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Colossians 1:18
18 And [kai] he [autos] is [esti] the head [kephale] of the body [soma], the church [ekklesia]: who [hos] is [esti] the beginning [arche], the firstborn [prototokos] from [ek] the dead [nekros]; that [hina] in [en] all [pas] things he [autos] might have [ginomai] the preeminence [proteuo]. KJV-Interlinear
18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything. NASB
The plan of God centers on the work of Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the one of whom all religions, philosophies, cults, theories, etc, reject.
If there were one definition for history, if there were one definition for your life, it would be directly related to ones relationship with Christ. The more pronounced your relationship with Christ, the better your life will be. The less your relationship with Christ the worse your life will be.
Jesus Christ is life, the beginning of all things, the reason that anything at all exists, or is even permitted to exist and remain. He is the fountain from which all authority and power, come. He is the one who supports and maintains the universe and all of creation.
He is designated the head, the leader, and first over all that make up the church, or those who have believed in Christ, and over all those who are as such designated the Body of Christ.
All believers collectively become the family of God, the chosen nation, the body of people who make up those who will survive into eternity to live with God forever.
It is the work of Christ, who voluntarily went to the Cross and accepted the judgment of God for all of the sins of humanity. The beatings, the whippings, the nails in the hands and feet, the spitting, the foul language, everything that people did to Jesus while He was tried and executed, was not the judgment which He bore for sins.
That judgment, the judgment for sin, was far, far worse, than the violence inflicted upon Him by people. That human violence was nothing more than a satanic attempt to get Jesus to crack and therefore fail in His qualification for His ultimate spiritual sacrifice at the hand of the Father. Jesus did not crack or fail in any way.
Sometimes people try to make a big deal about assigning blame to someone or to some group for putting Jesus on the Cross, but the real person to blame if there is any blame to make (and there is not), is God the Father, for it was a part of His divine plan that the Son should receive the penalty for the sins of humanity. And of course the Son and the Spirit both agreed with that plan. The Cross was Gods chosen mechanism for revealing His plan, for revealing mans sin, for revealing the very dramatic and extremes that evil will go to, and for resolving the angelic conflict.
The Cross was Gods strategic victory over Satan and evil. Christ won the battle by accomplishing salvation. The Second Advent will be the tactical victory, when Satan is totally removed from the planet, and from his influence on humanity, until the end of the Millennium.
On that Sunday morning, three days after the Passover sacrifice (a one day feast) followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was the very first resurrection into immortality. That Sunday morning is designated the Feast of the First Fruits, in the Hebrew calendar of feasts. Christ was the first.
He will be followed by the Church Age believers when we are all resurrected into our resurrection new bodies, at the moment of the Rapture.
No one knows when our dispensation will come to an end, but suffice to say, ours is already the longest lasting dispensation (for humanity) on record.
The pre-flood era was a little over 1600 years. The age from Noah to the Exodus was about 1200 years. From the age of the nation of Israel until Christ was born was about 1500 years. And no matter whether you measure our dispensation from Christ’s birth (2009-2B.C.=2011), from the Cross (2009-30A.D.=1979), from Pentecost (most use this date 2009-30A.D.=1979), or from the completion of the Bible in 96 A.D. (2009-96=1913), our dispensation is well over 1900 years and counting.
My personal favorite date for guesstimating the date of the Rapture is the completion of the Bible date. I think that we have another hundred years perhaps, in our dispensation, which will send technology through the roof, populations through the roof (perhaps eight times what it is now to over fifty billions of people in the world), the problems of humanity through the roof, and the interest in Christianity down the toilet.
Of course the Rapture could occur tonight, so don’t go native on us.
Old Testament believers will be resurrected at the end of the Tribulation. The tribulation is the last seven year period of the dispensation of the Age of Israel.
And then the millennial believers will be resurrected at the end of the Millennium. Thus concluding the four resurrections in all of history (Christ, Church, Israel, millennial).
It is fitting that Jesus Christ is the first among us, since it is He who accomplishes the fullness of history.
