Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-january-8-2026
Colossians 1:15-23
The Supremacy of Christ
15 The Son 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 have been created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
It seems to me that the New Testament can be sorted into three basic kinds of material: The first four books — the gospels — relate the life and teachings of Jesus himself. The Acts of the Apostles tell us about the history of the early church. The rest of the New Testament is made up of a series of letters from Paul and others that tell us about the meaning and the significance of what happened in Jesus.
The apostle Paul is responsible for the biggest share of those letters. Paul didn’t really pass along the teachings of Jesus himself. He left that for others, mostly to people who had actually known and followed Jesus during his earthly ministry. Those are the people — Peter, Matthew, Luke and John — who would take the lead in compiling the gospels. Paul focused his attention on writing about Jesus – about who he was and about the significance of his life and ministry and death and resurrection.
The New Testament scholars believe that sometimes Paul was being led by the Holy Spirit to express thoughts that were being revealed to him directly, but that at other times, he was quoting from hymns and creeds that were already being used by the early church in its worship. This passage, which is today’s epistle reading, is one that seems to fall into the third category – a hymn or creed of the early church that Paul has incorporated into his letter to the church in Colossae. The first paragraph of this reading sounds like a creed that people might recite together in worship, the way we sometimes recite the Apostles’ Creed today. So when we read this passage, there’s a pretty good chance we’re reading some of the first things the Holy Spirit taught the church about who Jesus was and about what his life and ministry meant.
All of this might seem pretty clear to us today – that Jesus was God in human form, fully God but fully human, a person of the Trinity here to walk the earth among us for a while. But it would be two or three centuries before the church would come to full agreement on all that. That makes the insights in this ancient hymn seem all the more ‘Spirit-inspired.’ It also leads us to be thankful for Paul’s wisdom in making sure this material was preserved for us
This passage says Jesus was “the image of the invisible God.” (And, by the way, just to think back to something we talked about yesterday on Orthodox Christmas, the Greek word that’s translated here as ‘image’ is eikon.) In other words, while God’s works might be visible to us, God himself is not. It’s only in Jesus that humankind has ever been able to see God. Later Paul writes that ‘all the fullness’ of God was among us in the form of Jesus – he allowed us to see the character of God as well as his image.
This ancient hymn also calls Jesus “the firstborn over all creation” (verse 15) and later “the firstborn from among the dead” (verse 18). The point here isn’t that there was a time when the Son didn’t exist, that he hadn’t been born yet. Rather, this passage points to the ancient understanding that the firstborn son in a family was in a sense the equal of the Father – and that Jesus was an equal member of the Trinity. And by being resurrected, Jesus was the first to experience the ‘second birth’ which we believe all of his followers now experience.
The text also says that it was both “by him” and “for him” that all things were created, and that “in him all things hold together.” (Verses 16-17) There are two important points there. One is that Jesus was a participant in creation, and the other is that he is the organizing principle around which the universe works. These are the same ideas that the apostle John expresses in the first few verses of his gospel. It seems to be an idea adopted from Greek philosophy, which said that there was a principle (called the logos) at the heart of creation. Jesus was that logos — the reason and the purpose of all of creation.
The other major point this passage makes is that in spite of our human sinfulness, the death of Jesus on the cross has reconciled us to God (verse 20), so that in his eyes were are “without blemish and free from accusation.” However, Paul says this reconciliation requires us to faithfully follow Jesus and live by his teachings and example. (Verse 23) God expects us to make an effort, not just to say thanks for the new life and keep living happily sinful lives.
I really can’t think of any other passage in the New Testament that so concisely expresses the core of the Christology of the church – our understanding of who Jesus was and what he means to the universe. It seems amazing that within thirty years or so of Jesus’ death and resurrection and ascension to heaven, the Spirit had already taught the church the basic facts about the true nature and meaning of Jesus. And maybe it’s just as amazing that the Spirit is still using this passage to teach people like us about Jesus today, 2,000 years later.
Let’s pray: Lord, we thank you for the all that you have done through Jesus, in our lives and in the life of the world. And we thank you for the way your Spirit has been teaching and leading his followers about him since the dawn of the church. Open our hearts so that we might learn and follow, as well. Amen.
Every Blessing,
Henry
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