A Paragraph of Christology (in tacit Opposition to the False Teaching at Colossæ). Christ is the derivative and visible manifestation of God who is unseen. He is the heir-in-chief of the created universe, for in Him is the principle of the creation of all things things in the heavens as well as things on the earth, things seen and things unseen also, the angelic orders not excluded. He is in fact the source and goal of every created thing, Himself supreme over them all. It is in Him that all things have their basis of existence. So likewise in respect of the Church He stands in the relation of head to body, being, as He is, the Beginning, the firstborn from among the dead. His supremacy, therefore, is universal: it was the Divine pleasure in Him to cause the entire Fulness to dwell, and through Him having made peace by the blood shed on the cross to reconcile completely all things to Himself: so that He is the source of reconciliation not only for the things on the earth but for the things in the heavens as well.
Colossians 1:15. image of the invisible God: cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4. firstborn of all creation: Paul is not necessarily ranking Christ among created things: the thought is rather of the privileges of a firstborn son as heir and ruler, under his father, of a household: such, Paul would say, is Christ's relation, under God, to the created universe.
Colossians 1:16. in him. through him and unto him: in Christ is the clue to the creation through His agency it came into being, He is the goal to which it tends (cf. Ephesians 1:10). This doctrine of the cosmical significance of the Christ is peculiar to late Paulinism, and seems to have been developed in conscious opposition to syncretistic tendencies such as were exhibited in the Colossian heresy. Probably there was growing up, side by side with the worship of God in Christ, a cultus of angelic powers (cf. Colossians 2:18), and a tendency to ascribe to them a mediatorial rô le in the creation and redemption of the world, which to Paul's mind imperilled that supreme lordship of Christ which was his profoundest religious conviction. For the reference to celestial hierarchies cf. Ephesians 1:21.
Colossians 1:17. before all things: an assertion of pre-existence. But the words may be taken rather as an assertion of supremacy, and translated over all things.
Colossians 1:18. firstborn from the dead: cf. 1 Corinthians 15:23.
Colossians 1:19. it was the good pleasure: the subject of the verb is suppressed in the Gr., but RV is probably right in supplying a reference to God the Father. all the fulness: perhaps already a current catchword (Ephesians 3:19 *); here either, as in Colossians 2:9, the plenitude of Deity, or, as others suggest, the whole treasure of Divine grace.
Colossians 1:20. Angels were not in late Judaism regarded as necessarily sinless beings (1 Corinthians 6 *), but the Book of Enoch represents them as interceding on behalf of men (En. 15:2), and it seems to have been taught at Colossæ that they shared in Christ's work of reconciliation. For Paul they are not the authors, but the subjects, of reconciliation with God. [ Cf. Exp., May and June 1918.]