January 14, 2025

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Read: Colossians 1:15-20

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You just read the truth that Paul says transformed to people of Colossae. It is a truth so wonderful, so powerful, so incomprehensive, that you’ve got to break it up into bits and bytes to play with. 

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, 

I was looking at pictures of myself as a teenager the other day and was a bit surprised to see my son on the quad I was riding. Seth, our 17-year-old, apparently looks a lot like the 15-year-old I did. Malachi looks a lot like his Papa on Tara’s side of the family – especially Tara’s dad as a teenager. 

Jesus was the image of the invisible God. When people looked at Jesus they were looking at his father. Not a mishmash of genes streaming back generations that bear resemblance and likeness to close forebearers but never a true copy. Jesus is as close to the original God as possible. 

¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, 
the firstborn over all creation. 

The firstborn! Get that into your brain. 

¹⁶ For everything was created by him, 
in heaven and on earth, 
the visible and the invisible, 
whether thrones or dominions 
or rulers or authorities—
all things have been created through him and for him. 

So he was the firstborn and yet everything was created by him. 

¹⁷ He is before all things, 
and by him all things hold together. 

He was the firstborn over all creation and yet he existed before he was born! 

This means, of course, that the firstborn of creation also existed before the creation of the matter that would make up the components of his physical body. And that body had substance and strength! Not enough strength that he didn’t need to cheat to best Jacob in their wrestling match though. (I think he cheated when he dislocated Jacob’s hip in the fight.) 

Nevertheless, Jesus existed physically, before he was born physically. 

¹⁸ He is also the head of the body, the church; 
he is the beginning, 

Jesus had a different body as well; the church. He was the beginning of that body as well. 

¹⁸ He is also the head of the body, the church; 
he is the beginning, 
the firstborn from the dead, 
so that he might come to have 
first place in everything. 

Also, after he died and rose again he got an upgraded, but recognizable body – you know when most people don’t have physical bodies any longer. 

¹⁹ For God was pleased to have
all his fullness dwell in him, 

There we go again. The new body Jesus got was full of God. He was showing off invisible Yahweh to the world again! 

²⁰ and through him to reconcile 
everything to himself,
whether things on earth or things in heaven, 
by making peace 
through his blood, shed on the cross.^,

So this was the plan all along; the deepest desire of the invisible God was to show himself to the world as accurately and completely as possible. Remember, you too, were made in the image of God, but things went so wrong and that image was corrupted. That image could only be restored if the relationship was reconciled; if we made peace with our invisible father.

Throughout this stunning and mysterious poem, bodies are made visible. Jesus makes the stuff that will make his physical body visible and then he becomes visible by using that stuff. In doing so he gives us an image of the invisible God. Then he dies and God needs to give him a new body, which looks a lot like his previous body, so that he can be the firstborn from the dead as well. 

But then physical Jesus with his upgraded body leaves the earth – that is, he is no longer visible here – except that he still is because the church is the new image of the invisible Jesus. 

Yahweh. Jesus. Us. The Church. 

All of these players are in a cosmic drama where the invisible God (the first one) reconciles his image bearers (us) through the Son who represented him most accurately, Jesus. 

This was the good news that transformed the people of Colossae and the good news that continues to transform us today. And what was the result? They behaved as the body of Christ should – continuing to make God’s invisible character visible on earth.