This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Who is Jesus?.
Who is Jesus Christ? What makes Him unique? Why does this one Man stand out above all others? To explain Jesus is impossible. To ignore Him is disastrous. To reject Him is fatal. Dr. John Blanchard estimated that since the dawn of civilization, about 60 billion people have walked planet Earth. Of those, only a handful made an impression that actually changed the world. Of that handful, One stands head and shoulders above all others. His name is Jesus.
Jesus has received more attention, devotion, criticism, and opposition than any person who has ever lived. His every recorded word has been analyzed and debated—more than all the historians, philosophers, and scientists put together. After 2,000 years, never a minute passes that millions are not studying His words. Think about it. He lived in a tiny land two millennia ago, yet His birth divides our calendar into BC and AD.
He never wrote a book, yet libraries could be filled with volumes written about the Lord Jesus. He never painted a picture, yet the world’s greatest artists have painted Him. Jesus of Nazareth has inspired the world’s greatest dramas, music, and literature. He had no formal education, yet thousands of schools and universities have been built in His name. The great historian Kenneth Scott Latourette said, “Jesus has had more effect on the history of mankind than any other of its race who ever existed.”
Jesus never raised an army and yet, multiplied millions have been martyred for Him. He never traveled far from His birthplace, yet His testimony has gone around the world. He had only a handful of followers, but they changed the world. He had a public ministry of only three years, yet here we are, 2000 years later, saying “Jesus, Your name is wonderful”—because it is.
Human speech is too limited to describe Him, the human mind too small to comprehend Him, and the human heart can never fully absorb who Jesus Christ is. To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to be radically, eternally transformed.
Jesus doesn’t want “a place” in your life. He doesn’t want “prominence.” He deserves preeminence. Colossians 1:18 directs us in our thinking, “…that in all things He might have preeminence.”
“Preeminence” means to hold first place, to be distinct, superior, above all others. Colossians 1:13-18 says Jesus is:
When Paul says Jesus is the “firstborn” in verse 15, firstborn doesn’t imply a beginning. It speaks of honor and privilege, of His exalted position. Jesus didn’t have His beginning at Bethlehem because He never had a beginning. There was never a time when Jesus was not. He has always existed—He is the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus said in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I Am.” Not “I was,” “I Am.” He is the great I Am.
Do you want to know God? Friend, Jesus Christ has cornered the market. He has a monopoly on revealing the Father. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. You see, God is Spirit—invisible, unfathomable, unapproachable. Without Jesus Christ, how are you, a human being, going to know God? You can’t. You cannot know Him by reason, religion, or ritual. You will only know Him by revelation—as God chooses to reveal Himself to you, and He has chosen to do that through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the exact representation of the invisible God. The visible Jesus makes the invisible God known. The only way you can ever fully know God the Father is through Him. Jesus Himself said:
All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. (Matthew 11:27)
Now that’s either true or not true. He says, “No one knows My Father but Myself, and you can’t know Him unless I introduce Him to you,” because He is the express image of the invisible God. That’s a big statement.
You’re never going to figure God out. How can the finite understand the infinite? Not by reason, but by revelation. Any other god you worship is the god of your guesses, and that’s a form of idolatry. You don’t conjure up some god to worship. Jesus came to reveal the Father. Jesus didn’t say, “I’m a way.” He said: “I am THE way.” He didn’t say, “I am a life.” He said: “I am THE life. I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life” (John 14:6). He is God manifest in the flesh.
Do you want to know God? Would you like to know what the great, invisible God is like? Would you like to know His heart? You’ll only find Him in Jesus, in whom all the fullness of God dwells. Colossians 2:9 sums it up: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He was and is both God and man.
On His mother’s side, He got thirsty; on His Father’s side, He was the water of life.
On His mother’s side, He got hungry; on His Father’s side, a little lunch fed 5,000.
On His mother’s side, He was no home; on His Father’s side, He owned the cattle on a thousand hills.
On His mother’s side, He wept at Lazarus’ grave; on His Father’s side, He said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and raised Lazarus from the dead.
If you want to know God, you must know Jesus. All of God was in Bethlehem’s child— God in human flesh.
“All things were created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16) and everything will climax in the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:17 says Jesus “is before all things.” He could not be created because God says it was Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, at work during Creation, doing the creating. The little baby in Matthew 1 is the mighty God of Genesis 1. There was nothing made without Him.
“…and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).
This means that in Jesus all things “stick together.” Jesus Christ is the glue of the galaxies. What keeps it all from falling apart or coming apart? Jesus. He is the One who feeds the sun with its fuel. Jesus guides the planets in their orbit around the sun. Jesus is the One who set out all the stars. Talk about natural law, there is no “natural law”—they are the laws of Jesus that nature obeys. In Him, all things hold together.
“For the Lord is our Judge, The Lord is our Lawgiver, The Lord is our King; He will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).
Whether things in Heaven or things on Earth, everything was made by Jesus and for Jesus (See Colossians 1:16.). Why this Earth, this Universe, all of this? It was all for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Friend, it is all headed to Jesus. He is the key to the mystery of history. We’re moving toward the time when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ.
This Jesus who declares the Father and dominates the future is also the peacemaker, the redeemer, the One who delivers the fallen, reconciling God and man.
For it pleased the Father that in Him [His Son, Jesus] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight…. (Colossians 1:19-22).
Other people have died, but because Jesus is God, His deity makes His death transformative in our lives—His death provides our eternal salvation. The One who made every seed, every limb, every tree, died on a tree. When Jesus created the universe, He did it with His Word. But when He saved us, it took every drop of His blood.
I cannot make peace with God. Jesus made peace for me through the blood of His cross. We must enter that peace by faith. We must trust the Lord Jesus.
“That in all things He may have the preeminence.” Does He have preeminence in your life?
If in your heart there’s darkness, gloom, depression, and despair, there is Someone who can light the candle of joy. His name is Jesus.
