(To watch the video teaching on this section of the study, click here!)
Who do you say that Jesus is?
The world would tell you that he was a good man who lived a long time ago and set a good example for us to follow. His deity is debatable, but he certainly was a good person – maybe even the best person that ever lived.
If the world’s view is true then our relationship with Jesus should be one of imitation. We should strive to be good as Jesus was good. We should try to do and say the same things he did and said.
The Bible however is uncompromising in its description of Jesus. Certainly the Bible says that Jesus was a good person – the only truly good person that ever lived. And we are certainly called to be like him. But that’s not the Bible’s last word on Jesus. The Bible makes the outrageous claim that this good person who walked the earth 2,000 year ago doing all these good and wonderful things was actually God himself! The Bible claims that Jesus did not come to merely be our good example but to completely purge us of our sin through his death and resurrection. The Bible claims that Jesus is still ruling and reigning over all and that he will one day return to judge the earth.
If the Bible’s view of Jesus is true, then what should our relationship with Jesus be? Is he still simply just a good person to imitate? Or should our relationship with him be something more?
Colossians 1:15-23 is one of the most thorough and beautiful descriptions of Christ in the Bible. Paul poetically describes to the church in Colossae just how beautiful and wonderful their Savior and King is. He does this before he gives them any instruction on right living because he wants to remind them who it is that they are living for and what their relationship with him should be.
The Christ poem in Colossians is still instructive to us today. We also need to call to mind who it is we are living for and then order our lives around relating rightly to him.
The Christ Poem
Verses 15-20 in Colossians chapter one form a poem that beautifully describes the person and work of Christ. Some have referred to this poem as a hymn and indicate that it might have at one point been sung (check out this article from The Bible Project). Whether or not it was sung, the evidence is clear that Paul was a proficient poet. And Christ is the most beautiful subject he could ever put to verse.
N.T. Wright in the Tyndale New Testament Commentary on Colossians and Philemon (1999) shows that the poem in verses 15-20 is broken up into four sections. You can see the four sections of the poem in the table I created below (click on the image to download and print your own).
The poem is set up as a chiasm. A chiasm is a form of poetry in which the ideas in the poem are repeated in reverse order. You can think of it like a sandwich. If you were to construct a sandwich like a chiasm, you might build it like this: bread, cheese, meat, cheese, bread. The second part of the sandwich repeats the first part in reverse. This poem that Paul wrote about Christ does the same thing. The ideas in part 1 are repeated in part 4 and the ideas in part 2 are repeated in part 3
Let’s walk through each part and see what Paul says about who Christ is and then consider how we ought to respond.
King Over All Creation
He is the image of the invisible God…in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (vs. 15, 19)
From the very beginning of the poem, Paul makes a startling claim. He claims that Jesus is the image of the invisible God (vs. 15). This claim is echoed in the fourth part of the poem when Paul says in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (vs. 19).
From the start, Paul wants to make sure the Colossians know that this Jesus was no mere man. By calling him the image of the invisible God, Paul is saying that to see Christ is to see God. We know from elsewhere in the Scriptures that Christ has made God known (John 1:18), that Christ is in the Father and the Father is in Christ (John 14:10), and that Jesus himself says that he and the Father are one (John 10:30).
Jesus is no mere good example. If we are to believe the claims of Scripture we must believe that Jesus is God himself.
the firstborn of all creation (vs. 15)
Don’t let that word firstborn throw you for a loop. This verse is most decidedly not saying that Jesus was the first creation of God (the following verses make this clear- Jesus is eternal not created). When Paul calls Christ the firstborn what he means is that Christ has all of the rights of a firstborn child. The firstborn in Paul’s day was the inheritor of all the families resources and wealth. To call Christ the firstborn of all creation was to say that Christ has a claim on all of creation because as the “firstborn” of God, all of creation is Christ’s inheritance 1.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him (vs. 16)
We have seen that Jesus is God and he is the inheritor of all creation and now we see that he is also the reason why all things were created. He himself created us for himself. For his own pleasure and glory were all things created. John in chapter 1 of his gospel comments on this idea further by saying that “without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1:3)”. Jesus himself gives all of creation life and purpose. He is King over all creation.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together (vs. 17)
Not only did Christ give us life he is the one who continually keeps us alive. We live and breathe and work and function each and every day only because Christ upholds us.
King Over the New Creation
In the first part of the poem (verses 15-17), Paul has established that Jesus Christ is creator and sustainer of all created things. The next part of the poem echoes the first part. In the first part we learn of Christ’s relationship to the initial creation. In this second part of the poem we learn about Christ’s relationship to his NEW creation.
What is the new creation? Christ’s new creation is the church – the worldwide body of believers. Remember Paul’s words to the church in Corinth?
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17)
Verses 17 – 20 look at Christ’s relationship with the new creation.
And he is the head of the body, the church (vs. 18a)
Paul established Christ as the sustainer of all creation in verse 17. Paul echoes this idea in verse 18 by calling Christ the head of the body, the church. Just as the head sustains, upholds, and directs the body, Christ sustains, upholds, and directs the new creation: his church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent (vs. 18b)
What inaugurated the new creation? When did the new creation begin? It began the day that Jesus rose from the grave. He is therefore the beginning of the church. He is called the firstborn from the dead because he was the first to rise from death into eternal life. The indication here is that Christ is the first to rise from the dead, but he will not be the last.
Because Christ died the death that we deserved and rose again from the grave he is preeminent. Preeminent means surpassing all others. Philippians 2:5-11 explains it this way:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Christ’s death and resurrection has won for him a higher glory making him preeminent over all of creation.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (vs. 19)
Christ is not only the head of the new creation, he is not only preeminent over it, he deeply loves the his new creation. Verse 19 tells us that the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ. It pleased him to dwell as a person among us. And verse 20 tells the reason why he came to do so.
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross (vs. 19-20)
Christ, out of his great love for us, came to bring us reconciliation and peace. We needed reconciliation and peace because our relationship with God was broken in the fall and we became by nature, objects of God’s wrath (Eph. 2:3). It’s only through the blood of Christ that we can become new creations and children of God’s blessing.
But why do it? Why shed his blood to reconcile us to God?
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— (Ephesians 2:4-5)
He did it because he loved us. He loved us enough to die for us so that we might be rightly related to God and enjoy his blessing.
Who are we?
Paul knows that in order for the Colossians to rightly relate to the Jesus that he just described they also need to remember who they are and where they’ve come from. We need the same reminder.
Verses 21 – 23 says several things about who we are in relation to who Jesus is. I’ve listed several of the things Paul says about us below.
- We were once objects of wrath – before Christ, we were all alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds (vs. 21). We did not merely have a neutral relationship with our Creator God, we actively rebelled against him (see Ephesians 2:1-3)
- We were reconciled at the cost of Christ’s own life – our relationship with God has been mended because Christ died on our behalf, taking the wrath that we deserved (see Ephesians 2:4-5)
- We are reconciled to live holy lives – Christ’s death has saved us from the penalty and is daily saving us from the power of sin. Therefore we are able to strive toward leading holy and blameless lives that are above reproach (vs 22). Christ’s second coming will save us from the presence of sin, and then we will truly be holy and blameless. Until then, we behave in accordance with our reconciliation by striving to be holy, blameless, and above reproach.
- Our faith and hope in Christ is our firm foundation – Paul says that we will one day be presented to God as blameless and holy if we continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel (vs.23). Paul is not saying that we can lose our salvation if we are not stable and steadfast. We know from elsewhere in scripture that our faith is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8). Therefore we know we can remain stable and steadfast in our faith because it is God who sustains us keeps us so. We can strive to live the holy and blameless lives Paul describes in verse 22 because our faith and hope are firmly grounded in Christ.
This passage holds great hope about who we are. We are reconciled to God, capable of choosing holy and blameless living, and we are held steadfastly in the faith by Christ who is our firm foundation. What good news for those who are in Christ!
Questions for Discussion/Personal Reflection
Thinking about all Christ is and his supreme Lordship over all of life and thinking about who we are in light of who Christ is should cause us to ask some questions about how we ought to relate to Christ the exalted King.
Here are several questions to help you apply today’s passage to your own life.
1.How should knowing that you were created for the glory and pleasure of Christ change the way you go about your daily tasks? How should it change the way you quarantine?
2.How do you respond to Christ? Do you treat him merely as a good example to follow or do you fully submit to his Lordship over you life? Do you treat him merely as a friend or as the exalted King that he is?
3. Do you tend to feel overly guilty for your sins or mostly indifferent toward them? How should knowing that you’ve been reconciled to God at great cost to Christ change your view of your sin?
To read part 1 of the Colossians Study: Colossians 1:1-8 Click Here
To read part 2 of the Colossians Study: Colossians 1:9-14 Click Here