What do we mean by God? In antiquity the word meant one of many powerful beings, much like supersized humans. These deities were believed to rule over parts of the the world or life, and lived in or above where they ruled. After millennia of this view, there arose a radical move toward monotheism, which meant that the many became one.
The Christian story is another great leap forward in our understanding of God, in that the One became human. The two-tiered universe, of deities above and mortals below, which has persisted in even Christian thinking, is not really true in the light of the incarnation of Christ. Reality has been revealed to be much more wholistic and unified, the implications of which we are still pondering.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17
By him, through him, for him, and in him. This is more than Christ as the cause of all, as if creation happened once long ago, but seeing Christ as the continuing sustaining force of all that is. The on-going drama of life finds more than its beginning, more than its conclusion, in the Christ. He is alpha and omega, and everything in between.
Because of the mystery of God that was revealed in the incarnation, we can no longer sensibly separate God from the world nor the world from God. It is not meaningful to do so, but instead a retreat to a way of thinking of the Christ, who is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), as less than Paul’s description.
In him there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11
Perhaps what we hear Paul saying is that when we are Christians, then our cultural heritage, ethnicity, or social differences do not matter. This is true, but why is it true? Have we simply joined a group that ignores these social and cultural distinctions, or are those supposed realities fundamentally illusory?
Paul claims that there is no distinction in these matters because Christ is all and in all. He preaches that the Christ by whom, through whom, for whom, and in whom all is, is also in all. We cannot say in 3:11 that “in him” refers only to those in the church when Paul has already established in the first chapter that absolutely all is “in him”. This is a statement about the universe and reality being in him, and not only about the situation involving believers in the church.
Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean we simply don’t recognize what are real distinctions among ourselves, but that these distinctions are not ultimately real. Christians are those who, in light of God becoming one of us as the Christ, have come to the understanding the reality that Christ is all and in all.
Therefore, our common social and cultural differences are a thin veneer which can easily obscure the true nature of reality, that all is Christ and he is in all. Because of the incarnation, the supposed separation between humanity and the divine, between us and our neighbors, is manifestly illusory.
Who is God? Much more than a being above us. He is the reality in which we live and move and have our being, and the reality within us as well. God is the reality within all, which consequently unites us in a wholeness that belies the way things superficially appear. We are more than we think, and so is everything and everyone else.
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