What was a possible meaning behind Paul’s writing in Colossians 1:15-23?
Historical Background: The Colossian church was being threatened by false teachings. Paul does not name a specific group or philosophy, but seems to point to a couple of different things: 1. Continued Jewish observances to maintain righteousness (2:11, 16), 2. Worship of angels (2:18), 3. Asceticism (2:20-23 and verse 18 if we considered that Asceticism is a practice coming out of Gnosticism and angels are considered the intermediaries between the pure spirit world and the evil material world.)
Focusing more on Gnostic teachings we find:
1. God…….the true God is a pure divine being that man cannot know. He did not directly create the universe, but rather, everything that exists emanated from him.
2. Aeons……there is a series of emanations, from the true God, of lesser pure divine beings called aeons. All of the aeons and the true God comprise the “pleroma.” One of the aeons, Sophia (wisdom) somehow did something she wasn’t supposed to, and a flawed emanation, called the Demiurge resulted.
3. The Demiurge…..this flawed emanation unknowingly thought he was the true God and created the universe in his flawed image.
4. Angels……messengers between man and aeons. They are not directly worshipped, but function in a capacity similar to saints in the Catholic church…..they take prayers to the true God. And, there are nine different groups of them: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, powers, virtues, prinicipalities, archangels, and angels.
5. Mankind……the mind and body of man are flawed due to the Demiurge, but since the Demiurge did, in part, emanate from the true God, we contain a piece of the true God in our spirit (i.e. we have a “divine spark”). And Gnostics believe it can only be released through death if we have received enough knowledge of how to let go of this world and liberate ourselves…..which is what Jesus taught in the Gnostic gospels.
6. Who was Jesus, then?……Gnostics struggled with the idea of the incarnation due to the fact that the true God doesn’t connect with the material world. They were forced, then, to come up with different explanations. For some Gnostics, Christ was an aeon sent by the true God to reveal secret knowledge. Others claimed he was only a wise teacher. Still others believed he appeared human, but really didn’t have flesh (which is what John may have been defending in 1 John 4:2 when he says, “….every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”…..not denying Jesus’ deity, but informing the believers that Jesus did have real flesh). To Gnostics, it was not Jesus’ death that brought salvation, but his teaching of mysteries.
So, coming back to Colossians 1:15-23 is Paul defending against Gnosticism?
15-16 Jesus is, “the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. 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 by him and for him.”
Jesus is not an emanation from God, nor is he a created man who was a good teacher. He is the image of the true God so that we can know God and he takes pre-eminence over creation because he created it all – the visible and invisible. I want to pause here for a moment because a while back I listened to John Schoenheit’s defense against Christ being the creator in verse 16. I remember him talking about this verse (in referencing EW Bullinger) containing an epanadiplosis, indicating that the only things Jesus created were the positions of authorities whether in the church or the spiritual realm, because he is the head of the church. I would challenge that. I would say this verse probably is meant to read that Jesus created ALL things, visible and invisible. And that “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” are describing the “invisible” world of angelic beings. After all, these were categories of angelic beings in the Gnostic minds (not all exact names as mentioned in the list above, but 2 the same and the others similar, and Paul may have referenced only those he had knowledge of). And we see these words being used, by Paul, of angelic beings in other passages(e.g….Ephesians 6:12, and Romans 8:38).
verse 17: “And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.”…..because Jesus (not the Demiurge) is the creator.
verse 18: He is, “the first-born from the dead.” We will have resurrected bodies. Bodies are not evil.
verse 19: “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him.” (cross reference 2:9) The word for fullness is pleroma. Of course in Gnostic minds pleroma meant all the aeons and the true God, but could it be that Paul purposely chose this word (especially in 2:9) to show that the real divine pleroma (that is, for the believer, the nature of the one and only God) could, and did, make contact with the material world by himself becoming a man? Maybe. Maybe that was just the best word to use. 🙂 Regardless, I think the point would still be that God is not removed from us so that we cannot know him. Rather, we have the incarnation of the fullness of God into flesh.
verse 20-22: It was the “blood of his cross” and “his fleshly body through death” that brought reconciliation with God, not secret spiritual knowledge.
verse 23: “if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard…..” Paul is admonishing them to continue in the real faith of who Jesus is, and not to go after the false teaching.
And, as follow-up, heading over to 2:8-9, we could see a reiteration of this admonishment, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.”
*Against Gnosticism (Asceticism): God, our true creator, made a way for us to know Him by allowing the fullness of our creator God to dwell in a human body. It was the sacrifice of Jesus’ fleshly life that brought us reconciliation with God. (Abstaining from certain “fleshly” things will not accomplish this. Chapter 2:20-23)