Smoodock's Blog

Presently, we are involved in a study of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and we have come to the place, where he describes Christ as someone who has no equal in all creation (Colossians 1:15-20). Keeping in mind that mankind, male and female together, are the image of God (Genesis 1:27), we read, “in him were created all things in the Heavens and on the Earth…” In other words, God planted the seed of creation **in** the One who became Christ, and he gave birth to it. He created all we see in our universe in the same manner that a woman creates **in** her body, the child that was but a seed given her by her husband. Describing God as male and female takes the image too far, but male and female are, together, the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and a woman giving birth to her child is an image of God creating the universe and all that is in it (Colossians 1:16).

So, “in him,” that is, **in** Christ everything gets created, whether visible or invisible. In other words, both the invisible authority and the visible rulers holding such authority, vis-à-vis thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, etc., all of it was created through **him** (the One who became Christ) and for him (Colossians 1:16), and nothing that had been brought into existence, whether visible or invisible, was created without **him** (John 1:3).

Of course, all this would be impossible, unless the One who became Christ existed prior to anything God created (Colossians 1:17), because **everything** God created, he did through the One who became Christ (John 1:1-3, 14), vis-à-vis the One who existed in the form of God (Philippians 2:6) and became flesh (Philippians 2:7; John 1:14). So, the One who became Christ existed before anything that was created, and everything that has been created is held together **in** him (Colossians 1:17).

At this point in his letter, Paul is speaking philosophically of the unity of creation, and the Colossians would have recognized him doing so. The philosophers, Aristotle and Plato, spoke of the universe forming a single whole, everything working together as one, and Paul claims that Christ is the ‘glue’ that does that.

Elsewhere, Paul describes the mystical Body of Christ (1Corinthians 12:27), which is collectively referred to as Christ (1Corinthians 12:12; cp. Colossians 1:24; 2:11). Here, in his Epistle to the Colossians, Paul says that Christ, Jesus, is the **head** of that body, which is the Church (Colossians 1:18). He, that is Christ, is the Beginning (Colossians 1:18; cp. Genesis 1:1), or the Author of creation (cp. Hebrews 12:2). He is the Beginning of the creation of God, not in the sense that he, too, is a created being, but the creation, whether old or new, is in him (the Beginning). In other words, the new creation exists in him (the Beginning), and it is toward him, that the new creation points, as an End (Revelation 3:14; 21:6; 22:13). Paul uses the term to point to the new creation, where Christ is its Beginning or its Source or the Place where it’s done, vis-à-vis we all are created **in** him, that is, in the Beginning (Colossians 1:16, 18; cp. Genesis 1:1). Christ, Jesus, is the Firstborn out from among the dead, vis-à-vis he is the Resurrection and the Life (Colossians 1:18; John 11:25). Thus, in all things he is first, because God was pleased to allow all his fullness to dwell in Christ, Jesus, and to flow out from him to us (Colossians 1:18-19).

Thus, the old creation that had become corrupt in rebellion (Genesis 3) has been reconciled in the new creation that is found in Christ, and peace is made between God and mankind in the death of Christ, vis-à-vis the Beginning (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:18). In Christ’s death the old creation, vis-à-vis Genesis 1:1, died, and in his resurrection all things become new in the Beginning (Colossians 1:18) – through him, in him – whether things on Earth or things in Heaven (Colossians 1:20). All things are found in the Beginning (Colossians 1:18) and find their purpose or end in him (Colossians 1:20; Revelation 21:6; 22:13).