Some years ago a discussion arose about the second part of Colossians 1:17. Initially this was read as “he holds everything together.” But literally the Greek says, “… and everything in him holds together.”
The former is a common misreading. Now it’s obviously not earth-shattering in importance. But it is interesting that in this case the focus on Christ actually makes the passage less concrete and harder to understand.
What does it mean to say “Christ holds all things together”? It is not clear. Some have suggested that Christ is the physical force that keeps the particles of the atom, which would otherwise fly apart due to electrostatic repulsion, glued together (I heard this suggestion back in the ’70s).
Of course physics explains this as one of the fundamental forces of the universe. But if one abandons the attempt at a physical explanation, what is one left with? In my opinion, not much — a kind of vague spiritual glue that seems to serve no explanatory purpose.
Fortunately the text does not say that Christ holds all things together. Rather, it says that things hold together in him.
This makes a big difference. What it says is that things find their unifying principle — the thing that gives them coherence, that helps them make sense — in Christ.
A good example of this is marriage. We are finding that marriage as an institution does not have the ability to repel conscious attempts to undermine it. To put it another way, marriage does not contain its own meaning. It is possible to pull it to pieces: sex, reproduction, romance, companionship, commitment, even recreation. The different elements of marriage can then be experienced independently or in random groupings.
But in Christ marriage holds together. Paul tells us that marriage displays the love of Christ for the church. The meaning of marriage is thus a projection into human life of the kind of love that Christ has for the church — self-giving, committed, open, giving oneself to bring forth new life, forgiving, willing to suffer and so on. By seeing marriage as an image of the love of God, it takes on a depth and beauty that it does not have on its own.
In the same way, consider the issue of diversity. People often claim that “diversity is our strength”; this seems to be a kind of over-optimistic catchphrase. Actually diversity breeds misunderstanding and conflict. People of different cultures simply do not pick up the same cues. One example of this I read some time ago: Black people in an interview tend not to look the white interviewer in the eye. The white person sees this as lacking in confidence or even deceptive. But for the black person to stare in someone’s eyes is a challenge. So the black person is being deferential. (I do not claim that this example is necessarily true but I did see it in print.)
But in Christ humanity in all its diversity is brought to unity. There is no racial or cultural hierarchy in Christ: “all are one.” Yet this does not eliminate diversity. In fact, diversity is a feature of the New Jerusalem, as Revelation 21 tells us: “…They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Revelation 21:26). In other words, all that is good and great of every culture will be welcomed into the city where redeemed humanity will live in full fellowship with God. (But this is not uncritical; the following verse says, “But nothing unclean will ever enter it….”)
Perhaps most important, through him our lives hold together. As Matthew 7:24-27 tells us, if we are taught by him our lives will withstand the storms of life; but those who disregard his word will see their lives collapse under pressure.
We are all looking for integrity in one thing or another. But integrity simply means that something holds together; it does not disintegrate or fly apart. We look for it in many places but we only find it in Christ.