Mystery of Christ in Colossians: the Mystery Revealed

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Everyone loves a good mystery!  We got hooked when my mom came to visit from NJ when our kids were little.  She turned us on to Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Murder She Wrote, Miss Marple, etc. I guess the pleasure in mysteries is that the viewer is always trying to figure out "Who done it!"  My mom had an amazing track record in those days!  And I'm finding myself guessing correctly more often than not nowadays!  Aging?  Suspicious nature?  Who knows!

God has mysteries too, as we've seen in the book of Colossians.  But His mysteries are very different than the ones we try to figure out.  There are five distinctives of God's mysteries.

  1. They are about God and His ways
  2. They are now revealed but previously unknown
  3. They couldn’t be known unless God revealed them
  4. They are meant to be proclaimed, not kept secret
  5. There is still supernatural remaining despite revelation

God takes great pleasure in His mysteries!  There are many in the Bible.  But the Father takes particular delight in His mystery wrapped up in His Son, the Apple of His Eye!  Did you find the references concerning God's mystery in Colossians?

...the mystery that has been kept hidden...the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:25,27

My goal is that...they may know the mystery of God, namely,Christ [Himself], in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 3:2-3; also 4:3

To really spell it out, a little later in Colossians, Paul says,

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him... Colossians 2:9-10 ESV

I love those verses!  They are key to the whole of our Christian walk in this world!  The full Christ Who is the wisdom of God indwells you and me, O child of God!  Let that truth really sink in!

Jesus is the fulness of God in the flesh, the God-Man, our Immanuel...and the full Christ lives His full life in and through me as I let Him...so I am full in Him!

As the authors of Jesus Manifesto (p. 34) have put it...

Jesus Christ is like a vast ocean.  He is too immense to fully explore, too rich to fathom.  You are like a bottle.

The wonder of the gospel is the bottle is in the ocean, and the ocean is in the bottle.

Join us next time to see how this truth can become real in your own life.  See you then!