Your life centers around something. There is some organizing axis around which everything spins, a magnetic center that holds it all together.
Moses told the Israelites that their center was the Law:
They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.
Many Christians also say this of the whole Bible. And it’s solid advice: Don’t treat the scriptures flippantly! Let’s not consume them the same way that we would a magazine off of the grocery store checkout rack, or a reel in our Instagram feed.
But the New Testament writers recognized a fatal flaw in this paradigm: The Law was never strong enough to hold the center. Or rather—to put it another way—humans were never strong enough to hold the Law at the center. And the Law had no power in itself to hold on to them when they got off balance.
The Law was never able to restore the glory of the Creator to his image bearers. What it did—and still does quite well—was to show just how cracked and blurred human reflections of God are, even at their best.
The Good News is that the center has shifted. The gravitational axis of the universe has flipped. There is a better Word than the words of the Law. There is a Center around which even the words of the Law and the Bible revolve. Perhaps, considering the entire revelation contained in the scriptures, we might say this instead:
Christ is not just an idle Word for you—he is your life.
Christ is our Life. A Center that also holds onto us when we lose our balance. A Center whose gravitational pull knows no rival. A Center that will, little by little, and one day in fullness, make us beautiful and whole.
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
—Colossians 3:4
(See Deuteronomy 32:44-47).