NOTES for Col 1:17

What does the apostle mean when he says of Christ that "in Him all things hold together"? And in what sense is He "before all things"?

The first thing that comes to mind is the traditional understanding of the Messiah, according to which the Messiah was conceived by God even before the creation of the world, so that His coming was certain to take place, and the universe existed from the beginning for His sake and for the sake of the Kingdom that was to enter the world together with Him. Of course, when speaking of Jewish messianic concepts, one has to take into account that their characteristic ideas about the Kingdom were at times quite far from the Gospel, and the image of the Messiah reflected in them was sometimes quite archaic, resembling more the Messiah of Isaiah of Jerusalem or even early prophetic ideas about a righteous ruler. Even so, the Messiah remained the central figure of world history, both in the context of the historical process itself and in the context of the relationship between God and the people of God.

But Paul clearly has more than this in view. He speaks of Christ as participating in the creation of the world, and here he is clearly no longer speaking of a created being, even one conceived by God before the beginning of time. This can be said only of the Creator. The apostle plainly sees in Christ the Creator, the same as God Himself. For Paul it is clear that Christ did not simply bring the Kingdom into the world. His being is not limited to the time of His earthly path. If, with regard to the future (and for Paul this future, as for all Christians, had in part already become present), one could speak of Christ's resurrection and His coming return in glory as the triumphant King of His Kingdom, which is "not of this world," then with regard to the past one could speak of the primordial existence of the very Person of the Messiah: primordial not only in the sense of God's plans, of which Jewish tradition spoke, but also in the sense of that intention of God which, in the created world, found its most adequate expression in the word by which God creates the world.

In essence, the whole prophetic experience is based on receiving that very word within the limits of human nature, to the extent that a man of God could receive it. But what if the One who could receive it entirely came into the world? Then the word would become the Word, receiving in Himself all the fullness of God, and the Man who received Him would become the God-man. The apostle is certain that it was the Messiah who received the Word completely and in fullness. He became the One through whom God creates the world, so that afterward He might be born into the world as the One through whom the world would be saved.

One of the main temptations for the new Christian communities of Gentile origin, alongside attacks from zealots for the law, was a fascination with ‘theories’—from the Greek for observation or contemplation: cosmogony, the harmony of the spheres and other theosophy. This was quite natural in the Hellenic world, and many people in the first century thought that every religion should include pseudoscientific constructions of this kind in its teachings. The community at Colossae, founded at the apostle Paul's direction, was no exception. In the letter he wrote from prison in Rome in the year 63, the apostle insistently calls on them to focus on what truly constitutes the substance of the good news he proclaims.

Christian life, he writes, means that we seek to know the will of the living God. True wisdom and spiritual understanding consist not in knowing the structure of the universe, so difficult for the human mind to grasp, but in knowing what the Creator wants specifically from you. The aim of this knowledge is to bear fruit in every good work. In the apostle's writings, this expression almost always means helping those in need, giving alms.

By calling for growth in the knowledge of a personal God, rather than of ‘the divine’ and ‘the immaterial’ in general, the apostle Paul places his disciples on firm biblical ground, so unfamiliar to the Hellenistic world. From the apostle's perspective, the strength that sustains a person and gives life comes from the might of God's glory, not from knowledge of the mysteries of the universe's structure. The characteristic features of life in the presence of the Truth mentioned by the apostle are active love for people, patience, generosity of spirit, joy and gratitude to the Creator. And we can hardly say that this appeal of the apostle has lost its relevance in two thousand years.

Beginning his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul as it were repeats anew the fundamental truths without which there is and can be no Christianity in its original sense, connected with the experience of the life of the Kingdom. It is no surprise that the center of his witness is the image of the Messiah-Christ, without whom Christianity as the experience of the Kingdom is impossible in principle (vv. 9-17). And if, according to traditional rabbinic ideas, the Messiah was conceived by God even before the creation of the world, then for Paul the Messiah becomes the One without whom the world is unthinkable, the One on whom it rests and who constitutes its true foundation (vv. 15-17).

Such a transformation of traditional ideas is entirely logical: if the Messiah contains all the fullness of the Kingdom (v. 19), and the Kingdom is the only real, true reality through which and for the sake of which everything else exists, then the Messiah Himself quite naturally becomes the foundation on which the universe rests.

But for Christians, whose main task is participation in the life of the Kingdom and then rooting themselves in it, the most important thing is the possibility, opened by Christ's coming into the world, of complete cleansing from sin, without which one cannot enter the Kingdom (vv. 13-14). In former times God cleansed His people from sin through purifying sacrifices, but such cleansing was not complete: one could be cleansed in this way only from a sin committed involuntarily, through ignorance or under compulsion. The blood of sacrificial animals, sanctified by God's presence, was not enough for more than that. Now every seeker of the Kingdom has the possibility of being cleansed from any sin, beginning his spiritual life anew and dedicating it to the path into the Kingdom.

For the apostle the Kingdom is nothing other than the union of heaven and earth; for him the Church turns out in this respect not even to be a prefiguration, but the form of the Kingdom's existence in our world, which is being transformed but is not yet transformed (vv. 18-20). No less important for Paul is the overcoming by seekers of the Kingdom of their own sinfulness, without which one cannot enter the Kingdom (vv. 21-23). The task of the Church is twofold: on the one hand, it must become the space of the Kingdom in the world being transformed; on the other hand, it must be a community of those being saved, a community of people walking the path of the Kingdom but still far from reaching the goal. The unfolding of the fullness of the Kingdom in our transforming world is inseparable from the spiritual formation of its inhabitants, and this process will be completed only at the end of time with the return of Christ.