“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:15-16
Remember, at Colossae there are some problems. In many ways they are doing well, but there are some things that threaten their faith - that threaten to disqualify them (2:18). And those problems, and that threat, are the occasion of this letter.
Paul loves these people and he wants to see them make it, he doesn’t want to see them be taken ‘captive’ by ‘hollow and deceptive philosophies that depend on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world’ (2:8).
Paul’s argument is you can’t be all starry-eyed about human tradition and elemental spiritual forces, and still be depending on Christ. It’s one or the other.
Captivated by ‘human tradition and elemental spiritual forces, and not captivated ‘on Christ’. That’s the contrast. That’s the danger.
It’s Christ or nothing in this race to the finish line Paul is saying, so be careful what you allow to capture your focus.
I think Paul could have talked all night about what captivated him, like he once did (Acts 20), yet I doubt he wrote any words in his letters that didn’t serve to make a point, or address an issue, or form an argument, or provoke a response.
In all likelihood Paul was under house arrest in Rome when he wrote this letter. And to send it such a long way, at a time when there was no airmail, must have made him very careful about his choice of words. There are no throwaway words in here – or indeed in any of Paul’s letters. Time and space are too precious, and the threat too serious, in his mind, to waste words.
And the reason I’m saying that, is that we’ve arrived at what some commentators have referred to as the six most Christ-concentratedverses in all the bible.
And it would be easy to take them out of their context and simply exult over them. If we spent ten weeks working through these verses, phrase by phrase, it would not be a waste of time, they are that important and that impressive! But, I want us to feel the weight of why Paul wrote them.
What purpose do they serve in helping the Colossian believers contendwith the threat coming against their faith?
I think that showing you why Paul starts talking this way about Jesus will help you reap the benefits in your own lives that Paul intended the Colossians to reap in theirs. This is what I referred to last week as, ballast in the bottom of our boats. The kind that keeps us upright when the stormy winds of false teaching blow against us.
Now, before we get down to some of the things these three verses say Jesus is, I want you to notice something important. See if you see what I see here.
I think, at the heart of these verses 15 & 16, is a big contrast. And the contrast is expressed in three ways.
The contrast is between what can be seen on the one hand and what can’t be seen on the other – what is visible on the one hand, and invisible on the other.
And here’s how each is expressed. What can’t be seen is expressed in terms of God (invisible) – v.15. Created things – that are in heaven (invisible) – v.16 angels (both demonic and good). And, lastly ‘powers and authorities’ (invisible) v.16 – arch-angels like Michael and Gabriel, and Satan.
And then there’s the visible things and here’s how they are expressed: God (visible) v.15. Created things on earth (visible) v.16 – people, mountains, lakes. And, lastly ‘thrones and rulers’ (visible) v.16 – we’re talking kings, political leaders, governments.
So, you’ve got: God. Created things. Powers.
Both, visible and invisible. In Heaven and on Earth.
We need to notice that I think.
Now anybody who was listening closely will know that I just said that the invisible is expressed in terms of God, and then I said, the visible is expressed in terms of God. And that might sound like a mistake.
It’s not.
I’m asserting that God is actually both – visible and invisible simultaneously. And the way that he is visible, when by essence of nature he is invisible, is by imaging forth himself as a man.
Remember he made man in his own image back in Genesis 1:27. And here I’m saying that He images himself forth as a man. Jesus is that man. And even as a man, Jesus is God. God in the visible realm.
Jesus reveals the invisible God.
That’s what I’m saying because that’s what Paul says at the start of verse 15, ‘The Son is the image of the invisible God’.
So, there’s a visible realm and an invisible realm. There’s created things on earth and in heaven. And there’s powers and rulers in both.
And there’s one God (emphasis on the one) in both.
Jesus makes God visibly present in the visible realm.
That’s really important!
No Jesus means no point-for-point parallel here between the visible and the invisible.
And that begs the question, why is that important?
It’s important because the Colossians were starting to be convinced by some philosophy that said, it would seem: ‘what is in the visible realm is made, and what is in the invisible realm is unmade’.
And it was leading them to think that angels were worthy of worship - being as they are in the invisible realm.
But not only that, also that Jesus was not worthy of worship because he had been part of the visible realm.
Paul is writing here to deal with that issue. So, the point-for-point comparison is important. If there isn’t a visible manifestation of God, then it would support their view that Jesus was made (people saw him on earth) and that he was, therefore, not worthy of worship.
But, if there is an image of God in the visible realm, called Jesus – God in the flesh, not a mere man - and he completes the parallel for the Colossians between the visible and the invisible – point-for-point - then the Colossians have to start to think differently about Jesus.
And if they have to think differently about Jesus, they have to start to think differently about angel-worship too. Which is what Paul wants.
Remember, this is serious, angel worship is disqualifying worship, according to chapter 2, verse 18.
So, the first thing Paul wants to get across to the Colossians is that Jesus is not under God, like an angel, he is God. Jesus is not created like an angel, he is uncreated God. Which is why he says what he says in verse 15. ‘The Son is the image of the invisible God’.
I wonder if that’s us too. I wonder if our appreciation of the invisibleGod is worshipful and reverent – he’s awesome in our minds. But our appreciation of Jesus is less than that.
I wonder if we really have the big-God view of Jesus we should, or a diminished view of Jesus? Maybe Paul can help us out here more than we think.
But what does ‘image of the invisible God’ mean? Does it mean that the Son is like a photograph of the invisible God?
Or, does it mean that the Son is like a vision in a mirror of the invisible God?
I think if we went down that route we wouldn’t be getting Paul’s meaning. If God meant for his essence to be summed up in appearance - shape of the face, colour of the eyes, length of the hair, BMI, etc - then Jesus would have had to have been quite simply the most beautiful person who had ever lived. And the most kingly, majestic, regal person who had ever lived.
But there’s at least one explicit text that tells us he wasn’t that. Isaiah 53:2, ‘He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him’.
So that’s a good tip off that Paul doesn’t have in mind, by ‘image’, looks or bodily appearance. Rather he has in mind, God standing forth visibly in a second person. He has in mind God-tangibility, God-visibility, God-representation, in the earthly visible realm, where he can be known.
Now Paul wants to strike home the deity of Jesus, which is why he packs so many short statements into such a small space. So far, he’s used longsentences, now he’s going to use short, to the point, pithy one-liner’s to get his point across that Jesus is not created. That’s his thrust. Jesus is no created being. He’s not like angels, or under angels. He’s greaterthan all the angels, because he’s not a man, he’s God. And now Paul is going to testify to the fact of it.
You know, it’s always good to keep an eye out for repetition in the bible. Repetition usually shows you where the emphasis lies in a text. And here we have a stunning degree of repetition.
The phrase ‘all things’ appears in these six verses no fewer than fivetimes. And if you allow ‘all creation’ to mean the same thing, which I think it does, then you have six instances of ‘all things’ in six short verses.
Six in six. That’s got to be significant.
Not least because all instances relate directly to Jesus.
So, let’s list them out so that we can see them clearly, because they are dotted all over the text. And let’s list them, even though they don’t appear this way, with ‘All things’ at the beginning of the phrase. And, let’s list them how they relate to Jesus because that will be illuminating.
So, here they are in the order they appear in the text:
First, All of creation is subordinate to Jesus.
You can see that in verse 15, Jesus is ‘the firstborn over all creation’.
Second, All things were created by Jesus.
You can see that in verse 16, ‘For in him all things were created’.
Third, All things have been made for Jesus.
You can see that in verse 16, ‘All things have been created through him and for him’.
Fourth, All things came after Jesus.
Verse 17, ‘He is before all things’.
Fifth, All things hold together in Jesus.
Verse 17, ‘In him all things hold together’.
And Sixth, All things have been reconciled to God through Jesus.
Verse 20, ‘And through him to reconcile to himself all things’.
That is amazing.
Paul wants us to see this, that’s why he’s repeating. He wants us to grasp just how uncreated Jesus really is, by showing us how everything in the universe and outside the universe relates to him. It’s Jesus all the way down and all the way up – visible and invisible.
According to Paul here, everything that is material is orientated according to Jesus: all time is orientated according to Jesus; all realms are orientated according to Jesus; all causality is orientated according to Jesus; all purpose is orientated according to Jesus; all stability is orientated according to Jesus; and all access to God is orientated according to Jesus.
Simply put then, Jesus is all and in all.
So, six Christ-concentrated statements, and three of them are in the first two verses. And we’re going to try to unpack those three in the time we have left.
So here goes:
Number 1, He is ‘the firstborn over all creation’.
It would be a mistake here to conclude that firstborn means created. The Jehovah’s witnesses make that mistake. Paul seems to be at pains to convince us that created is the last thing that Jesus could be. He’s going out of his way to show us that everything else is created and that Jesus, by contrast, isn’t.
So why say ‘firstborn’ if ‘firstborn’ doesn’t mean first created being? Firstborn here means that, like a firstborn son, Jesus has the rights and privileges of a firstborn.
In Hebrews 12:16 we’re told Esau sold his birthright for a meal. The Greek word used there for ‘birthright’ is the same word Paul uses here for ‘firstborn’. So that tells us that Paul has in mind the privileges of the firstborn, like those that Esau had, and sold for a bowl of soup.
So, Paul is not saying, Jesus is the first created over all the created, he’s saying that Jesus has the rights and privileges of God over all the created order.
Those rights and privileges are expressed in his power and in his authority. Here’s how Ephesians puts it, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father ‘in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things (same phrase we have here) under his feet and appointed him head over everything’.
So, God has invested his own image of himself - Jesus - with firstborn privileges over all creation – namely, power and authority over everything. Over you and me, over Elon Musk and Bill Gates, over Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, over Russia and China, over Satan and all his demonic minions, over all the angelic host, over all creation, both visible and invisible. All power and authority belong to Jesus. There’s not a supernova that explodes without Jesus’ say so; not a volcano that rips through the earth’s crust without his authority; not an electron that moves energy levels without his supernatural governance! He has dominion over all things.
So that’s number 1 – he’s the firstborn with power and dominion over everything.
Number 2, ‘In him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities’.
Paul has just made the case that Jesus has authority over all creation, now he’s saying that all that creation exists because of him. He made everything. And he made everything that exists in both realms – visible and invisible.
Now, I said earlier, I think ‘powers and authorities’ here, are those in the invisible realm and ‘thrones and rulers’ are those in the visible realm.
The reason I think that, is because of chapter 2, verse 15, ‘And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross’.
That verse comes right in the context of Paul reminding the Colossians that they have been liberated, not from earthly rulers like kings, but from spiritual powers, like sins.
So, powers and authorities are spiritual and are therefore in the invisiblerealm.
The point of emphasising, here in verse 16, that Jesus created the powers and authorities, is to show the Colossians that the angelic powers that they are either worshipping, or contemplating worshipping, are notuncreated, they’re created. And they’re created by the very person they should be worshipping, Jesus.
And they should be worshipping him precisely because he is uncreated.
That’s why Paul talks specifically about powers and authorities.
Now, we might not have a particular problem with temptation to angelic worship. But the same principle applies to all created things – angels or otherwise, because we are tempted all the time to worship things that Jesus has created, instead of worshipping Jesus himself. Who or what we’re worshipping at any given moment is our main problem.
Paul is saying, don’t worship created things – that’s demonic. Satan was the first one to worship created things – he worshipped himself and God threw him out and one day he’ll throw him in to the lake of fire forever for it, according Revelation 20.
Paul is saying, worship the creator-God, Jesus Christ, who, with the power of his word, made everything.
Don’t be demonic, be Godly.
Worship Jesus, not created things.
And you have to find ways of testing yourselves to find out if that’s what’s happening in your heart or not. Is it possible that unwittingly you’re worshipping created things and not the creator, Jesus?
The best method I’ve found, is to monitor my appetite and diet – and I’m not talking about food now, I’m talking about everything.
What does my soul run after and what does my soul feed on? Am I captivated by Christ or Creation?
If the answer is, mostly created things – created media, created clothes, created sports, created stories, created jobs, you fill in the blank, then Jesus is not where he should be in your life, and that is significantcause for concern.
So second, All things have been created by Jesus.
Number 3, verse 16, ‘all things have been created for him’. Paul just told us that Jesus is the first cause of all things – that’s what making things is, it’s being the first cause of something.
Jesus is the ultimate first cause of everything.
Now Paul is telling us that Jesus is the goal of all things. He is the end of all things; the purpose of all things; the reason all things exist. Everything Jesus has made, he has made to serve his own purposes –
we should say, he has made them to serve himself.
Revelation 4:11 is perhaps the most comprehensive statement of how all created things serve Jesus’ ultimate purpose:
‘You (Jesus) are worthy (we had that idea last week),
our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things (that’s our phrase here), and by your will they were created and have their being’.
So, Jesus is worthy to receive glory and honour from all created thingsbecause he made them, and by his will they have their being. That’s why they exist. Jesus made everything to show off his glory and majesty and worth.
Isaiah 43:7 says the same thing, ‘everyone I created for my own glory, whom I formed and made’.
So, everything Jesus has made serve one main and glorious end, to magnify the worth of Jesus.
Which means that anything that falls short of that glory is not fit-for-purpose – not fit for eternity. That’s why the day of judgment is coming. It’s a day when Jesus will sort out the entire created order (heaven and earth, visible and invisible) and separate the fit-for-purpose from the unfit.
Then he’ll make everything new – a second, and better creation - where everything will be fit-for-purpose because they will all magnify his worth exactly as they should.
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