Colossians 1:15-20 - Poetic Christology

Mike Bird in Colossae

Here is my paraphrase of Colossians 1:15-20 from the forthcoming Lexham Interpreter’s Bible on Paul’s captivity epistles.

¹⁵ Jesus is a living monument to the visible reality of the invisible God, he is the first-ranked son of everything that is, was, or will be. ¹⁶ All things, from Alpha Centauri to the Zodiac constellations, whether malevolent powers or the inhabitants of a multiverse, all things were created through him and for his pre-eminence. ¹⁷ He existed before time, space, and matter. He is the theory of everything, the reason why we live in an intelligible cosmos rather than in endless chaos. ¹⁸ And he is the supreme governor of the church which is his own body. He is the origins of creation and the first-ranked son of the new creation, so that in everything the Messiah might hold unrivaled supremacy. ¹⁹ God was pleased to have his divine substance dwell in his human body ²⁰ and through his blood shed on the cross to bring peace to the sin-stained soil, souls, and spiritual world, so that there would be peace in heaven and upon earth.

And here is a short video I did about the Christology of the Colossians Christ poem!

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