NOTES for Col 1:16

It is interesting: in what sense does Paul say that everything created was created for Christ? Of course, in his words one can see a reflection of the traditional Jewish messianic ideas that speak of the Messiah as the One whom God had planned even before the creation of the world.

If we take into account that traditional Judaism looks in the same way at the people of God, who were also planned by God before the creation of the world, then it is not hard to arrive at the conclusion that the world was created and exists for the sake of the people of God and the Messiah. But the apostle brings something new into these traditional ideas, which were certainly well known to him. He says of Christ that everything created was created not only for Him, but also by Him.

Of course, the question of the Messiah's origin is not resolved unambiguously even in the prophetic tradition. Some of the Messiah's names found, for example, in Isaiah of Jerusalem, make one think of special relations between the Messiah and God, relations not only, to use philosophical language, existential, but also ontological. Yet none of the prophets speaks of the Messiah's divinity, and Judaism knows no such ideas. Paul, however, by saying directly that the world was created by Christ, evidently implies exactly this. Christ creates the world together with the Father; therefore it turns out to have been created for Him, just as it was created for the Father Himself.

But then the Messiah becomes not only God's messenger on earth, fulfilling His will. He Himself becomes a theophany, bringing into the world the same fullness of God that belongs to the Father. Figuratively speaking, after the coming of Christ there was as much of God on earth as there had always been in heaven. That is why Christians need no mediators between themselves and God, between themselves and Christ: all conceivable and inconceivable hierarchies, all the "thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers" mentioned by Paul, cannot give the world more than Christ has already given it.

It is no surprise that the Kingdom also entered the world with Christ and through Christ, for it is unthinkable apart from that fullness of God which makes it what the witnesses say it is. And then it becomes clear that the world really was created for the sake of Christ and the Kingdom. The only alternative to such a course of events would be the triumph of sin and death. That is what God does not want to allow.