Jesus Christ Is the Very Foundation That Sustains All That Exists

The apostle Paul is pointing here to the fact that Jesus Christ is before all things. It reminds me of a passage where the Lord Jesus Christ says, "Truly I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am." And I remember that when Jesus Christ said that, the Pharisees picked up stones to stone Him because they said: by saying that You existed before Abraham or before Moses, You are making Yourself equal to God.

They understood the implications of what Jesus was saying, didn’t they? Before Abraham was, I am, and that is what the Bible says about God when Moses asks Him: What is Your name? Who shall I say sent me? And God says: tell them that I Am Who I Am. So when Christ says: before Abraham was, I am, the Pharisees understood that Jesus was using coded language to suggest that He is equal to the Father, and that is why they said: we are going to stone You because You are making Yourself equal to the Father.

So here the apostle Paul is saying that: "Before all things, He already was." Jesus Christ exists before all creation; that is why it says: "In the beginning was the Word." That is, at that cosmic beginning, when God creates everything that exists, the Lord Jesus Christ is already present because He has neither beginning nor end; He is eternal. That is why Paul is pointing out here that Jesus Christ is before all things. And not only that, but everything that exists subsists in Him. What Paul is clarifying here is that Jesus is not only the Creator but also the Sustainer, and that is very important.

One of the things the Bible teaches us, and I believe one of the differences between Christianity and all other religions, is the fact that God did not merely create the universe and then sort of withdraw from it. There is a philosophy called deism that tends to suggest that God exists but that He is not involved in His creation; rather, He simply created everything that exists but remains outside all creation and distant from it, and He does not become involved in it from day to day, in sustaining creation or in the very processes of creation.

But what the Bible suggests to us is a God who not only creates but is completely involved in His creation. He is involved in history, He is involved in human events, He is involved in life and death and in nature itself. He actively sustains everything through His own Person, and the Bible tells us that if God were not involved in His universe—in sustaining it, maintaining it, administering it—the universe would come apart like a broken pearl necklace, with all the pearls scattering and rolling across the floor.

So what Paul is suggesting here is not only that Jesus is the Creator but also that He is the universe’s reason for being; He is the foundation, the very platform that supports everything that exists. And that is what John also suggests in John chapter 1 when he says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This idea of the Word translates the Greek word "logos." John is saying: in the beginning the logos existed. And logos is a word that John borrowed from Greek philosophy, which Greek philosophers used to refer to that unifying principle of everything that exists.

Since they did not have a personal God like this, they sort of conceptualized the existence of a central element that unified everything that existed, that gave coherence to the world, that gave meaning and purpose to the world. And they sort of hypothesized that there had to be something in the universe that was like the central element, the unifying element, and they called that logos, from which come the words logic, logistics, philology, and all these words that suggest systems.

So John took this word logos to suggest that this is the role Jesus Christ plays: Jesus Christ is the center, the foundation. So he could have said: In the beginning was the foundation, and the foundation was with God, and the foundation was God. And that foundation, which was the Word, became flesh and came to dwell among us. Jesus Christ, the foundation of creation, that for which everything exists and which gives meaning to everything that exists, became flesh and came to dwell among us.

What a wonderful revelation of the Person of Jesus: that being who is utterly wonderful and central to creation came to dwell among us. Not only that, but He dwells in our hearts when we invite Him to enter our lives and become the King and Lord of our lives. Then He, the Creator and Sustainer of everything that exists, also gives our own lives meaning, gives them coherence, gives them a foundation, gives them purpose. All these are things the Lord Jesus Christ does when we have Him as Lord and King of our own lives and of our own world.

What a wonderful thought for us today: to confess Jesus as the Sustainer and Creator of our own lives and of our own reality. God bless you, and I hope this inspires your life as it does mine as well.