Rediscovering the Christ-Centred Nature of Reality
We are not the centre of God’s story. By grace, we have been included in it.
The Quiet Assumption at the Centre
There is an assumption so deep in much of modern Christian thinking that we rarely notice we are making it. It hums beneath our songs, our prayers, and our sermons, and it sounds entirely natural, so natural that to question it feels almost irreverent. The assumption is simply this: that the story is about us. That creation is about us. That salvation is about us. That heaven is about us. That God’s great plans, when you trace them to their purpose, terminate in our benefit.
We would rarely put it so baldly, of course. But listen to how we instinctively speak. We describe salvation almost entirely in terms of what we receive, our forgiveness, our peace, our purpose, our destiny. We speak of heaven mostly as the place where our tears are wiped away and our loved ones are restored. We treat God’s plan as a wonderful scheme that has, at its heart, the flourishing of me. And none of this is exactly false, God truly does save, bless, and welcome us. But it is dangerously off-centre, like a portrait painted with the wrong figure in the foreground.
For Scripture, again and again, redirects our gaze away from ourselves and toward Another. It will not let us remain the centre of the picture. It keeps insisting that all things were created through Christ and for Christ, are held together by Christ, and are being gathered up in Christ. And this raises a possibility that, once seen, reorganises everything: what if the greatest discovery a Christian can make is not that God has a wonderful plan for me, but that I have been graciously included in God’s wonderful plan for His Son? That is not a smaller thought than the one we started with. It is an infinitely larger one, and this article is an attempt to follow it through the whole sweep of Scripture, from creation to glory, until we can say with Paul, and mean it: it is all about Him.
The Story Begins With Christ
Where does the story begin? Most of us, if asked, would start with ourselves, or at least with humanity. We read Genesis as the story of the world that was made as the stage for the human drama, the cosmos arranged as a home for us. But the New Testament reaches back behind Genesis and shows us what was happening before the curtain rose, and at the centre of that scene is not man but the eternal Son.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1, 3 (KJV)
Before there was a creation, there was the Word, with God, and Himself God. And when creation came, it came through Him: “all things were made by him.” Paul says the same with even greater scope, sweeping in the things we cannot even see: “for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible” (Colossians 1:16). The writer of Hebrews tells us the Father made the worlds “by his Son”, “by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2). The fingerprints on every atom of creation are the Son’s.
This means that creation is not ultimately anthropocentric, man-centred, as we so easily assume. It is Christocentric, Christ-centred. The universe did not come into being so that humanity could have a stage; it came into being through the Son and for the Son, and humanity was woven into a story that was already His. We arrive late into a drama that opened in eternity, and its leading figure was never us. Before there was a you to save, there was a Son to glorify. The story does not begin with us. It begins, as the Gospel of John insists, “in the beginning”, with Him.
Everything Exists For Him
It is one thing to say that all things were made through Christ, that He was the agent of creation. It is a further and even more striking thing to say that all things were made for Christ, that He is the goal of creation, the purpose toward which it all bends. But that is exactly what Scripture says. Read Colossians again and do not stop halfway:
“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth… all things were created by him, and for him.” Colossians 1:16 (KJV)
By him, and for him. The universe is not only sourced in Christ but aimed at Him. He is both the spring from which it flows and the sea toward which it runs. Paul gathers the whole of reality into a single doxology that leaves no corner outside this purpose:
“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:36 (KJV)
Of Him, through Him, to Him, origin, means, and destination, all in God. Everything that exists is travelling toward Him as its end. Even the silent heavens know it: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Psalm 19:1). The stars are not performing for us; they are declaring His glory, whether anyone watches or not.
This corrects a flattering error we scarcely know we hold: the assumption that creation was meant to terminate in humanity, that we are the summit and the point of it all. We are not. We are not the destination of creation. Christ is. Humanity itself was created for Him, made in the image of God to know, love, reflect, and glorify the Son. To discover this is not demeaning; it is liberating. A planet does not feel diminished to learn it orbits the sun rather than the sun orbiting it. It simply discovers the truth of its own existence, and finds its proper place, and its light, in relation to a centre greater than itself.
Sin Is the Attempt to Become the Centre
Once we see that Christ is the true centre of all things, we suddenly understand sin far more deeply than we usually do. We tend to think of sin as a list of bad actions, rules broken, wrong things done. That is true as far as it goes, but it does not reach the root. At its root, sin is something more fundamental and more tragic: it is the creature’s attempt to seize the centre that belongs to God alone. It is the cosmic act of putting self where Christ ought to be.
Look again at the very first temptation, and notice what it actually offered. The serpent did not begin by proposing some obvious wickedness; he proposed a relocation of the centre. “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The bait was not the fruit itself but what the fruit seemed to promise: autonomy, self-determination, the right to define good and evil for oneself, to be one’s own god. The first temptation in history was an invitation to make life about ourselves. The Fall was not merely an act of disobedience; it was a coup, an attempt to depose God from the throne of a human heart and install the self in His place.
The same ambition appears in the prophets’ picture of the deeper rebellion behind all rebellion, the threefold “I will” of the one who said in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14). There it is again: the determination to occupy the centre, to ascend to the place that is not ours. And Paul diagnoses fallen humanity in exactly these terms, not primarily as people who broke rules, but as people who refused the centre, who “when they knew God, they glorified him not as God”, and who “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:21, 25). That is the essence of sin: worship curved inward, the creature serving itself as though it were the Creator. Every particular sin is a small enactment of that one great displacement. Sin always pulls toward self-rule, because sin is, at bottom, the lie that I am the centre.
Redemption Restores the Centre
If sin is the creature seizing the centre, then we are ready to see redemption for the magnificent thing it truly is, and to see why describing it merely as “getting us into heaven” sells it desperately short. Salvation is not only rescue from something; it is restoration to something. It puts the displaced centre back where it belongs. Paul unveils the breathtaking scope of God’s saving plan in Ephesians, and its goal is not first our comfort but a cosmic re-centring:
“Having made known unto us the mystery of his will… That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” Ephesians 1:9-10 (KJV)
The aim of redemption is to “gather together in one all things in Christ”, to reunite a fractured, self-scattered universe around its true centre again. Through the cross God purposed “to reconcile all things unto himself”, “having made peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20), so that in all things Christ “might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). The first place this re-centring happens is in the human heart, and Paul names the very purpose of Christ’s death in these terms:
“And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” 2 Corinthians 5:15 (KJV)
Read the purpose clause carefully: He died that we “should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him.” The very goal of the cross was to end our self-centred existence and re-centre us on Christ. This is why salvation is so much more than the cancellation of a debt. Redemption is not merely forgiveness. It is reorientation. It takes a life that had curved inward upon itself, the self enthroned where Christ should be, and turns it outward and upward again, restoring the creature to its original purpose of living for the One through whom and for whom it was made. To be saved is, at last, to be put back in orbit.
This Is Why God’s Plan Is Bigger Than Our Dreams
Here we can see why God’s plan for our lives is always larger than the plan we would have written for ourselves. If we were the centre, the plan would aim at our comfort, our success, our preferred outcomes, and would count any hardship a failure. But because Christ is the centre, God’s plan aims at something deeper than our ease: it aims at conforming us to His Son, re-centring us so thoroughly on Christ that His likeness is formed in us.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God… For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Romans 8:28-29 (KJV)
Notice how the “good” of verse 28 is defined by the conformity of verse 29. The good toward which God bends all our circumstances is not our undisturbed happiness but our growing likeness to Christ. And once we grasp that Christ is the centre, this stops sounding like a disappointment and starts sounding like glory. Of course the plan is about making us like Him; He is the point of everything. Every season, every joy, every sorrow, every success and every loss becomes an instrument serving that one Christ-centred purpose, and the God who began that work will not abandon it: “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Our dreams place us at the centre and ask God to serve them. God’s plan places Christ at the centre and graciously includes us in it. The second is incomparably better, precisely because it is not finally about us.
Even Heaven Is About Him
Surely, we might think, heaven at least is about us, our reward, our rest, our reunion, our relief from all that has hurt us. And heaven does hold all of those things, truly and wonderfully. Scripture promises a place where God “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4), where the Lamb “shall lead them unto living fountains of waters” (Revelation 7:17). These are real and precious gifts, and it is no sin to long for them.
But they are not what makes heaven heaven. Strip away even the tears wiped and the pain ended, and ask what remains as the heart of the promise, and you find a Person. The deepest note of heaven is sounded in the central promise of the new creation: “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). The city has “no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23). Heaven’s light is the Lamb. And Jesus Himself, praying on the night before His death, revealed what He most wanted for His people, and it was not first their reward but His presence with them:
“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.” John 17:24 (KJV)
That they may be with me, to behold my glory, there is the summit of heaven, in the Lord’s own words. The greatest gift of the world to come is not reunion, however sweet; not rewards, however gracious; not even the end of all pain, however longed-for. The greatest gift of heaven is Christ Himself, seen and enjoyed for ever. Heaven is heaven because Christ is there. A heaven of every blessing without Him would not be heaven at all; and His presence alone would make any place glory. Even our eternity, it turns out, is all about Him, and that is the best news the gift could possibly hold.
Paul Understood This
If this Christ-centred vision of reality seems too lofty for ordinary life, consider how it actually reshaped one very real, very driven man. Paul had every credential the world prizes, pedigree, learning, religious achievement, a résumé he could have boasted in endlessly. And the longer he walked with Christ, the more all of it shrank in his eyes beside the surpassing worth of one thing: knowing Jesus.
“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord… that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection.” Philippians 3:7-8, 10 (KJV)
Read the trajectory of that confession. Everything he once counted gain, he now counted loss, not worthless in themselves, but worthless by comparison, for the single, consuming aim of knowing Christ. His life had been re-centred so completely that he could define his entire existence by Another: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). The old self-centred Paul had died; the life he now lived was Christ’s life in him. And he held even his own survival loosely for the sake of that centre: “neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry… to testify the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
This is what happens to a person who truly grasps that it is all about Him. Self loosens its grip. The things we once clutched as ultimate are re-filed as loss-by-comparison, not despised, but dethroned. Paul was not a diminished man for having lost interest in everything but Christ; he was the freest man in the New Testament, because he had found the one centre that could hold the weight of a whole life. To be re-centred on Christ is not to lose yourself. It is, as Paul discovered, to find a self worth living.
Every Thread of Scripture Leads to Him
This is the key that unlocks the whole Bible. If Christ is the centre of creation, of redemption, and of eternity, then we should expect Him to be the centre of the Book that tells that story, and He is. Jesus said so plainly on the most famous walk in history. Two heartbroken disciples on the Emmaus road had read their Scriptures all their lives and missed the point, and the risen Christ gently corrected them, not with a new revelation but with a new centre:
“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:27 (KJV)
In all the scriptures, the things concerning Himself. To the religious experts who searched the Scriptures diligently yet missed their meaning, He said it more pointedly still: “they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). The whole library of the Old Testament, He insisted, was pointing forward to Him. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it. The sacrifices, with their endless blood, were shadows of His one offering, “a shadow of good things to come” whose substance is Christ (Hebrews 10:1). The feasts charted His death, resurrection, and the gift of His Spirit. The kings, in their glory and their failure, ached toward the true King. The prophets spoke His sufferings and the glory that should follow. The tabernacle was His dwelling-among-us in figure; the priesthood was His mediation rehearsed; the promises were the “yea” and “amen” waiting to be spoken in Him (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Seen this way, the Bible stops being a bewildering anthology of ancient stories, laws, poems, and prophecies that we struggle to connect. The Bible is not a collection of disconnected stories. It is one story centred on one Person. Sixty-six books, dozens of authors, many centuries, and one face emerging from every page. The unity of Scripture is itself a testimony that behind its human writers stood one divine Author, telling one story, about His Son.
We Exist for His Story
Gather it all together and the conclusion is overwhelming. Everything begins with Him, “all things were made by him.” Everything exists for Him, “all things were created… for him.” Everything is sustained by Him, “by him all things consist.” Everything is redeemed by Him, “having made peace through the blood of his cross.” And everything will ultimately return to Him, “that he might gather together in one all things in Christ.” From the first sentence of creation to the last page of Revelation, He is the source, the means, the sustainer, the redeemer, and the goal.
Which means the great correction many of us need is not to think less of God’s love for us, but to think rightly about its shape. We have so often assumed that Christ exists for our story, that He is a glorious supporting character in the drama of our lives, present to help us reach our ending. The truth is the other way around, and it is far better than the version we settled for: we exist for His story. We are not the centre who graciously make room for Christ; we are the ones graciously brought in from the cold and given a place in a story far greater than our own, a story that was already glorious before we existed and will be glorious for ever, with Him at the centre of it.
This is no demotion. It is the deepest dignity a creature could be given: not to be the small centre of a small story, but to be included, loved, and woven into the eternal purpose of God for His Son. To stop insisting on being the centre is not to lose your significance, it is to find it, at last, in orbit around the only One who can bear the weight of worship. It really is all about Him. And the wonder of grace is that He has made room, at His own infinite cost, for us.
“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:36 (KJV)
Leave a Reply