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Today, Paul transitions from his dense introduction into this letter’s foundational teaching, which I believe is actually foundational for Paul, since he summarizes his most vital themes from many of his letters. Since this letter is short and dense, we often overlook both the scale and structure of what I call Paul’s “Christo-cosmology,” and focus on verses like this transition which speak of contemporary themes:

“He has delivered (řúomai- rescue from acute danger) us from the domain (èzousia-institutional authority) of darkness and transferred (methístemi-cause change, remove mountain) us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption (àpolútrosis-deliverance, release to freedom), the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14)

The Greek carries so much more nuance than English. Here the text describes (indicative) the love of God for broken and trapped people who live oppressed under the institutional authority of darkness, and also the work of God in literally uprooting, subverting the domain that over-powers us and immigrating us (NOW) as new citizens into into Christ’s Kingdom of freedom from the torment of our sins. No religion can do this. It’s solely a work of love and grace.

That alone is a fully complete contemplation, especially in light of its present reality, rather than its future potentiality. But wait, there’s more…much more. This Christo-cosmology is described as “totality.” For Paul, “ALL” means “ALL” and he uses the term “panti” eight times in this section. Until we adopt the same definition of “ALL,” we cannot hear Paul’s message, which the Colossians fully understood and embodied.

Unlike the Colossian church, believers today don’t fully grasp the Universality of Christ. We are taught that the “supremacy of Christ,” means that Christianity is the only real or best religion. Paul is NOT advocating for a “Jesus at the top of the list” framework, instead, he’s emphatically reminding us that “Jesus is the list.” This is possibly the greatest difference between the early faith experience and modern belief. Modern faith is mostly doctrine, a mental or theological construct, and not a fully orbed, lived experience as it would have been in Colossae, or Paul in prison. Christology is not a subset of cosmology. Cosmology is a derivative of Christology.

The implications of this have meant that the ecclesia, instead of being the literal, bodily return of Jesus in miraculous power to the earth, has become an impotent institutional power…even an idol, that assumes Christ is absent from nearly everything. We are light-years from Paul’s admonishment.

“He (Jesus Christ) is the image (eikón-exact physical form) of the invisible God, the firstborn (prototokos-superior, prior existing) of ALL creation (all that exists). For by him 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. And he is before (the necessary precondition) ALL things, and in him ALL things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in EVERYTHING he might be preeminent. For in him ALL the fulness (totality) of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile (making things right) to himself ALL things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (Colossians 15-20)

Paul isn’t merely saying that Christ existed long before we knew Him as Jesus. This goes beyond Christ pre-existing the created cosmos. Paul is framing the biblical cosmology which is more comprehensive than our scientific cosmology because it’s inclusive of physical and non-physical reality (visible and invisible). Paul’s revealing that God continues to create all things in and through Himself, and is creating the complete integration of Heaven and earth, through his work on the cross. Thus, the redemption/salvation of Christ is not merely saving a soul in an earth evacuation strategy, it necessarily includes the redemption of every particle of our Universe.

Every photon or sub-atomic particle is powered by Christ…all trillions of galaxies are formed and held together by the gravity (glory) of Christ. The Christian faith is a cosmological shift to seeing literally all things as the physical, measurable, tangible existence of Christ. All things are the invisible love of God, loving all things into visible existence as Christ in all things. God is contemplating the Word (Christ) continually in and as Christ in the entirety of the cosmos. This is NOT pantheism (all is God), it is panentheism (all in God).

The cosmology of religion is merely spirituality. This is why Paul will soon warn the Colossians about such an error. The Cosmology of Christ is the totality of every particle in the Universe revealing the love of God, in and as both spiritual and material existence. If anything in the cosmos exists, it proves not only that God exists, but the preexistence of Christ in God, who reconciles it all unto himself. ALL, EVERYTHING comes from him, exists in him, and returns to him.

Please contemplate Paul’s Christo-cosmology. Find someplace outside and sit for a few minutes. Look for something that appears benign at first, like a blade of grass, a tiny bug, a leaf, or a cigarette butt in the dead weeds. Begin to observe it. Be careful not to judge it. Don’t determine anything about it. Simply allow it to inform you about itself, by way of your conscious observance of it. Watch it until you can love it. Observe it until all the design, intension, people, infrastructure, time, weather, genetics, light, life, and power become more visible to you by way this contemplation. Notice that what began as insignificant background, emerges to contain an experience with not only the objective cosmos, but the Subject empowering such insignificance into being. Then consider that the love and light that powers all photons to sustain the atomic mass and the atoms, and the elements, and the compounds, and the proteins, and the structures, and the form and the animation within and through them all, is ALL in ALL. It is heaven manifesting in and as earth, and it is loving you and I into existence moment by moment as we are not completely other than what we observe. Sit in this awareness.

When this hits us…when we really grasp what is happening…then we will have been transported from the kingdom of darkness, delusion, unconsciousness, into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. When the redemption of the world is not other than the redemption of our soul and life, then Christ will appear in new ways and in new power.

If the Gospel doesn’t free us from the earth, but frees us and also the earth, and if the church is Christ’s literal body, then what shall we do with our denominations, positions of power, and the business of religion? The source of authority for the Colossian church wasn’t Epaphras, Timothy, nor Paul. This letter wasn’t their bible. Christ was the authority of them all, and of all. This church had no denominational affiliation, no full-time staff, no mortgage, no outreach program. Each were ruled by Christ who was their authority of shared inner and outer experience. All of this is existed because of their Christo-cosmology.