All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

Do you ever feel like God is concealing or hiding Himself from you? What about when it seems all your circumstances are out of control, and the Lord is nowhere to be found? Also, you may see corruption, disorder, evil, and calamity in the world, and it seems as though God has done nothing about it. As if evil will win the day, and gain final victory.

The apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Colossians that all these things are fake perceptions of reality. The reality is that God is ruling over everything that happens, and He is right with us when we don’t recognize His presence. In fact, Paul tells the Colossians that God has expressed Himself perfectly to us through His Son – our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the most important section of this letter, Paul gives a basic summary of the main characteristics of Jesus – His identity, nature, and role in the universe, and in each of our lives. This is following on the heels of his description of the prayers he’s been offering on behalf of the believers in the Greek city of Colossae. He’s just told them that he’s constantly asking the Lord to fill them with the knowledge of His will, so they’ll live lives that are worthy of His character. Then, he assures them that they’re no longer slaves of Satan’s domain, but fellow heirs and citizens of God’s kingdom through His Son. This is because, he says, they have “redemption, the forgiveness of sins”.

In the next section, he vividly describes why and how God redeemed them in His Son. In doing so, he details several major attributes of Jesus, which are described in this order:

  1. He’s God’s Icon (v. 15)
  2. He’s the Creator of All (v. 16)
  3. He’s the Worker of All (v. 17)
  4. He’s the Controller of the Assembly (v. 18)
  5. He’s the Completeness of God (v. 19)
  6. He’s the Reconciler of All (v. 20)

All these attributes ought to always be present in the back of our minds as we think about our lives, and make our everyday decisions. It’s essential that we understand what Paul means in this passage, so let’s look at these glorious realities about our Lord Jesus.

Before we go into detail and explain these features of the passage, let’s read it in its raw beauty:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him . . . whether things on earth or things in heaven.” – Col. 1:15-20

He is God’s Icon

Paul begins by writing that the “beloved Son” of God is His exact “image,” and His “firstborn” (v. 15). Clearly, Paul is hearkening back to Genesis 1, where it says that God “made man in His own image”. But what is an “image”? Another word for this concept would be a “picture” or “illustration”. As a good synonym, I like the word “icon,” especially since this is a religiously-charged word used in sacerdotal systems like Eastern Orthodoxy.

Although mankind was made in God’s image, Paul here makes a major distinction between man and God’s Son – His Son is the image of God. What this means is that the human Jesus, who is Himself co-existent with the Father, and the Father’s perfect representative as His Son, perfectly and completely displays His character and nature through His humanity. To put it simply, as Jesus said, “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Closely related to this characteristic is the truth that Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation”. To understand this concept, we need to remember back to the instances in which firstborn sons are mentioned and described in the Old Testament. If we think back to some of the most prominent firstborn sons in those accounts, we can think of Esau, Jacob, Isaac, and Ephraim. For example, think of the story of Jacob and Esau. Esau was Isaac’s firstborn son, who was to receive his father’s inheritance. Yet he gave it to Jacob in exchange for a bowl of stew. Why was the inheritance reserved for Esau, but not for Jacob? Simply because Esau was born first. Also, take the case of Joseph and his sons Manasseh and Ephraim. Although Manasseh was the firstborn son, and expected to get his father’s inheritance, yet Joseph deliberately chose Ephraim to receive this inheritance, and be treated like his firstborn. From these accounts, we see that the ancient near-Eastern custom was for the firstborn son of a family to get the biggest part of the father’s wealth and estate, and to be the functional head of the family household. He was honored above all the rest of the sons. And this happened to those sons who were simply treated as firstborns, even though they weren’t really firstborns.

Applied to Jesus, the designation of “firstborn” means that He is the most honored and privileged of all human beings by God. When Paul says that He’s the firstborn of all creation, He doesn’t mean that Jesus is essentially part of creation (though His humanity is). Rather, he means that as He’s among creation, He is the most important, most honored, and most exalted head of all creation. This is why some translations say that He’s the firstborn over all creation (ESV). Next, Paul explains the main reason why He’s the firstborn.

Jesus is the Creator of All

It’s pretty obvious as to why the Father honors Jesus above all of creation, and has placed Him as Head over the universe. It’s because He used Him to make everything. But Paul doesn’t just generically state this. Rather, he delineates all of the authoritative figures that exercise dominion in the universe, after listing all the categories of things that Jesus has created (v. 17).

He first declares that Jesus created everything that are in the two spheres of the universe – the heavens and the earth. Thus, every star, every planet, and whatever else exists in all of space has been made by Him. Not only that, but everything that can’t be seen with out eyes has been created by Him – all that’s invisible. This includes anything you can’t see – including all the tiniest molecules, and spectrums of light and sound that are beyond human perception.

Next, Paul lists the hierarchical beings that have dominion in the universe, which  have all been created by Jesus – “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities”. That is, any degree of authority and rulership, whether it be natural, angelic, or human, has been created by Jesus. Not one kingdom, governance, ruler, angel, or even demon exists apart from the sovereign will of Jesus.

The way that Paul ends this verse is emphatic – not only has God created everything through Jesus, but He’s also done so for Him. In other words, the purpose of the universe’s existence is to please Jesus, God’s Son, through His wise and good use of it. Everything on earth and in the heavens belongs to Jesus as His property and possession. This leads to His next attribute with regard to His creation.

Jesus is the Worker of All

I describe Paul’s truth about the Son in verse 17 as Him being the worker of all things based on the words, “in Him all things hold together”. This means that, not only did Jesus in His divine nature begin everything in the universe, but He also currently and continually sustains and maintains all things. How does He do this? The author of Hebrews tells us in his letter that He “upholds all things by the word of His power” (1:3). That is, simply through His thought, He causes every molecule, atom, and spirit in the universe to continue existing.

And why is Jesus able to hold everything in the universe together, including you and me? Because He’s “before all things”. That is, He’s separate from all creation, and has always existed. His power to sustain everything isn’t based on His mere connection to creation, but His cause of creation. In Himself, He has the power to bring things into existence from nothing but His thought, and the power to keep them in existence. But even more wonderfully, Jesus is the worker of a new creation, which Paul describes next.

Jesus is the Controller of the Assembly

In verse 18, Paul writes that Jesus is the “head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will comet to have first place in everything.” There are three parts to Jesus’s rulership here. First, He’s the Source and King of His body. Second, He’s the Prototype of His body. And finally, the goal of Him serving in these roles in that He is first in all things.

Paul has already said that Jesus is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe in general, but now he describes the Son as the Creator and Controller of His special, distinct, and new people. The main significance of this people lies in the fact that they are “the body” of which He’s the head. We should be familiar with this metaphor. “The church,” or in the Greek, ekklesia, means that this body is also literally “the assembly,” or gathering of people. But the fact that Jesus is our head means that He provides all the life and direction to the parts of His body. In other words, as He decides to use His body, that’s how its parts function. All our power and willingness to work together to accomplish our goals come from Him. We do nothing apart from His strength and guidance. He rules and controls us as our head, and we respond as the parts of His body, working together to make Himself known on earth.

But our life came through a means, and that means was His resurrection. That’s why Paul goes on to call Jesus “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead”. Of what is He the beginning? Of the new creation, and the future resurrection. Just as Paul called Him the firstborn over all creation, He’s also the firstborn over all who are resurrected. He’s the most important, and most honored, head of all who will be raised from the dead, since He’s God’s Son, and the head of God’s people.

And the purpose of Jesus being the firstfruits and prototype of the new resurrected and glorified humanity is that he “will come to have first place in everything”. Among the parts of this passage, this is the most important for us to understand. It isn’t just for the benefit of His people that Jesus rose from the dead, and provides them with His glorified life. He rose from the dead and gives them this life so that He will be treated as the most honored, exalted, and valuable Person in the universe. As the Creator, He already deserves this designation, acclaim, and worship. But as the resurrected Head of the new humanity, and the new universe, He deserves to be treated as first and foremost as the divine man. Since the universe exists for Him, its only right that every aspect of this universe point toward His worth, His beauty, and His perfect and excellent character. He deserves all the praise, honor, glory, and obedience, so that ultimately these responses in His creatures will rebound to the Father, which who Paul describes next.

Jesus is the Completeness of God

In the next verse, Paul elaborates on why Jesus will be most important and honored in every aspect of the universe one day. The first reason is that “it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him” (v. 19). The Greek should be literally translated, “all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him,” which clearly is speaking of the Father. Jesus Himself said that “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (Jn. 14:11).

We shouldn’t misunderstand what this verse means. Paul isn’t saying that the Father was pleased to live inside of God the Son, or Jesus as the divine Person of the Trinity. The Father and the Son are already eternally and inseparably one in their divinity. No, Paul is describing something that happened when God the Son became a man. He’s saying that when He decided to add a human nature to His Person, the Father also came to live inside of this human being, the Lord Jesus. In other words, not only is Jesus divine because of His person, but He also possesses the indwelling presence of the Father through the Holy Spirit within Him. And this presence is all the “fullness”. By “fullness,” Paul means the essential attributes of the Father’s divine nature.

This is what John the Baptist meant in John’s Gospel when he said that the Father “gives the Spirit without measure” to Jesus (Jn. 3:34). In doing so, the Father perfectly expresses Himself in the humanity of Jesus, His Son, as He accomplishes all of His kingly and redemptive work through Him. And this is precisely the work that Paul ends with in this description of Jesus’s essential characteristics.

Jesus is the Reconciler of All Things

Finally, we come to the apex of Paul’s explanation of Jesus’s preeminence. Not only was the Father pleased to live inside of Him, but He also empowered Him to “reconcile all things to Himself” (v. 20). As he did when telling of the creatorship of Jesus, so here he also details the “things” that Jesus reconciled to Him as “on earth or things in heaven”.

This is one of the most perplexing verses in all Paul’s letters, since he doesn’t write that Jesus reconciled all people or elect to God, but all things, without any exclusion of category. If Paul had wanted to say that God reconciled all people to Himself, he would have. But he instead is clearly saying that all things, including material things, are being reconciled to Him.

The question that arises is, “why do even immaterial and physical things need to be reconciled to God, when they don’t stand in a position of hostility and opposition against Him?” This question betrays a misunderstanding about the cosmic effects of humanity’s sinfulness on the created order. Surely, natural humanity now stands in opposition to God’s good pleasure through their moral rebellion against His requirements and person. However, when Adam and Eve disobeyed Him, they also corrupted the original order and harmony on earth, and in the heavens. We know this because God tells Adam that because of his sin, He had cursed the ground, so it would grow thorns to make it difficult to cultivate and harvest crops (Gen. 3:17-18).

Also, we see the effects of this curse all around us. Animals kill and die, plants die, blights poison vegetation, and natural disasters destroy ecosystems. The harmony and equilibrium that God originally designed the earth to exercise has now been replaced with disorder, destruction, and disaster. Thus, in this sense, even the immaterial, physical, world, is in rebellion against God’s original design. In addition, man’s sinful use of the physical world also goes against His will. Therefore, the physical world itself needs to be reconciled to God.

How does this reconciliation take place? Paul provides its basis as Jesus “having made peace through the blood of His cross”. So, although Paul includes the physical realm in this reconciliation, the principal part of creation that needs to be reconciled to God is sinful, hostile, humanity. And some of us have been given peace with God through the blood of Jesus. By “blood”, Paul isn’t implying some mystical quality to the physical substance that pulsed through Jesus’s veins when He died on the cross. It’s simply a graphic metaphor for the giving up of Jesus’s life, when He suffered and died on the cross. Through His suffering and death, He paid the penalty that we earned through our sin, and thus satisfied God’s justice and hatred against some of humanity. And since some of humanity is reconciled to God, ultimately all of the earth and heaven will ultimately be reconciled to Him in the creation of the new heavens and new earth. The reconciled ones of mankind are the firstfruits of this ultimate renewal and recreation of the universe, in which all evil will be removed, and only goodness, order, and harmony will be exercised in all creation.

Treat Jesus as First in Everything

The main application from this entire description of Jesus’s nature and main roles should be evident to all believers. Let’s look back at the main descriptions we find here of who and what He is:

  1. He’s the firstborn of all creation (v. 15)
  2. All things were created for Him (v. 16)
  3. He’s before all things (v. 17)
  4. He’s the head of the Assembly, or church (v. 18)
  5. He’s reconciling all things to God (v. 20)

Given all these truths about Him, we should respond by personally treating Him as the most important, most honored, and most lovely Person in all our lives. Because we’re a part of His creation, we should view ourselves as His property – His possession. And because He currently is sustaining everything, we should also view every resource at our disposal as ultimately belonging to Him. Because He’s our head, as parts of His body, we should treat Him as our life and our Ruler.

In sum, in every area of our lives, and in every situation, we should seek to please Him, and to make Him known. Everything about us, and all that happens to us, exists the way it does because He’s determining it that way to reveal Himself to us, and to make us more like Him, so that He’ll have first place in our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. He’s the source of all that is good, so we ought to increasingly recognize this, and strive to please Him in all respects, to the glory of God the Father.