Jesus is the supreme Lord
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
The apostle Paul now launches into the main theme of his letter, the supremacy and unique greatness of Jesus Christ. Paul felt a need to write to the Colossians about this subject because the false teachers who were trying to gain entrance into their congregation were promoting teachings that robbed Christ of the glory and honor due him. It is difficult for us to get a clear and complete picture of this false teaching that was troubling the Colossians. Paul never mentions its exact features directly or refutes the errorists point by point (see also the commentary on this matter in the introduction to this epistle).
The false teachers may have given lip service to Jesus and claimed to believe in him as the Savior, but it is clear that they also regarded other things and other powers as having saving value. They were teaching that the simple gospel was not enough to save sinners but that it had to be supplemented with their teachings and ideas. But such teachings robbed Jesus of his glory as the only and all-sufficient Savior, the eternal Son of God and only Redeemer of mankind.
Paul’s answer to this Colossian heresy is a stirring and positive presentation of the exalted nature of Christ and his complete sufficiency for all of mankind’s needs. As one writer put it, Paul does not try to argue with the false teachers; he overwhelms them by confronting them with the true gospel of Christ.
In the first five verses of this section, we have another of those sublime passages of the New Testament that seem to jump right off the printed page. It’s a literary gem, an inspired, hymnlike confession of the supremacy and greatness of Christ. This section contains several words and expressions we don’t find anywhere else in Paul’s writings. This is possibly because Paul here was taking some of the terms that the enemies of the gospel were arrogantly using in connection with their false teaching, emptying them of their wrong meanings, and filling them up again with real significance by connecting them with Christ.
Because Paul here describes in human terms the greatness of Christ, which passes human understanding, we may have trouble grasping the full meaning of what the Holy Spirit is telling us through the apostle. This is one of those sections of Scripture that must be read, digested, and read again. But that is something that we will do willingly, because the apostle provides us here with a magnificent testimony to the person and the work of our Lord Jesus. This is a confession of faith that ought to strengthen us in our faith in the all-sufficient Christ. This clear confession can help us to reject any teaching that fails to give Christ the glory he deserves.
In verses 15 to 17, Paul describes Christ’s unique greatness in relation to the world of creation. Throughout this epistle Paul simply takes it for granted that the Lord Jesus, whom the Colossians have received in faith, is truly God. He feels no need to argue the point. Paul has personally seen the exalted Christ, when Jesus revealed himself to Paul as God on the road to Damascus. So whenever Paul speaks of Jesus or describes him, Paul describes him as the eternal Son of the eternal Father, in no way inferior to the Father and possessing all the Father’s divine characteristics.
The apostle begins his description of Christ’s unique greatness in these verses by referring to him first as “the image of the invisible God.” The word “image” here means more than just likeness. Jesus is more than like God. Jesus is God. He is the perfect expression, the very personification, of God.
The Scriptures teach us that the first man and the first woman were created in the image of God and that now through the Spirit believers are renewed in the image of God. The image of God in man is something created by God and derived from him. It is a reflection of God’s glory and holiness.
Christ, however, was not created in the image of God. That image was an essential part of his very being from all eternity. “I am in the Father, and . . . the Father is in me,” he tells us in John 14:10. In that same gospel he declares, “I and the Father are one” (10:30). The writer to the Hebrews testifies concerning Jesus, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (1:3). Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” because he is God!
If the Son is the image of the invisible God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, then the Son also is from everlasting to everlasting. He is far above all created beings, above time and space, above all things. What Paul expresses here is what we confess in the Nicene Creed: that Jesus Christ is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made.”
As the image of the invisible God, Jesus is also the perfect revelation of God to us. Jesus is God revealed to us for our salvation. No human being has ever seen God in his unveiled splendor. His nature as a spirit places him beyond the sight of men. If he were visible, sinners could not look at him without being destroyed by the consuming fire of his holiness.
In 1 Timothy 6:15,16, Paul describes God as the “King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.” But in Jesus, his eternal Son, the invisible God has graciously made himself known to the world. Jesus took on a human nature like our own and came down to earth to make the Father known to men. He came to reveal the Father, especially in his love and grace.
The apostle John, one of those who were privileged to walk and talk with Jesus while he was here on earth, wrote by inspiration, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). Jesus told his disciples, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). In Jesus, sinful human beings come to see and know the invisible, unapproachable God. Indeed, all who would know God must come to know him through Jesus Christ.
Moving to Christ’s relationship to the created world, Paul describes him in verse 15 as “the firstborn over all creation.” This title does not mean that Jesus is a created being. The title is not “first-created” but “firstborn.” There is a vast difference. The very next part of the verse tells us that Jesus is the Creator. What “firstborn” does mean is that Jesus is superior to every created being. He is before all creatures in time, because he is eternal, and he is above all in rank. The false teachers troubling the Colossians placed much importance upon the ranks of spiritual beings, like angels. Jesus, Paul says, is above them all.
The unique greatness of Jesus in the created world is also evident in his work. He is not only the image of God, who existed before creation. He himself is the Creator of all things. All things in heaven were created by his power. So were all things on earth, both living and non-living things, with man as their glory and crown.
Even the invisible world—which those false teachers found so fascinating and about whose “ranks” (thrones, powers, rulers, authorities) they spent so much time speculating—was created by Christ. The false teachers apparently ascribed to angels and other spiritual beings a power independent of Christ. They encouraged Christians to worship these beings (see 2:18), but Paul here affirms the truth that Christ is the Creator also of all the creatures in the spirit world. Because he is their Creator, they are subject to him. The good angels are dedicated to his service. The fallen angels live in terror of him. Their power cannot even begin to match the power of Christ, their Creator.
But isn’t God the Father the Creator of the world? we ask. It is true that Scripture ascribes the work of creation primarily to the Father. But in their activities that affect our world, all three persons of the Holy Trinity are always inseparably involved. Scripture pictures the Son and the Spirit as active in the creation of the world together with the Father. John’s gospel tells us that Jesus was together with the Father at the creation of the world (1:1-3). In fact, as the divine Word, Jesus was the agent of creation, the one who caused everything to come into being. “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (verse 3). Christ is the Creator of all things, and all things were created for him. All creation exists for his praise. All things reflect his power and glory, and all things and all people are obligated to show his praises.
Christ created all things, and he continues to preserve them. There is a continuing interaction between Christ and the entire universe. In him all things hold together. The unity and order in the universe and the laws of nature are the expressions of Christ’s will and power. If it were not for that power, everything in the universe would fly apart and be thrown into chaos, but in Christ they all wonderfully cohere.
The heathen philosophers of Paul’s day, from whom the enemies of the gospel in Colosse had borrowed many of their “progressive” ideas, talked about a “living force” that holds everything in the universe together. Paul wants his readers to remember that what holds the world together is no vague, unidentifiable force. It is Jesus Christ. “In him we live and move and have our being,” the apostle told the educated Greeks at Athens (Acts 17:28). Jesus is Lord of the universe.