Focusing on Christ: He Is Meta

You pore over the Scriptures
because you think you have eternal life in them,
yet they testify about Me.
And you are not willing to come to Me
so that you may have life.”
– John 5:39–40 –

Here Jesus is confronting some of the most religious people of his day who did not believe He was who He claimed to be. Jesus basically says to them, “You think you will find life by studying the Scriptures thoroughly, but the Scriptures actually point to me!” The Master Story of the Bible that we have considered this week should ultimately lead us to Jesus.

Later, after His death and resurrection from the dead, Jesus tells his first followers this:

Then He told them, “These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
– Luke 24:44–45 –

What Jesus says here is so important. Jesus believed that the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms revealed things about Him and they had to be fulfilled. The three collections of Scripture that Jesus mentions was the complete Bible available during His time (the New Testament had not been written yet). Notice He says that things were written about Him in those books that had to be fulfilled—these books looked forward to Jesus and foretold His appearing and work! Essentially Jesus is saying all the Scriptures that came before, pointed to Him!

Past | Origin: All things were created by Jesus.

For in Him (Jesus Christ) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible, and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him.
– Colossians 1:16 –

As we ponder, “Where have we come from?” the Bible tells us that all things, including the human race, were created by/in Jesus. He is the agent of all creation. Even things that are invisible were created by Jesus. In the Biblical worldview, there is more to reality than what we can see with our eyes. Jesus created it all.

Present | Purpose: All things were created for Jesus.

Notice also in the passage above that all things were created through and for Jesus. This is emphasized in the rest of that same passage:

He himself is before all things
and all things are held together in Him.
– Colossians 1:17 –

Not only is Jesus holding everything together, He is moving everything along:

In these last days, He [God] has spoken to us by His Son [Jesus]. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word.
– Hebrews 1:2–3 –

The word that is translated as “sustaining” here speaks of holding up and moving things along like the wind moves a sailing ship across the water. Everything is held together, held up and moved along by Jesus!

Future | Destiny: Everything Will Finally Be Headed Up in Jesus.

…[God] revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth.
– Ephesians 1:9–10 –

In the end, all things are going to be brought together—summed up, headed up, united—in Father-God’s purposes for all thing in Christ. As we heard earlier in Acts 17, we will all stand before Jesus to give an account of our lives. But Jesus is also bringing peace to our war-torn universe. He is setting all things right and in the final act, when everything is “fulfilled,” He will bring everything together.

Jesus is the Beginning and the End…

At the beginning of this Session, we said that prefix meta is often used to describe something that is behind or beyond other things. Meta is also used to defined something as being transcendent, above other things, explaining and providing context for understanding.

In the poem from Colossians, the Scriptures also say this:

… He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that He might come to have first place in everything.
– Colossians 1:18 –

In the last book of the Bible – The Revelation of Jesus Christ – we hear Jesus Himself saying this:

I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the First and the Last,
the Beginning and the End.
– Revelation 22:13 –

The Scriptures are clear: Jesus stands before and above and at the end of all things. He is preeminent. He has first place in everything. That is one of the reasons why, if we hope to find meaning in this life, we need to know Him. He is meta.