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by Charlie Wolcott

“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” ~1 Corinthians 3:11

Paul declares that no one can lay down a foundation for how they will live their lives, nor can there be any hope or salvation other than Jesus Christ. The Apostle Peter echoed this sentiment in Acts 4:12 when he proclaimed to the Sanhedrin that, “There is no other name by which men might be saved other than Jesus Christ.”

I frequently speak and write about the importance of having a Biblical worldview, to see things as God sees them, using the Bible as our “lens” to view reality. But one thing that is easy to miss when talking about the Bible is to see what the Bible points to. As I write this, I was recently reminding myself of the importance of putting Jesus Christ as the center of your vision and the foundation of everything you say, do, think, and live. I often talk about Creation as a critical part to understanding Christianity, however the point of believing in Creation is not to believe in Creation but to believe in Christ. Christ must always be our end game, but He also must be our starting point and our foundation. He must be both.

Colossians 1:15-17 defines Christ as the Creator and for whom and by whom all things consist. Everything that exists was made by Christ and for Christ’s glory. Every single person, every single animal, every single plant, and every single atom exist because Christ made them, and they exist to tell His story. That means no matter what any of us think, say, or do otherwise, what we think, say, or do is going to bring glory to Christ. We can be obedient to Him and we can share in His glory, or we can be defiant in our sin, and our judgment from the fires of Hell will give Him glory. We don’t get to choose whether we will glorify Christ or not. We only get the choice of how we glorify Him. The world may shake its fist against Christ, but it too shall bend its knee to Christ one day because He is the King of Kings and He is returning to crush His enemies and will rule with a rod of iron. This rod will crush any who are His foes but will protect any who are His.

We must build our lives upon Christ as the only true foundation, or everything we do and build will be destroyed. Paul warns against building with wood, hay, and stubble: the temporary things of this world which come relatively cheap and in large quantity and are convenient. He instead recommends building with gold, silver, and precious stones. Here is the difference between these two sets of items. Wood, hay, and stubble can be readily used and easily replaced, however, when fire comes, they are completely consumed and reduced to useless ashes. Gold, silver, and precious stones have already been through the fire and refined. They will last. Gold and silver can melt, but fire never changes its composition. You never lose gold or silver to a fire, whereas wood, hay, and stubble are forever lost. Paul is making the claim that on Judgment Day, everything we’ve used to build our lives is going to be tested against the fire of God and only that which remains is going to last. This is also when there will be much weeping as all the works of men will be wasted. Only those which God did through us will remain.

Jesus gave a parable of a wise and foolish builder. One built upon a rock by listening to and heeding the words of Christ, making his house according to the shape, size, and strength of the rock it stood upon. The other built with sand, molding and shaping the foundation to fit what he desired. Yet that which is moldable by man is easily washed away. When we build upon Christ, everything He supports will last because He is the Solid Rock, and as the Solid Rock He will not give way. But if we build upon sand, all it takes is one bad disaster or a series of small ones to undermine the house and everything we built collapses. This is why some investors commit suicide after they lose their entire portfolio, because they poured everything they had into something that could not last. It’s also why so many people face depression and despair (that is not a blanket statement), because they poured so much into something that never satisfied nor lasted. They built their life upon sand and when a storm came, it didn’t make it.

We must build upon Christ. Paul put aside everything he knew to know Christ and Christ crucified only. He was the scholar among all scholars and yet he treated all his education as worthless dung when compared to the knowledge of Christ. That doesn’t mean he forgot everything, but that he understood the purpose of everything. Knowledge that glorifies God is valuable, yet knowledge that glorifies man is pride and is not worthy of retaining.

There are a lot of false teachings out there, yet with practice it is easy to tell a true teaching from a false one. Here is a big clue: look at the foundation. Is it built upon Christ, or is it built upon men? False teachings may include Christ, but if you listen carefully, He is used as little more than cosmetic covering for their own ideas. True teachings will start with Christ, build with Christ, point to Christ, and yield His fruit as a result.

Yet there are also many people who say we just need Christ and who needs truth about anything else like Creation, baptism, obedience, authority, etc. They just want Christ’s name for salvation and to leave the rest for themselves. According to Hebrews 6:1-2, there are seven foundational doctrines to the Christian life. I will liken these teachings to seven pillars which support our structure we call “Christianity.” The first is Christ which I have been explaining in this post. Christ is not only the foundation; He is also the central pillar of which everything else flows in and out of. Over the next few weeks, I will look at the other six. But in each topic, Christ is still going to be the center. He will be the foundation for the doctrine, the structure for the doctrine, and the end goal of the doctrine. But a caution: the author of Hebrews also says these are the elementary teachings, stating that we as Christians need to be moving onto deeper and better things. You can’t do that without a proper foundation laid down, and moving on to deeper and better things does not negate these core teachings by any means. I grow tired of drinking milk. I want meat, but our system cannot handle meat until we have drunk enough milk to build our system to handle it. So over the next few weeks, I’m going to go over the “milk” of Christianity so that we can move forward and eat some meat.

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