Christ, in Whom are Hidden All the Treasures
What is Christotelic Faith?
My conviction is that discipleship means living every part of life for Christ and in Christ, who fulfills and completes the righteous purpose of God’s law. The Christian life is a continual process of being shaped into His likeness—what Scripture calls transformation “from glory to glory.” As we follow Jesus, the Spirit gradually conforms us to His image, preparing us for the day when that likeness will be complete and perfected in glory. This lifelong movement toward Christ as both the pattern and goal of our transformation is best described by the term Christotelic—life directed toward its true end in Him.
The word Christotelic joins two ideas in the Greek (the original language of the New Testament): Christos meaning “Christ” and telos meaning “goal” or “end.” It reflects the conviction that all Scripture finds its meaning and completion in Jesus Christ who is “the end of the law” (Rom 10:5). The Bible’s storyline moves toward one climactic and dramatic event: the cross, the resurrection, and the exaltation of the Son of God.
I believe a human being has no higher privilege than to think deeply and worshipfully on Christ who is “the image of the invisible God and the exact representation of His being” (Heb 1:3; 12:2). Paul expressed this passion in his prayer for the Colossians: “That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, into the full assurance that comes from understanding God’s mystery—Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col 2:2–3). That is a BIG BOLD prayer and it reveals two inescapable ideas:
1. Love is the very fabric of our Christian unity: The secret to encouragement among believers is a love that binds us together despite our many differences. God’s love toward us becomes the stuff, the very substrate of our love toward one another. Paul told the Ephesians to live “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Eph 4:1–3). No church fractures because it has too much of Christ’s love. Unity is the Spirit’s bond of peace, strengthened through humility and forbearance. And we are to “make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Too often, we make minimal effort. We are too easily offended at each other. Too quick to discard vital relationships. But we cannot plum the depths of Christ’s mystery, we can deepen in our knowledge of Him when we are fractured and divided. That’s why Paul knew he must pray for our being “knit together” in the bonds of unity in Christ.
2. We arrive at certainty through understanding: Paul said “being knit together in love, into the full assurance that comes from understanding God’s mystery—Christ…” (Col 2:3). The heart that pursues Christ finds a settled assurance that cannot be manufactured. Doubt and apathy often arise when Christ ceases to be the blazing center of our attention and affections. As we behold Him, our hearts grow stable and our passion for His presence, His Word, His life deepens. Jesus is the key that unlocks the mysteries of God—truth hidden for ages but now revealed in Him.
Puritan Theologian John Owen captured this wonder when he wrote: “It is enough for us to stand in holy admiration at the shore of this unsearchable ocean, and to gather up some parcels of that Divine Treasure with which the Scripture of Truth is enriched” (Christologia, 23).
We may never arrive at maximal certainty or clarity of God’s revelation in Christ in this life before resurrection glory. But as we seek Christ through his Word, God will deliver to us that which was hidden from the inner eye of the blind Pharisee who diligently studied the Scripture but refused its solemn and unerring witness—new life that is found only in the pursuit of Jesus as we “behold” the face of God’s Son by the Spirit who opens blind eyes. Nicodemus was warned that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Dead men cannot see, for they are blinded to the Kingdom until, like Lazarus, they are summoned into the light by God’s life-giving Spirit
A deep understanding this bond of unity is found only as we seek to grow in our knowledge of the one who holds the mysteries of God. To live Christotelically is to view all of life, Scripture, vocation and purpose, through the lens of Christ as both the center and goal of God’s revelation.
A Christ-Centered, Contextualized Approach
If Christ is the center and goal of all revelation, then He must also be the center and goal of how we live, speak, and bear witness. The Christian life is not the defense of ideas but the display of a Person. Every conversation, every act of service, every word of truth is meant to make the beauty of Christ visible in our world and to put that beauty on display in our lives.
Paul told the Thessalonian believers, “We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8). The gospel is never detached from life. It is both message and embodiment: truth spoken through words and confirmed through a transformed people.
To live and share Christotelically means that our witness must be personal, relational, and patient. We enter our communities not as critics standing above the culture, but as servants carrying the fragrance of Christ within it. We share the gospel by sharing ourselves. We stay present when others drift. We show grace even when met with resistance. Through a consistent pattern of life: truth in love, conviction in gentleness, we give others a glimpse of the One in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
This approach resists the twin errors of cultural withdrawal and cultural assimilation. We do not retreat from the world, nor do we mirror its broken values. Instead, we engage it as people who know the true story—the story that begins and ends with Christ. Our aim is not to win arguments but to bear witness to the reality that Jesus is Lord and His kingdom has come near.
Peter captured this balance when he wrote, “In your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do this with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15–16). The defense of faith is not ultimately a contest of logic but a confession of love. We speak of our hope because Christ Himself dwells within us, and the Spirit bears witness through our gentleness, reverence, and integrity.
To live this way is to see theology and mission as one seamless calling. We study Christ not to become clever, but to become conformed. We speak of Him not to win debates, but to win hearts. We engage the world not as those threatened by its unbelief, but as ambassadors of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
The Goal of God
This is, after all, the ultimate purpose of God in redemption. As Paul wrote, “Those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8:29). God’s aim is not merely to rescue sinners from judgment, but to reform them into the likeness of Jesus. Christ is both the pattern and the destination of redeemed humanity: the Alpha and the Omega of every soul that belongs to Him.
This same truth resounds throughout Scripture. Paul told the Corinthians, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18). To the Ephesians he wrote that the body of Christ grows “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness” (Eph 4:13). And to the Colossians he said that his mission was to proclaim Christ, “warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28).
These passages form the backbone of a Christotelic theology: all things in creation and redemption move toward their fulfillment in Christ. God’s goal for us is not only eternal salvation from Hell, nor is it merely moral improvement, but spiritual transformation. It is the restoration of His image in us through communion with His Son.
Christotelic faith is therefore not simply Christ-centered thought or study; it is Christ-shaped living for the purpose and goal of forming us and maturing us until we all “reach the unity of the faith” in God’s Son. It begins in worship, grows through formation, and manifests in witness. It reminds us that the same Christ who is the goal of Scripture is also the goal of every elect soul—to know Him, to love Him, and to be made like Him.
The Theology of the Cross
If the goal of God is Christlikeness, the path toward it is cruciform. The cross is not only the means of our salvation but the pattern of our sanctification. Jesus Himself said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). To be conformed to Christ is to walk the same downward path of surrender that leads to resurrection life. But that resurrection life comes through death and not apart from it.
Paul captured this mystery in his own longing: “My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead” (Phil 3:10–11). The pattern of Christ’s life was death before glory, humility before exaltation. This becomes our pattern also. In the wisdom of God, the way up is always down, and the path to fullness always runs through the cross.
A Christotelic vision of discipleship, therefore, does not seek to be comfortable but pursues conformity to His Word. It embraces weakness as the arena of grace and suffering as the soil of maturity. It calls us to take up our cross daily and follow the One who transformed His instrument of execution into a throne of exaltation.
The Christ who is our telos is also our trailblazer. He leads us by His Spirit into a life shaped by His death and animated by His resurrection. As we share in His sufferings, we also share in His glory. In this way, the cross becomes not only the foundation of our faith but the form of our lives. The cross tells me that I am a sinner, that there is justice for sin, and that Christ has paid the price to redeem me from that sin. It also forms the very pattern of the Christian life—glory through death, triumph through suffering and selflessness.
To live Christotelically is to see all of life through Christ and His cross. To interpret suffering through resurrection hope, to meet hostility with grace, and to bear witness to the love of the crucified Lord until He returns. It is to join Paul’s great confession: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Amen to that.
That is the Christotelic way. It is the way of worship that beholds His glory, faith that abides and remains in His teachings, love that endures by the power of His Spirit, and hope that awaits the day when we shall be fully conformed to the image of the Son, to the glory of God the Father.
We await that glorious day.
Dr. J.