And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  

Colossians 1:17 

Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, when they crouch in their dens, or lurk in their lairs to lie in wait? Who provides food for the raven, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food? 

Job 38:39-41 

Christ holds the created animal kingdom together. Our text is the beginning of His discussion of how He upholds all the animals we encounter in the world. He begins with the lion, the king of beasts. He then lists, with commentary, the ravens, mountain goats, wild donkeys, wild ox, ostrich, horse, hawk, and eagle. For each of these He provides a commentary on how He upholds them, providing for their sustenance and survival. Some of His remarks are quite detailed. He goes so far as to delve into why He has created these animals with the nature they have; why they act and react as they do. We learn from this how thoroughly and intimately Christ involves Himself with these animals He has created. Our experience of these animals is vastly different that His. We marvel at these creatures, but have no control over the vast majority of them. We may attempt to tame them, or exercise dominion over them, but for the most part we have relatively little influence over them and cannot alter their basic nature at all. Christ alone has this power and control over all these whom He has created. He consistently upholds them, providing for them what is necessary to maintain their place in the earth. When we hear Him delineate all He does, we stand in awe and wonder.  

Our Glorious, Living God, 
we rejoice that You uphold all that You have created. 
We praise You that as we observe all these things, 
they testify of You. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  

Colossians 1:17 

Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the belt of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth? 

Job 38:31-33 

What can we do? The first part of our text asserts that in Christ all things hang together. The second portion of our text comes from the mouth of Christ, in pre-incarnate form, as He speaks to Job out of the whirlwind. Our text refers to various astronomical phenomena, which have names like Pleiades, Orion, Mazzaroth (or Arcturus) and Ursa Major. Several points worth considering arise from this statement. The first point is that Job was obviously familiar with these bodies and their names. This demonstrates how knowledgeable he was. Second, while he could observe all these heavenly bodies, he could exercise no control over them. He could not influence them or uphold them. If a star began to die, he could not stop it. If something unusual occurred in the universe he might be able to observe it and record it, but he could not alter or affect it. Christ is asking these questions to point out that He could do all these things. He can bind the cluster of the Pleiades and loose the belt of Orion. Herein lies the value of our understanding of Who Christ is and what He does. This means He is not only the Creator of all that but also the Upholder of it. It is exceedingly important of us to know this One Who does uphold all these things which are beyond our control.  

Great God of wonders, 
we rejoice that You are sovereign. 
We praise You that You can effect 
change where we cannot. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  

Colossians 1:17 

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. 

Job 38:4 

Job asked a lot of questions during the days of his suffering. These were, from our human perspective, natural questions considering all he was enduring. By the time Job and all his friends had ended their speeches it was God’s turn. He spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, just as He had spoken to Moses out of the burning bush. Therefore when we read the words of God in these chapters, we should understand that it is Christ speaking. Our text is the first question He asks Job. He says, ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?’ This further confirms that Christ is speaking based on what the rest of Scripture says about Christ’s role in creation. His question to Job is a challenge. Job has questioned God. Now God asks the questions. He is not seeking information, but rather asking these questions to bring forth facts about His Own sovereignty. What He says about Himself underscores the first part of our text that He is before all things and in Him all things consist. Chapters 38 through 41 of Job are full of examples all of which lend weight to the categorical statement of Colossians 1:17. If we want an extremely detailed declaration of exactly what that verse means, we have only to read what God says to Job. This puts all these things into perspective.  

Our Creating, Upholding God, 
we rejoice that You know all that we do not know. 
We praise You that You can do all the things that we cannot. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 

Colossians 1:17  

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind… 

Job 38:1 

Christ holds everything together. This first portion of our text declares that, ‘in Him all things consist,’ or hang together. Hebrews 1 says that He upholds all things by the word of His power. We conclude from these phrases that Christ is indeed, holding everything together. The second portion of our text is the beginning of a lengthy speech by God in which He delineates His relationship to all that exists. What is important for our purpose of seeking Christ in the Scriptures is that He speaks to Job out of the whirlwind just as certainly as He spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. As the incident at the burning bush was a Christophany, a preincarnate appearance of Christ, so also is this occasion of God speaking to Job out of the whirlwind. What follows is a veritable litany of situations in which Christ describes, with various details, His control over all that is. We have no other occasion in Scripture where Christ so clearly and at such length articulates His relationship to all creation. It outlines specifically how it is that in Him all things consist. Therefore as we consider what He said out of the whirlwind we understand that this is not what someone has said about Christ. Rather it is what He Himself has said. In Him all things consist.

Our Great and Sovereign God, 
we rejoice that You rule over all. 
We praise You that nothing exists without You.  

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning