Bible Study from April 13, 2020 - Colossians 1:15-20

In this study, we briefly review Col. 1:11-14, where we heard many important Biblical words describing what God has done for us by His “glorious might" as v.11 tells us. The Father has “qualified “ us to receive His blessings (v.12). He has “delivered” us, “rescued” us, from the “domain of darkness” where Satan is in control. He has “transferred” us, moved us from that darkness to the Kingdom of His beloved Son (v.13). And in God the Son, Jesus, we have “redemption” - literally, we are “ransomed.” Jesus has paid the price, by His blood, to set us free from slavery to sin. And we have “the forgiveness of sins.” Our sins are put far away, removed, never to be found again (v.14). And through all this work of God, we “share in the (eternal) inheritance of the saints in light” (v.12). What wonderful news for us! 

Paul goes on to say why we can be sure that God can do all this, through His Son. He gives us in verses 15-20 one of the richest, fullest descriptions in the Bible of who Christ Jesus, God the Son, really is. He says that the Son “is the Image of the invisible God” (v.15). In Genesis 1:26-27, we are told that the first people, Adam and Eve, were created “in the image of God" with a few qualities like God, such as sinlessness, which were lost in the fall into sin in Genesis 3. The Son of God, however, is the Image of God. Verse 19 tells us that “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Him." Whatever God is, God the Son is. (See 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 as another description of Christ as the Image of God. Though the devil tries to blind people to this, that is who Christ Jesus is - the true Son of God. Jesus reveals to us “the invisible God“ (Colossians 1:15), “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

In Colossians 1:15, the Son is also called "the firstborn of all creation.” This really means that He was the supreme One, “preeminent in everything" (v.18), "above all of creation," as a “firstborn son” was most important in an Old Testament family. False teachers of the past like Arius (300’s AD) thought that this passage meant that the Son was simply a created being just like us and could not be God. The context of this passage says that Arius was wrong. All things were created by the Son of God, including the invisible “authorities" ( the angels).The Son existed before anything that was created, and by His power, all of creation “holds together." The universe would fall apart without Him (v.15-17).

Clearly, the Son is God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God and yet three Persons, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. We cannot fully understand the nature of the Triune God, but we believe it, for that is what the Scriptures tell us, here and in many other places. In the beginning, Genesis 1:1 tells us there was only God. However, the Spirit of God was there, too, (v.2) along with the Son. (See John 1:1-5, 14 for the Word as the Creator and the Son of God. Notice also that John 1:16 tells us that we receive “grace upon grace," all the undeserved love and gifts of God, through the “fullness” of the Son, as God. And John 1:18 tells us that through God the Son, God the Father is made known to us. See Hebrews 1:1-6 and 1 John 1:1-3, as well.) 

In Colossians 1:18-20, we hear that God the Son, Christ Jesus, is also ”the Head of His body, the church.” The church is often pictured as like a human body in the New Testament. (See Romans 12:3-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-22 as examples.) Christ Jesus, not some human leader, is really the Head. We follow Him and His Word as the ‘beginning” of our new life in Him, as “the firstborn from the dead," with the reality of the Easter Resurrection. He has reconciled us to God, making peace between us and God, through His Good Friday sacrifice, His blood shed on the cross for us. (See 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 as another description of this reconciliation.) 

In these verses, Paul is telling the church at Colossi that they don’t need the new ideas of the false teachers or more things people are being told to do to add to what Jesus has done. He is God, He has done everything necessary for us. In all things, He is preeminent (v.17). He is enough for us, as our Savior.