proclaim Mine!
Is your Christianity and understanding of the Gospel itself large enough to be faithful to this trustworthy truth?
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