The Christ Hymn – Colossians 1:13-20

Songs in the New Testament, part 5

This post started as a celebration of praising God as found in the writings of Paul, who’s writing often overfolowed with praise amongst the serious subjects such as justification by faith as shown in the grace of Jesus Christ. Colossians 13 is one of those moments of praise, but on looking at what theologians have said about this passage, there’s a warning to be made about not reading the Bible in context.

He has delivered 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, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. ¹⁷ And 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, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:13-20 ESVUK

The letter to the Colossians, one of Paul’s shorter letters, has many of themes. The main themes are about the gospel, about Jesus Christ, about holiness, and about the church. These themes are like the mixing of different steams of water, it would be impossible to separate it out. But that is exactly what I am doing now. I hope that in so doing I don’t remove the WOW factor of this letter.

Colossians starts with an intro, then thanksgiving and prayers, then this song is up front. This is in contrast with the poetry in Romans, where telling of the things God has done for both the Gentiles and believing Jews then leads into praise. In Collosians Paul starts with praise for who God is, and this theology streams from this praise.

When talking about poetry in scripture I start by looking for the poetic form. Within these quoted verses there is the pattern there is the pattern of a chiasmus. Chiasmus, meaning crossing over, is a form used in nearly all Psalms and often in the New Testament. It is a repetition of similar ideas in the reverse sequence. Where there is a central section it is often the main theme. Here are verses 15 – 19 again, edited to show the form.

A. ¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God,

B. the firstborn of all creation.

C. ¹⁶ For by him all things were created, 

X. in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities

C’. —all things were created through him and for him.

B’. ¹⁷ And 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, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent.

A’. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

the myths

I was looking at the meaning of these verses and I encountered three problems, three myths that people say things about scripture that either I disagree with or that I’d never heard before. When I see problems I rejoice as it give me an excuse to dive deeper into the meaning of the texts.

Myth 1: Something was removed from the text

Someone has removed some of the words from Colossians 1:14, Compare v 14 with Ephesians 1:7 …

Colossians 1:14, “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”

Now look at Colossians 1: 14 in the Authorized version: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:” Through his blood is not in the ESV, or most other modern translations, That prase can be found in earlier translations of printed English Bibles, including the Geneva Bible right back to the translations on Coverdale and Tyndale. Tyndale translates 1:14 as, “in whom we have redempcion thurow his bloud, that is to saye the forgevenes of sinnes.” However when we go back to the earliest Bible in English by John Wycliffe 1n 1382 it says, “in whom we han ayenbiyng and remyssioun of synnes.” Ayenbiyng literally means buying-back. Through his blood is absent, it did not turn up in Bibles until after Erasmus came up with what became known as the Textus Receptus (Received Text) in 1516. The question has now changed from why have these words been removed from different translations, to why did people put it in?

But it does not really matter. Ephesians 1:7 has these words and some believe the words in Ephesians were added to Colossians by a scribe, in order to consolidate the text. The oldest versions of the text do not have these words.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” is in the Bible, in Ephesians, and in Colossians 1 the mention of blood is there too, in verse 20. Verses 13 and 14, together with verse 20 serve as bookends to the poetic verses in the form of chiasmus.

Myth 2: Calling Jesus Firstborn means he was created.

Some say that Jesus was God’s first-born means that he was the first thing to be created. This one is just plain wrong. it is not what Colossians, or anywhere else in the Bible teaches at all. Firstborn is a title of preeminence, not chronology. God tells Moses to call Israel God’s first-born son. “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my first-born son,'”(Exodus 4:22). Deuteronomy 32:9 says, “But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” Israel/Jacob was not the firstborn, of God, that was Adam if we go chromologically. We also know that he has the son of Isaac, son of Abraham. First-born is about being in the most prominent position. In any case the very next words in Colossians say that Jesus is the creator of all things both on Earth and in the spiritual realm. Jesus is not a created being.

Myth 3: v16 says God created evil

It has taken me a week to write this part of the post. The problem was too much information, the shortest thing I could find was far longer than what I would write in a blog post, never mind a part of one.

When God had finished creating the heavens and the Earth he said it was very good. If everything was created by God, then God must have created evil? No. Colossians 1:16 says of Christ, “by him all things were created … whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” If we add 1:20, “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, making peace by the blood of his cross.” 2:15 says, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.“

I have added 2:15 which is outside the song, because it gives the context to “to reconcile” in 1:20. The reconciliation between creation and God is not something that is waiting until the end of the age, it is done, finished.

Colossians does not say where evil came from, It says that creation was made good but there is evil in there. God has dealt with evil, the evil rulers and authorities are defeated and put to shame all this was done by the blood of Jesus.

God takes sin and sins seriously, the crucifixion makes no sense otherwise. God has already dealt with the problem of sin and evil.

-o0o-

It’s really about praise. And the victory of the cross of Jesus Christ is something I rejoice in. Though all my confusion in looking at the problem of evil I still have no answer. I do not know how evil got into God’s good world, but I see the victory of Jesus Christ and the reconciliation of all things to God through Christ’s victory, and I can rejoice. 

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