The pastor of our church recently preached on Colossians 1:15-20, focusing, as does the passage, on the Deity and Greatness of the pre-incarnate Jesus. He pointed out how much meaning there is in the passage, and I'm sure he felt the limitations of a 20-30 minute sermon in trying to teach the heart of what is there.
One thing our pastor pointed out is the frequent recurrence of the word “all” - 7 times. The frequency and the scope of how Paul used the word indicate that he wasn't using a figure of speech or hyperbole. He really meant, “All”. Jesus is:
- Preeminent over all creation;
- The Creator of all creation;
- The agent of the creation of all creation;
- The purpose of all creation;
- Is before all things in creation;
- Holds all things in creation together;
- All the fullness of God dwells in Him;
- Reconciled all things to Himself, bringing peace through His blood.
Another problem with the idea that Jesus is anything less than God is that it would destroy the meaning and purpose of verses 15-20 in the context of Colossians 1. The immediately preceding verses, verses 13 and 14, say: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Paul uses verse 15-20 to make really clear Who our source of redemption is and how supremely great He is. Jesus was not some creature God happened to use. Were He a creature, His death and resurrection could not benefit any and all who believe. Were Jesus a creature, at best His death would allow a one-for-one or maybe one-for-two swap. Being God, Jesus' death brings salvation to all who believe, and Paul made that fact clear.
Underlying this passage, Paul is addressing a problem being experienced by the church at Colossae and the church as a whole, Gnostic and pagan philosophies. Among other things, those philosophies taught a spirit-matter dualism: spirit good, material things bad. Maintaining that philosophy presented a problem. If God, being spirit, is good, how could God create the evil material world? The Gnostics and pagans “solved” their dilemma by positing a descending series of demigods emanating from God and successively from each other, each slightly less perfectly good than God, with one being sufficiently less perfectly good and wise so as to be suitable to be basically good, yet create the evil material world. Thus God, purely good, could not be blamed for creating evil matter. Confused? Well, some people are fascinated by understanding complicated systems that “explain” the nature of reality, and that's what these religious philosophies did. In Colossians 1:15-20. “Thrones”, “Dominions”, “Rulers” and “Authorities” were names for these demigods. The word “Fullness” in verse 20, “pleroma” in Greek, was a technical term used by the Gnostics to designate the “sum-total of the divine powers and attributes” (Kenneth Wuest). Since modern Christians are unlikely to meet a true Gnostic, this information is more historical curiosity than practical. But it also shows that Paul really meant that Jesus is the Creator, not a creature. Were Jesus just a creature, He would have been inferiors to all the demigods. Paul sweeps all thought of that aside in verse 16: “For by him all things were created, ... whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him.” Were Jesus just a finite creature, the fullness of Divine power and attributes could not dwell in Him. Paul settles that matter in verse 19: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Were Jesus just a creature, verses 15-20 would have been nice sounding but insignificant to the Colossian church.
Thus, if Jesus were just a creature:
- Paul, as a writer of Scripture, could not be trusted to say what he means and mean what he said;
- Jesus death would mean pretty much nothing, and all believers would be eternally lost;
- A large section of Paul's letter would have been loquacious near-nonsense verbosity to the people of the Colossian church.
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