Who is Jesus? It would take much more than a couple of blog posts to fully answer that critical question. But Colossians 1:13-20 certainly gives us a profound picture of Jesus Christ. Below (in bold) is the passage in its entirety, from the NASB 1995 translation of the Bible.
“13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”
Now let me ask you a question: have you ever had a Jehovah’s Witness (JW) come knock on your door? What about a Latter Day Saint (Mormon)? Often, in a situation like that where you’re talking to someone who has grown up in a cult, you might find yourself not knowing what to say. Because the language they use is Christian-sounding language, but their beliefs and their doctrine are far from Christian orthodoxy. One thing to recognize about JW’s and Mormons are that they do not believe that Jesus Christ is fully God from all eternity, but the Bible clearly teaches that He is.
Here’s another reason for asking this question. According to Ligonier and LifeWay’s joint research (The State of Theology), in 2020, 30% of evangelical Christians agreed with the statement, “Jesus was a great teacher, but He was not God.” That means 30% of evangelicals deny Jesus’ divinity. That’s heresy!! But even worse, in 2022, that number went up to 43%. That is shockingly bad!!!
So we need to know whether or not Jesus Christ is fully God from all eternity (again: He absolutely is!), and therefore we need to understand the depths of this passage in Colossians.
I’m going to break this up into two blog posts so it’s easier to read, but without further ado, reading from the powerful passage above, we learn the following about the Son of God:
1. The Son, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is the perfect image of the invisible God (meaning, in Jesus, the nature and being of God has been perfectly revealed). In Jesus Christ, the Son of God in human flesh, God perfectly revealed Himself to mankind. He is perfectly, exactly, in nature and in being, God. Fully God, nothing less.
a. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (NIV).
b. John 14:9 tells us, “Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”” (NASB 1995).
c. Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (NIV).
2. The Son, incarnate in Jesus Christ, is the “firstborn of all creation.” Now this is where people, like the JW’s, will try to argue that Jesus is not fully God and is a part of creation. They may say that He is older than all the rest of creation, but not eternal; but understand: that is heresy. To say that Christ is a part of creation is false teaching and non-Christian theology, and it has been for nearly 2000 years. So what does v.15 mean by “the firstborn of all creation?” Well it cannot mean that He was the first created being (after all, v.16 tells us that “by Him all things were created.” And v.17 tells us that He existed “before all things” and that He holds all of creation together!). The Son cannot be a created being because He is God! Rather, what’s going on here is that the phrase “firstborn of all creation” makes use of very common 1st century terminology that indicates that Christ is the “heir of all things,” just as firstborn children were in ancient cultures (definitely take a moment to read Hebrews 1:2). All of creation belongs to Christ. He holds the ownership rights to everything.
3. All things were created through and for the Son. Genesis 1-2 make it very clear that God created all things for His own glory. Latter Day Saint (Mormon) doctrine teaches that Jesus and Lucifer were once brothers. JW doctrine teaches that Jesus is actually an archangel. But that’s absolutely impossible (just go read Hebrews 1). Here in Colossians 1:16 it’s clear that all things “in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him.” The Son of God is the creator of all, and all things were made for Him. All of creation has its beginning and end in Him. He owns all of creation and all of creation is for His glory. This is no angel, this is God. This is our Creator.
These are powerful truths! But there are still four more powerful, core teachings about Christ in this passage, which we will examine next time. God bless and keep the faith!
Chase Thompson 