Jesus reigns supreme over the visible world, the unseen world, and the church. Paul sums up his argument in verse 19: For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in Him. Plērōma (fulness) was a term used by the later Gnostics to refer to the divine powers and attributes, which they believed were divided among the various emanations. That is likely the sense in which the Colossian errorists used the term. Paul counters that false teaching by stating that all the fulness of deity is not spread out in small doses to a group of spirits, but fully dwells in Christ alone (cf. 2:9). The commentator J. B. Lightfoot wrote about Paul’s use of plērōma,
On the one hand, in relation to Deity, He is the visible image of the invisible God. He is not only the chief manifestation of the Divine nature: He exhausts the Godhead manifested. In Him resides the totality of the Divine powers and attributes. For this totality Gnostic teachers had a technical term, the pleroma or plenitude.… In contrast to their doctrine, [Paul] asserts and repeats the assertion, that the pleroma abides absolutely and wholly in Christ as the Word of God. The entire light is concentrated in Him. (St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon [1879; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959], p. 102)
Paul tells the Colossians they do not need angels to help them get saved. Rather in Christ, and Him alone, they are complete (2:10). Christians share in His fulness: “For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16). All the fulness of Christ becomes available to believers.
What should the response be to the glorious truths about Christ in this passage? The Puritan John Owen astutely wrote,
The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness than the whole creation, and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. Without this knowledge, the mind of man, however priding itself in other inventions and discoveries, is wrapped up in darkness and confusion.
This therefore deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them. For if our future blessedness shall consist in living where He is, and beholding of His glory, what better preparation can there be for it than a constant previous contemplation of that glory as revealed in the gospel, that by a view of it we may be gradually transformed into the same glory? (John Owen, The Glory of Christ [reprint, Chicago: Moody, 1949], pp. 25–26)
5
Reconciled to God
and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—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, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. (1:20–23)
The word reconcile is one of the most significant and descriptive terms in all of Scripture. It is one of five key words used in the New Testament to describe the richness of salvation in Christ, along with justification, redemption, forgiveness, and adoption.
In justification, the sinner stands before God guilty and condemned, but is declared righteous (Rom. 8:33). In redemption, the sinner stands before God as a slave, but is granted his freedom (Rom. 6:18–22). In forgiveness, the sinner stands before God as a debtor, but the debt is paid and forgotten (Eph. 1:7). In reconciliation, the sinner stands before God as an enemy, but becomes His friend (2 Cor. 5:18–20). In adoption, the sinner stands before God as a stranger, but is made a son (Eph. 1:5). A complete understanding of the doctrine of salvation would involve a detailed study of each of those terms. In Colossians 1:20–23, Paul gives a concise look at reconciliation.
The verb katallassō (to reconcile) means “to change” or “exchange.” Its New Testament usage speaks of a change in a relationship. In 1 Corinthians 7:11 it refers to a woman being reconciled to her husband. In its other two New Testament usages, Romans 5:10, and 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, it speaks of God and man being reconciled. When people change from being at enmity with each other to being at peace, they are said to be reconciled. When the Bible speaks of reconciliation, then, it refers to the restoration of a right relationship between God and man.
There is another term for reconcile that is used in Colossians 1:20, 22—apokatallassō. It is a compound word, made up of the basic word for reconcile, katallassō, with a preposition added to intensify the meaning. It means thoroughly, completely, or totally reconciled. Paul no doubt used this stronger term in Colossians as a counterattack against the false teachers. Because they held that Christ was merely another spirit being emanating from God, they also denied the possibility of man’s being reconciled to God by Christ alone. In refuting that denial, Paul emphasizes that there is total, complete, and full reconciliation through the Lord Jesus. Inasmuch as He possesses all the fullness of deity (1:19; 2:9), Jesus is able to fully reconcile sinful men and women to God (1:20).
Paul defends Christ’s sufficiency to reconcile men to God by discussing four aspects of reconciliation: the plan of reconciliation, the means of reconciliation, the aim of reconciliation, and the evidence of reconciliation.
The Plan of Reconciliation
and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, (1:20–21)
God’s ultimate plan for the universe is to reconcile all things to Himself through Jesus Christ. When His work of creation was finished, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God’s good creation, however, was soon marred by man’s sin. The Fall resulted not only in fatal and damning tragedy for the human race, but also affected the entire creation. Sin destroyed the perfect harmony between creatures, and between all creation and the Creator. The creation was “subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20) and “groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now” (Rom. 8:22). One evidence of that is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which indicates that the universe is losing its usable energy. If God did not intervene, the universe would eventually suffer a heat death—all available energy would be used up, and the universe would become uniformly cold and dark.
We live on a cursed earth in a cursed universe. Both are under the baleful influence of Satan, who is both “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). The devastating effects of the curse and satanic influence will reach a terrifying climax in the events of the Tribulation. Some of the various bowl, trumpet, and seal judgments are demonic, others represent natural phenomena gone wild as God lets loose His wrath. At the culmination of that time of destruction and chaos, Christ returns and sets up His kingdom. During His millennial reign, the effects of the curse will begin to be reversed. The Bible gives us a glimpse of what the restored creation will be like.
There will be dramatic changes in the animal world. In Isaiah we learn that
The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain. (Isa. 11:6–9)
“The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isa. 65:25)
The changes in the animal world will be paralleled by changes in the earth and the solar system:
Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders. (Isa. 24:23)
The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted. (Isa. 30:26)
No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light; but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. Your sun will set no more, neither will your moon wane; for you will have the Lord for an everlasting light. (Isa. 60:19–20)
Tremendous, dramatic changes will mark the reconciliation of the world to God. Paul writes, “The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption” (Rom. 8:21). God and the creation will be reconciled; the curse of Genesis 3 will be removed. We might say that God will make friends with the universe again. The universe will be restored to a proper relationship with its Creator. Finally, after the millennial kingdom, there will indeed be a new heaven and a new earth, as both Peter and John indicate:
According to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. (2 Pet. 3:13)
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. (Rev. 21:1)
The Lord will make everything new.
Paul again takes direct aim at the false philosophical dualism of the Colossian heretics. They taught that all matter was evil and spirit was good. In their scheme, God did not create the physical universe, and He certainly would not wish to be reconciled to it. Paul declares that God will indeed reconcile the material world to Himself, and further, that He will do it through His Son, Jesus Christ. Far from being a spirit emanation unconcerned with evil matter, Jesus is the agent through which God will accomplish the reconciliation of the universe. The German theologian Erich Sauer comments,
The offering on Golgotha extends its influence into universal history. The salvation of mankind is only one part of the world-embracing counsels of God.… The “heavenly things” also will be cleansed through Christ’s sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:23). A “cleansing” of the heavenly places is required if on no other ground than that they have been the dwelling of fallen spirits (Eph. 6:12; 2:2), and because Satan, their chief, has for ages had access to the highest regions of the heavenly world … the other side becomes this side; eternity transfigures time and this earth, the chief scene of the redemption, becomes the Residence of the universal kingdom of God (The Triumph of the Crucified [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960], pp. 179, 180 [italics in original]).
Some have imagined all things to include fallen men and fallen angels, and on that basis have argued for universalism, the ultimate salvation of everyone. By so doing they overlook a fundamental rule of interpretation, the analogia Scriptura. That principle teaches that no passage of Scripture, properly interpreted, will contradict any other passage. When we let Scripture interpret Scripture, it is clear that by all things Paul means all things for whom reconciliation is possible. That fallen angels and unregenerate men will spend eternity in hell is the emphatic teaching of Scripture. Our Lord will one day say to unbelievers, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels,” and they “will go away into eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:41, 46). In Revelation 20:10–15, the apostle John writes,
The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
On the other hand, there is a sense in which even fallen angels and unredeemed men will be reconciled to God for judgment—but only in the sense of submitting to Him for final sentencing. Their relationship to Him will change from that of enemies to that of the judged. They will be sentenced to hell, unable any longer to pollute God’s creation. They will be stripped of their power and forced to bow in submission to God. Paul writes in Colossians 2:15 that after Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities [fallen angels], He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them.” Because of Christ’s victory, “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20). And “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). God has elevated Christ to a position above all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that God “raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet” (Eph. 1:21–22).
Though in the sacrifice of Christ, God made provision for the world (cf. John 3:16; 1 John 2:2), all persons will not be reconciled to God in the saving sense of being redeemed. The benefits of Christ’s atonement are applied only to the elect, who alone come to saving faith in Him.
From God’s general plan to reconcile all things to Himself, Paul turns to the specific reconciliation of believers like the Colossians. That they had been reconciled was evidence enough that Christ was sufficient to reconcile men and women to God. Their reconciliation foreshadowed the ultimate reconciliation of the universe.
To impress on them Christ’s power to reconcile men to God, Paul reminds the Colossians of what they were like before their reconciliation. They were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds. Apallotrioō (alienated) means “estranged,” “cut off,” or “separated.” Before their reconciliation, the Colossians were completely estranged from God. In a similar passage, Paul writes, “You were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:12–13). Non-Christians are detached from God because of sin; there is no such thing as an “innocent heathen.” All unbelievers suffer separation from God unless they receive the reconciliation provided in Jesus Christ.
The Colossians had also been hostile in mind. Echthros (hostile) could also be translated “hateful.” Unbelievers are not only alienated from God by condition, but also hateful of God by attitude. They hate Him and resent His holy standards and commands because they are engaged in evil deeds. Scripture teaches that unbelievers “loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:19–20). Their problem is not ignorance, but willful love of sin.
Even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. (Rom. 1:21–24)
Although “that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Rom. 1:19), they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). As Isaiah wrote to wayward Israel, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear” (Isa. 59:2). Sin is the root cause of man’s alienation from God. Because God cannot fellowship with sin (cf. Hab. 1:13; 1 John 1:6), it is sin that needs to be dealt with before God and man can be reconciled.
The question arises as to whether man is reconciled to God, or God to man. There is a sense in which both occur. Since “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God” (Rom. 8:7), and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8), reconciliation cannot take place until man is transformed. “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17–18).
There is also God’s side to reconciliation. From His holy perspective, His just wrath against sin must be appeased. Far from being the harmless, tolerant grandfather that many today imagine Him to be, God “takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nah. 1:2). “At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation” (Jer. 10:10). The one who refuses to obey the Son will find that “the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). Because of their sin, “the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6). Man and God could never be reconciled unless God’s wrath was appeased. The provision for that took place through Christ’s sacrifice. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Rom. 5:9). It is “Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). He bore the full fury of God’s wrath against our sins (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24). After all, “God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9).
Christ’s death on the cross reconciled us to God (Eph. 2:16), something we could never have done on our own. In Romans 5:6–10, Paul gives four reasons for that. First, lack of strength: “we were still helpless” (v. 6). Second, lack of merit: we were “the ungodly” (v. 6). Third, lack of righteousness: “we were yet sinners” (v. 8). Finally, lack of peace with God: “we were enemies” (v. 10). It is only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ that anyone can receive reconciliation (v. 11).
The Means of Reconciliation
having made peace through the blood of His cross … He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death (1:20b, 1:22a)
Those two phrases sum up the specific means whereby Christ effected our reconciliation with God. Paul says first that Christ made peace between God and man through the blood of His cross. Blood speaks metaphorically of His atonement. It connects Christ’s death with the Old Testament sacrificial system (cf. 1 Pet. 1:18–19). It is also a term that graphically notes violent death, such as that suffered by the sacrificial animals. The countless thousands of animals sacrificed under the Old Covenant pointed ahead to the violent, blood-shedding death the final sacrificial Lamb would suffer. The writer of Hebrews informs us that “the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate” (Heb. 13:11–12).
The reference to Christ’s blood again stresses the link between His violent death and the violent deaths of the animals sacrificed under the Old Covenant. Unlike many of them, however, Jesus did not bleed to death (cf. John 19:34). No man took His life. He was not a helpless victim, but willingly offered up His life to God.
For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father. (John 10:17–18)
Jesus chose the moment of His death: “When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit” (John 19:30).
There is nothing mystical, however, about the blood of Christ. It saves us only in the sense that His death was the sacrificial death of the final Lamb. It was that death that reconciled us to God (Rom. 5:10).
Proper biblical teaching on the blood of Christ simply is that His physical blood has no magical or mystical saving power. It is not some supernaturally preserved form of the actual blood of Christ that literally washes believers of their sin. The blood of Christ is applied to the believer in a symbolic sense, by faith, in the same way that we “see” Christ by faith, and we are seated with Him in the heavenlies—not in a physical sense.
How could the red and white corpuscles be literally applied to believers in salvation? To our physical bodies? Could it be otherwise with literal blood? Where is that literal, tangible blood kept? How much of it is applied, and why is it not used up? To one degree or another, we must acknowledge that there is symbolism in what Scripture says about the blood. Otherwise we will wind up with an obviously unbiblical doctrine like transubstantiation to explain how literal blood can be applied to all believers for salvation. (I have recently heard that some believe the blood of Jesus is kept in a bottle in heaven to be literally used in some way to apply to the soul!)
A strictly physical interpretation of what Scripture says about the blood of Christ cannot adequately deal with such passages as John 6:53–54: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
It would be equally hard to explain how physical blood is meant in Matthew 23:30–35 (“We would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets”); 27:24–25 (“His blood be on us, and on our children”); Acts 5:28 (“[you] intend to bring this man’s blood upon us”); 18:6 (“Your blood be upon your own heads”); 20:26, 28 (“I am pure from the blood of all men”); and 1 Corinthians 10:16 (“The cup of blessing … is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?”).
The literal blood of Christ ran into the dirt and dust, and nothing in Scripture hints that it now exists in any tangible or visible form. Communion wine does not change into blood. There is no way the actual blood of Christ could be applied to all of us. We must acknowledge at some point that the sprinkling with blood under the New Covenant is symbolic.
“Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). I affirm that truth and have never denied it. But the “shedding of blood” in Scripture is an expression that means much more than just bleeding. It refers to violent sacrificial death. If just bleeding could buy salvation, why did not Jesus simply bleed without dying? Of course, He had to die to be the perfect sacrifice, and without His death our redemption could not have been purchased by His blood.
The meaning of Scripture in this matter is not all that difficult to understand. Romans 5:9–10 clarifies the point; those two verses side by side show that to be “justified by His blood” (v. 9) is the same as being “reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (v. 10). The critical element in salvation is the sacrificial death of Christ on our behalf. The shedding of His blood was the visible manifestation of His life being poured out in sacrifice, and Scripture consistently uses the term “shedding of blood” as a metonym for atoning death. (A metonym is a figure of speech in which the part is used to represent or designate the whole.)
Bloodshed was God’s design for all Old Testament sacrifices. They were bled to death rather than clubbed or burnt. God designed that sacrificial death was to occur with blood loss as a vivid manifestation of life being poured out (“the life of the flesh is in the blood”). Nevertheless, those who were too poor to bring animals for sacrifices were allowed to bring one-tenth of an ephah (about two quarts) of fine flour instead (Lev. 5:11). Their sins were covered just as surely as the sins of those who could afford to offer a lamb, goat, turtledove, or pigeon (Lev. 5:6–7). Christ’s blood was precious—but as precious as it was, only when it was poured out in death could the penalty of sin be paid.
Thus, if Christ had bled without dying, salvation would not have been purchased. In that sense, it is not His blood but His death that saves us. And when Scripture talks about the shedding of blood, the point is not mere bleeding, but dying by violence as a sacrifice. That is not heresy, and nothing in Protestant church history would support the notion that it is. The only major group to insist that the application of the blood is literal is the Roman Catholic Church.
Christ died not only as a sacrifice, but also as our substitute. He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death. In Romans 8:3, Paul tells us that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” He took the place of sinners, dying a substitutionary death that paid the full penalty for the sin of all who believe. This death satisfied God’s wrath. Once again Paul hammers away at the false teaching of the Colossian heretics that Christ was a mere spirit being. On the contrary, Paul insists, He died as a man for men. Were that not true, there could be no reconciliation for any person.
The Aim of Reconciliation
in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach (1:22b)
God’s ultimate goal in reconciliation is to present His elect holy and pure before Him. Paul expressed a similar desire for the Corinthians: “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor. 11:2). Jude tells us that we will one day “stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24). Such purification is necessary if sinners are to stand in the presence of a holy God.
Holy (hagios) means to be separated from sin and set apart to God. It has to do with the believer’s relationship with Him. As a result of a faith union with Jesus Christ, God sees Christians as holy as His Son. God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4). “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
Blameless (amōmos) means without blemish. It was used in the Septuagint to speak of sacrificial animals (Num. 6:14). It is used in the New Testament to refer to Christ as the spotless Lamb of God (Heb. 9:14; 1 Pet. 1:19). In reference to ourselves, reconciliation gives us a blameless character.
Beyond reproach (anegklētos) goes beyond blameless. It means not only that we are without blemish, but also that no one can bring a charge against us (cf. Rom. 8:33). Satan, the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), cannot make a charge stick against those whom Christ has reconciled.
Christ’s reconciliation makes believers holy, blameless, and beyond reproach before Him. God sees us now as we will be in heaven when we are glorified. He views us clothed with the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. The process of spiritual growth involves becoming in practice what we are in reality before God. We “have put on the new self” and that new self “is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Col. 3:10). The Christian life involves “beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord [which covers us before God, and] being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
The Evidence of Reconciliation
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, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. (1:23)
One of the most sobering truths in the Bible is that not all who profess to be Christians are in fact saved. Our Lord warned, “ ‘Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” ’ ” (Matt. 7:22–23).
Of all the marks of a genuine Christian presented in Scripture, none is more significant than the one Paul mentions here. People give evidence of being truly reconciled when they continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast. The Bible repeatedly testifies that those who are truly reconciled will continue in the faith. In the parable of the soils, Jesus described those represented by the rocky soil as “ ‘those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away’ ” (Luke 8:13). By falling away they gave evidence that they were never truly saved. In John 8:31, “Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.’ ” Speaking of apostates, the apostle John writes in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us.”
After hearing some difficult and challenging teaching from Him, many of Jesus’ so-called disciples “withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66). By so doing, they gave evidence that they had never truly been His disciples. Perseverance is the hallmark of the true saint. (I discuss the issue further in my books The Gospel According to Jesus [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988] and Saved Without a Doubt [Wheaton, Ill.: Victor, 1992].)
Lest there be any confusion about what they were to continue in, Paul specifies the content of their faith as the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. The Colossians are to hold fast to the apostolic gospel they had heard; the gospel that had been proclaimed throughout the world; the gospel of which Paul was a minister, commissioned to preach. Those who, like the Colossian errorists, preach any other gospel stand cursed before God (Gal. 1:8).
Perhaps no passage stresses the vital importance of reconciliation more than 2 Corinthians 5:17–21:
If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
In that powerful text we can discern five truths about reconciliation. First, reconciliation transforms men: “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (v. 17). Second, it appeases God’s wrath: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (v. 21). Third, it comes through Christ: “All these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ” (v. 18). Fourth, it is available to all who believe: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (v. 19). Finally, every believer has been given the ministry of proclaiming the message of reconciliation: God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (v. 18), and “He has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (v. 19).
God sends His people forth as ambassadors into a fallen, lost world, bearing unbelievably good news. People everywhere are hopelessly lost and doomed, cut off from God by sin. But God has provided the means of reconciliation through the death of His Son. Our mission is to plead with people to receive that reconciliation, before it is too late. Paul’s attitude, expressed in verse 20, should mark every Christian: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”[1]
19 The statement that God decreed the preeminence of Christ over every order of being is now repeated in different terms—terms which may have been calculated to appeal with peculiar force to the Colossian Christians in their present situation. “In him it was decreed that all the fullness should take up residence.” The impersonal “it was decreed” has been adopted as a provisional rendering. But the Greek verb is not impersonal: it means “decreed,” “was well pleased” and implies a subject. Then who or what was well pleased? When the good pleasure or will is God’s, there is precedent for the omission of the explicit name of God: “he was well pleased” would mean “God was well pleased” (cf. KJV: “it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell”). On the other hand, the clause as it stands offers an explicit subject for the verb: “the fullness was well pleased to take up residence in him” (cf. RSV: “in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell”).159 One cannot decide certainly whether “God” or “the fullness” is the more probable subject: P. Benoit, for example, prefers to take “God” as the subject; E. Käsemann declares this construction “not permissible” (on exegetical and theological, not on grammatical, grounds).161 Before it can even be considered which of the two constructions is the more probable, the meaning of “fullness” in this clause must be considered. So far as the letter-writer’s intention is concerned, its meaning is not in doubt: the sense is repeated more fully in Col. 2:9: “it is in him [i.e., in Christ] that all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” If then Col. 1:19 is construed to mean that “in him all the fullness of deity was well pleased to take up residence” (that is, presumably, at his exaltation), this is tantamount to saying that God himself (RSV “all the fulness of God”) was pleased to dwell in him. There is then no substantial difference in meaning between the two constructions.
The Greek word translated “fullness” (plērōma) is one that Paul and other NT writers use in a variety of senses. The peculiar force of its use here has been thought to lie in its probable employment in a technical sense by the heretical teachers at Colossae. In the mid-second century the word was used by Gnostics of the Valentinian school to denote the totality of aeons (divine entities or emanations),163 and it is conceivable that it bore some such meaning in incipient forms of gnosticism in the mid-first century. We must constantly remind ourselves that we have no knowledge of the Colossian heresy apart from inferences drawn as cautiously as possible from the argument and wording of this letter, but it would make sense in the present context if the heresy envisaged powers intermediate between the supreme God and the world of humanity, so that any communication between God and the world, in either direction, had to pass through the spheres in which those powers exercised control. Those who thought in this way would be careful to treat those powers with becoming respect. But the whole of this theosophical apparatus is undermined here in one simple, direct affirmation: the totality of divine essence and power is resident in Christ. He is the one, all-sufficient intermediary between God and the world of humanity, and all the attributes of God—his spirit, word, wisdom, and glory—are disclosed in him.
20 It was God’s good pleasure, moreover, to reconcile all things to himself165 through Christ. The fullness of the divine energy is manifested in Christ in the work of reconciliation as well as in that of creation. In the words that follow (vv. 21–22) this reconciling activity is applied particularly to redeemed humanity, but here its universal reference comes first into view. In reconciliation as in creation the work of Christ has a cosmic significance: it is God’s eternal purpose (as it is put in Eph. 1:10) that all things should be summed up in him.
If “all things,” in heaven and on earth, were created through him (v. 16), and yet “all things”—“whether the things on earth or those in heaven”—have to be reconciled to God through him, it follows that all things have been estranged from their Creator. In Rom. 8:19–23 Paul speaks of the creation as involuntarily “subjected to futility” but as destined to “be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Since the liberty of the children of God is procured by the redemptive work of Christ, the release of creation from its bondage to decay is assured by that same redemptive work. That earlier argument is akin to the present one, but here it is not simply subjection to futility but positive hostility that is implied on the part of the created universe. The universe has been involved in conflict with its Creator, and needs to be reconciled to him: the conflict must be replaced by peace. This peace has been made through Christ, by the shedding of his life-blood on the cross.
This note of universal reconciliation has been taken to imply the ultimate reconciliation to God not only of all mankind but of hostile spiritual powers as well—to imply, in fact, that Paul anticipated Origen in the view that fallen angels benefit from the redemption which Christ accomplished. If the present argument is accepted as Paul’s, however, it has to be understood in relation to his general teaching on the subject, and it is very difficult to press his language to yield anything like universal reconciliation in the sense in which the phrase is commonly used nowadays. It is contrary to the analogy of Scripture to apply the idea of reconciliation in the ordinary sense to fallen angels; and as for Paul, he thinks rather of hostile spiritual powers as emptied of all vitality by the work of Christ and the faith of his people.170 And even with regard to the human race, to deduce from such words as these that every last man or woman, irrespective of moral record or attitude to God, will at last enjoy eternal bliss would be (to say no more) putting on them a burden of meaning heavier than they can bear.
The peace effected by the death of Christ may be freely accepted, or it may be imposed willy-nilly. This reconciliation of the universe includes what would otherwise be distinguished as pacification. The principalities and powers whose conquest is described in Col. 2:15 are certainly not depicted as gladly surrendering to divine grace but as being compelled to submit to a power which they are unable to resist. Everything in the universe has been subjected to Christ even as everything was created for him. By his reconciling work “the host of the high ones on high” and sinful human beings on earth have been decisively subdued to the will of God and ultimately they can but subserve his purpose, whether they please or not. It is the Father’s good pleasure that all “in heaven and on earth and under the earth” shall unite to bow the knee at Jesus’ name and to acknowledge him as Lord (Phil. 2:10–11).[2]
The Reason: Redeemer (1:19–20)
The bulk of the second stanza (vv. 19–20) describes and extols the redemptive work of the Creator-Son of the first stanza (vv. 15–17). As the Son creates “all things,” so the Son reconciles “all things.” Reconciliation completes the work of creation. There are two foci for the source of the redemptive reconciliation of the Son: the fullness of God in the Son (1:19) and the cross (20); in other words, incarnation and crucifixion.
19 The first word of this verse in Greek (hoti) can be translated softly as “for” (NIV) or more strongly as “because” (CEB). Each explains the relationship of v. 19 to v. 18: that is, the Son is preeminent because God’s fullness dwells in him. But one might opt instead for a softer relationship and take all of v. 18 as grounded in the Father’s decision to locate all of the fullness in the Son. The sentence is not as clear in the original as the NIV’s translation might suggest: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” The CEB’s translation is a little less expansive: “Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him.” A wooden rendering would be: “Because/For in him was pleased all the fullness to dwell.” Strict grammatical readings insist that it was the fullness that is both pleased and indwells, but the more expansive translations turn the fullness into the fullness of God and make it God the Father being both pleased and choosing to indwell. The evidence that, in a kind of personification of the Father, the fullness (plērōma) was pleased to indwell boils down to just a few important parallels (1 Cor 10:26; Col 1:19; 2:9; Eph 1:23; 3:19; 4:13). We begin with Colossians, where the parallel expression in 2:9 has “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form”; here it is clear that the fullness is God’s/the Father’s. The same general idea is found at Eph 3:19 (“fullness of God”) and less clear but probably the same at 1:23 (“the fullness of him” or “the fullness of the one”). Because of the indwelling of God’s fullness in the Son, Eph 4:13 transfers the fullness to the “fullness of Christ.” Our conclusion, therefore, is that it is the Father’s fullness, or “God in his fullness,” that is pleased to become incarnate in the Son. Hence, the NIV’s “the fullness of God” makes explicit what is most likely at work in Paul’s syntax.360 The Father as the subject of “pleased” is found elsewhere in Paul (Gal 1:15; 1 Cor 1:21; 10:5), but its presence in the baptism of Jesus gives it a more concrete depth (Isa 42:1; Mark 1:11 and pars.).
But what might fullness (plērōma) mean? A handful of texts in the Old Testament sketch for us a good option: God’s glory fills the temple and in fact the whole earth, and thus glory is God’s extension of himself to fill other spaces (Ps 72:19; Isa 6:3; Jer 23:24; Ezek 43:5; 44:4). This usage approximates what Ephesians 1:23 says: “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Once again, Dunn finds similar ideas in Jewish wisdom. Thus, “For wisdom is a kindly spirit … because the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together knows what is said” (Wis 1:6–7). It is entirely reasonable to speculate that the halakic mystics at work at Colossae were boasting that they had found “fullness” in their mystical encounters with the angels, leading to the inference that Paul’s locating the plērōma in Christ is a polemical move against the mystics (cf. 2:8–9, 16–23).
The term plērōma expresses Paul’s theology of incarnation with a powerful sense of revision: as Zion echoes temple and was the mountain where God was pleased to dwell (Ps 68:16 [LXX 67:17]; Isa 8:18), so now God dwells in the Son. Hence, we have here a christological revision of temple theology, with echoes of new-creation theology. This divine glory indwells364 the Son. The verb is only used three times by Paul, one in which Christ indwells the believer (Eph 3:17) and two in Colossians, where it refers to divine fullness indwelling the Son (1:19; 2:9). But the idea of God’s covenanted presence is found in a number of places in the Old Testament (Lev 26:12; Ps 68:17), reminding of the routine presence of God among Israel most especially in the tabernacle and temple, with its intensive manifestation in the glory of God filling the holy of holies. Hence, for Paul to speak as he does evokes God’s fullness taking on new form in indwelling the Son, that is, in the incarnation.366 Indeed, the language parallels the incarnational language of John 1:1–18. But in light of the mutual indwelling theme of John 10:38 and 14:10 as a paradigm of how Jesus and the earliest Christians thought of the relationship of the Father and the Son, we ought to think less of essences transferred from Father to Son, the way one might move water from a bottle into a glass, and more of the Father’s fullness indwelling and interpenetrating the Son alongside the Son’s indwelling and interpenetrating the Father (and the Spirit). In other words, it would be more accurate to think more in terms of perichoresis. Hence, Dunn’s summary does not take us far enough: “that the wholeness of God’s interaction with the universe is summed up in Christ” and that the “thought is not yet of incarnation, but it is more than inspiration; rather, it is of an inspiration … so complete … as to be merging into the idea of incarnation.”368 New Testament historical scholarship fears the use of later Christian theological reflection, most especially Nicaea and Chalcedon. That fear at times misses the organic flow from New Testament into Christian orthodoxy. In this case, I believe perichoresis attempts to unfold what is at work by logical implication in the Father’s fullness indwelling the Son.
20 We turn now to one of the great verses of the Bible about redemption by the Son, who earlier in this hymn is described as the Prōtotokos and the Archē. The Son’s redemption reconciles all things, which is a peacemaking work that brings together Jews and Gentiles into one family of God. The redemption here is less an ecotheology or a sociopolitical theology and more a theological and christological ecclesiology. Like the similar vision at Rom 8:19–23, Paul believes all of creation is out of sorts with its Creator, and all of creation is in need of reconciliation.
There is an emphasis in this verse on the Son as the means of reconciliation:
And he reconciled all things to himself through him—
[through him] whether things on earth or in the heavens.
He brought peace through the blood of his cross.
First, through him he reconciles, and second, he makes peace through his blood. Though not noticeable in the NIV or CEB, some manuscripts have another “through him” before “whether things on earth or things in heaven.” With or without this additional “through him,” there is an extraordinary concentration of emphasis here on Christ as the means of reconciliation.
The weight of this last set of lines in the second stanza stands on both “to reconcile” and “by making peace.” The second defines the first, creating a more robust understanding of the Son’s redemptive work. Atonement theories often creep into this text and take over the conversation. However important those theories may be in theological discussions, the fact remains that the means of reconciliation here is the Son’s blood/cross, but to speculate how that blood worked is beyond what this text states. The effect of atonement (reconciliation, peace) and the means of atonement (blood, cross) are the focal images but not the mechanics of atonement. The verb in Col 1:20 (apokatallassō) occurs only in the Prison Letters (Col 1:20, 22; Eph 2:16), but the cognate katallassō and the noun katallagē appear in crucial passages in Pauline soteriology (2 Cor 5:18–20; Rom 5:10, 11; 11:15).
The linguistic game this term and its cognates play is that, first, humans are out of sorts with God (enemies; see Col 1:21)—including the sense of captivity to the cosmic powers, which is the focus in this hymn—in need of reconciliation; second, the means of that reconciliation is King Jesus, who reconciles by means of his salvation-accomplishing events, most notably the cross and resurrection and exaltation to rule. In a number of publications resulting from extensive research, Stanley Porter has concluded that Paul adapted Hellenistic exchange language and stands virtually alone in describing a subject (God) effecting reconciliation by giving up its own anger through the cross of Christ. Paul, he concludes, innovates with his concept of reconciliation and seems to draw the term “reconciliation” into the orbit of the term “propitiation”; for Porter, this term expresses the heart of Paul’s missionary theology.374 I agree that reconciliation expresses the heart of Paul’s soteriology and missionary aims but am unconvinced that propitiatory soteriology forms the heart of Pauline theology and missiology or that such a soteriology is present in this hymn or letter. The heart of Paul’s missional theology is more christological, thus, God-in-Christ or theo-christology in Christoformity, and in our context there is a stronger cosmological victory at work in this term.
We turn now more to the meaning of the terms “reconciliation” and “peacemaking.” To begin with, we observe they are explicitly clarified by vv. 21–22, which read: “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”
Christian instincts connect this alienation to the fall and original sin (Gen 3), but one ought at least to include the incident of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11), where God sets in motion—because of evil behavior—the division of humans by way of confusing languages. The reconciliation of our passage, then, includes the divided peoples of the Roman Empire, and it must be emphasized that that sort of reconciliation is the focus of Pauline ecclesiology in Colossians (see 3:11) and Ephesians (see 2:11–22). It makes no sense to pretend that God simply makes friends with us apart from the incarnation, cross, and resurrection, the latter two events focusing on death and the undoing of death, and therefore it makes no sense to speak of reconciliation until one admits there is need for such, namely, because humans are at enmity against God and have formed an alliance of enmity against God under the powers of this age, all manifested in “evil behavior” (1:21). And it makes no sense to think the reconciliation here is not also between people groups in this world—spelled out in Col 3:11 (and earlier in Gal 3:28). This much is at least clear in the term itself and in how Paul uses the term. Hence, if Col 1:20 can define reconciliation as making peace through the blood of the cross, 2 Cor 5:19 can do so by defining reconciliation as “not counting people’s sins against them.”
Reconciliation is reexpressed in the second term, “making peace” (eirēnopoieō), a verb used only here in the entire New Testament. The term expresses the sense of adoption into, and behaving like, God’s family. Though these terms are rare in the New Testament, the word “peace” (eirēnē) appears some forty times in the Pauline letters, and the gravity of eirēnē is that it expresses the fullness of God’s redemptive design and will for the churches. Peace and peacemaking are emphatic in the Prison Letters.380 The word “peace” becomes a central term in Christian greetings and, though here dependent on the Jewish greeting “shalom,” begins to take on some fresh colorations because of the reconciling work of the Son. Noticeably in our context, God effects reconciliation by conquering warring parties. That is, the world with its hierarchies and divisions is conquered in Christ so that in the body of Christ one can discover unity among all (Col 3:11).
What is the direction of reconciliation? God acts to reconcile things “to himself.” The simplistic notion that atonement entails divine child abuse of a father against his son, however important it might be to call attention to potential problems in the rhetoric of atonement,384 fails to account for the nuanced language one finds in a text like this. For here the Father originates and carries through redemption by means of the Son’s crucifixion in order to reconcile all things “to himself.” One might say the Father acts out of love and in grace to bring all things back to himself. Paul will write shortly to the Corinthians that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19), while in Ephesians 2:14–18 the accent falls on the Son reconciling Jews and Gentiles to the Father. Thus, “world” in 2 Corinthians probably means “Jews and Gentiles” and the other sorts of divisions one finds in Col 3:11.
But this redemptive, reconciling work of peace occurs through the crucifixion of Jesus, a crucifixion expressed in two terms: “blood” and “cross.” The term “blood” in the Bible, owing to the deep association of the ancient world, including Israel’s sacrificial system, is connected to death, to a life’s blood spilled on the altar, and to blood as that which satisfies divine requirements for reconciliation.387 Dunn, observing the Christus victor theme of victory over the powers in our text, sees the “blood of the cross” to be the bloody unjust death of Christ, an idea certainly at least at work in Col 2:15.
Our eyes keep being drawn to the object of reconciliation and peacemaking: “all things.” The theme of universal creation and redemption in Christ runs right through this glorious hymn, and once again there is a record of nearly the same conviction on Paul’s part in Rom 8:19–21, where “creation” will be “liberated from its bondage” and “brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (rooted in Isa 11:6–9; 65:17). But our text sees here the cosmic forces in the principalities and powers (Col 1:16, 20), in which case, one ought to think of this act of reconciliation alongside the triumph of Christ over the powers in Col 2:15 (see below). As well, one needs to connect this reconciling work to Phil 2:6–11, where Christ is the conqueror. Reconciliation encompasses the fullness of God’s triumph over evil in judgment, subjugation of the powers, and redemption for the saints. At work for Paul’s letter, however, is not just the cosmic powers but also their manifestation on earth: hostility between Jews and Gentiles. Hence, the reconciliation of all things in this text also includes the bringing into one body in Christ both Jews and Gentiles by faith.390 One needs to add some perspective because so many run from the word “all” straight into full-blooded universalism or the salvation of all humans and all powers and all supernatural beings. The universal scope of redemption needs to be kept in view in Paul’s magnificent vision of both God’s power and relentless grace, but the fact remains in Pauline letters that not all are saved and the enemies of God are defeated (see Col 2:15). Faith, the enduring sort, is required for salvation (Col 1:23; 2:9–13), and those who turn away from God in Christ will experience judgment (2 Thess 1:5–10).
The claims of this hymn are astounding and, apart from sharing Paul’s faith, which means grasping the reality of God in the cross and resurrection of King Jesus, one could conclude the man was imbalanced. What the apostle claims here is that the whole created order finds its only lasting peace in the ignominy of a bloody act of execution at the hands of violent Romans, an act God unzipped and reconfigured by raising his Son from among the dead. But let the note be emphasized: the whole of creation finds reconciliation in the death of this one solitary man, King Jesus, and it was the resurrection that generated that kind of faith. As Dunn frames it so well: “The vision is vast. The claim is mind-blowing.… In some ways still more striking is the implied vision of the church as the focus and means toward this cosmic reconciliation—the community in which that reconciliation has already taken place (or begun to take place) and whose responsibility it is to live out (cf. particularly 3:8–15) as well as to proclaim its secret (cf. 4:2–6).” This summary locates precisely where Paul and Timothy will now land: on a church that leads the world by becoming the gospel of reconciliation in the way it embodies the gospel.396[3]
1:19 / Paul goes on to say that God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him. There are two significant problems connected with the translation and interpretation of this verse.
The first problem is with the meaning of fullness (plērōma). In 2:9, plērōma is equated with all of God’s nature as it dwells in Christ (“for in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form”). On this basis one is justified in giving it the same meaning as in 1:19 rather than seeing it in some Gnostic way in which plērōma is regarded as the totality or fullness of aeons emanating from God and filling the space between heaven and earth. Nevertheless, one aspect of the false teaching in Colossae was that it gave undue prominence to those supernatural powers that filled the universe by regarding them as intermediaries between God and the world. Paul corrects this by affirming that the full nature of God dwells in Christ exclusively.
The second issue centers around the subject of pleased. The Greek literally reads “because in him (Christ) was pleased all the fullness to dwell.” At least three possibilities have been suggested: (a) to make Christ the subject, thus giving the meaning that he (Christ) was pleased that all the fullness of God should dwell in him; (b) to make plērōma the subject, resulting in a translation adopted by the rsv (“for in him all the fulness was pleased to dwell”); and (c) to regard God as the subject. Hence the niv: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him).
The main argument against this third view is the introduction of God as the subject in a hymn that concentrates on Christ (God has not been mentioned since 1:15). But the Greek text does permit it, and the meaning has support elsewhere in Scripture (cf. Christ’s baptism and transfiguration). These technicalities, however, should not detract from the essential truth that Paul wishes to stress, namely, that Christ is the dwelling place (katoikēsai, “to take up residence”) of God. As such, another factor of Christ’s sovereignty is established.
1:20 / A final tribute is given to Christ as the agent of reconciliation. God was pleased that his fullness should dwell in his Son (1:19). Now, God was also pleased through him [the Son] to reconcile to himself all things. Reconciliation implies an existing estrangement or hostility that needed to be corrected (1:12, 22; Eph. 2:16). The all things that are reconciled are clarified by the phrase whether things on earth or things in heaven. In other words, it is not just the church (humanity) that has been reconciled; the reconciliation wrought by Christ extends to the entire cosmic order. By doing this, Paul shows the Colossians that every part of the universe is included in the reconciling work of Christ. His love has no limits!
One needs to be careful not to push this language to the extreme. Some have understood it very broadly and believe that humanity and all spiritual powers—including the evil angels—are at peace with God. But such a teaching needs to be interpreted in the light of everything Paul, and indeed the entire nt, say about such doctrines as reconciliation and salvation. The main point Paul makes is that everything has been brought into harmony through Christ.
The third Pauline interpolation in this hymn includes the phrase by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (cf. Rom. 5:1ff.). This locates reconciliation in a historical act, accomplished by the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross. Paul will have no part of some cosmic drama that may have been perpetuated by the false teachers.
There is a question regarding himself. The rsv and niv are ambiguous enough that one may take it to mean either God or Christ. The same construction (eis auton) is used in 1:16, where Christ is the object. The gnb is probably correct in interpreting the verse to mean that reconciliation is to God (“God … brought back to himself all things”). Thus reconciliation is through Christ but to God![4]
God with us in Christ (verse 19)
Verse 19 concerns the coming of God to dwell with men, foreshadowed from the earliest days of the exodus by the tent in the wilderness. Now it is in Christ that the fullness of God is pleased to dwell.
As we have seen, ‘fullness’ is a characteristic word of the Colossian letter; as a concept it played a large part in second-century Gnosticism, and even at this early stage was evidently becoming a major theme of the visiting teachers. Now the word ‘fullness’ (plēroma) can mean a supplement, that is, something added to supply a deficiency, or it can mean a complement, that is the full number that makes up a whole, for example a ship’s company. The distinction between the two meanings may help to clarify the difference between the apostolic teaching and the new teaching. For Paul there was nothing whatever of the Godhead that was not in Christ; the full complement of divine attributes is to be found in him. But for the new teachers, union with Christ did not of itself bring anyone into such fullness of divine life; there was still room (and need) for a supplementary work of God. This could be thought of by saying that God had still more of himself to give than Christ, or that Christ was not received in all his fullness at conversion. However this was thought of, for Paul it represented a serious misunderstanding. The work of the teacher is to lead people to find their fullness in Christ alone: he does not possess anything beyond Christ to give to his people.
The aorist infinitive (‘to take up his dwelling’) gives verse 19 a reference to the incarnation that is hard to deny. But the present tense in 2:9 (‘in him the whole fullness … dwells bodily’) reminds us that the Christ of history is now at God’s right hand. Incarnation (verse 19) prepares the way for atonement (verse 20), but now we are to seek the fullness of God in Christ above, and not on earth (3:1f.)
In the developed Gnosticism of the second century it was axiomatic that a holy God could have no direct dealings with the material world which was thought of as necessarily evil. As a result, numerous gradations of spiritual beings were considered necessary to span the all but infinite gulf between God and man. Whatever ideas of this sort were circulating in the Lycus valley in Paul’s day, it was inevitable that even the Christians would be influenced by them (in no age are Christians uncontaminated by the pagan thought-forms of their day). The new teaching brought by the visitors undoubtedly included something of this pagan colouring; it is possible, for instance, that they spoke of additional mediatorial powers assisting in the supreme work of bringing the fullness of God’s wisdom, love and power, to the sinful.
Over against these rather ‘natural’ ideas, the startling words of Paul affirm that it was God’s pleasure to make Christ the permanent dwelling place of his divine fullness, so that he should be the one mediator between heaven and earth. The apostolic teaching always takes with the utmost seriousness both the full deity and the complete and perfect humanity of Christ, for only so can he be the sufficient mediator between God and man. This apostolic view forbids a devotion to a human Jesus who is not Christ the Lord, just as it rules out the idea of a ‘spiritual’ Christ known chiefly as a miracle-worker rather than as a suffering servant.
When I was making final revision of this paragraph, The Myth of God Incarnate, a symposium edited by John Hick, had attracted considerable attention. Probably not many who know of the stir caused by this book will have read it (a difficult task for anyone), but the immediate impression given by the imprecise title is not far wrong. The re-interpretation of the doctrine of the incarnation attempted by Maurice Wiles and John Hick turns out to be an abandonment of the truth as formulated in the Nicene Creed (ad 325) and the Chalcedonian Definition (ad 451). One thing the book does not make clear is what view the authors hold of God, an important point if we are trying to understand what is meant by saying that in Christ God became man. If we are pantheists, and identify the universe with God, there will be no difficulty in calling Christ divine, for the same could be said of anyone. But pantheism is incompatible with theism in which a clear distinction between Creator and creature is made. If this contrast between man and his Maker is true, as Christian theism has always affirmed, then the doctrine of the incarnation makes a claim for Christ that has been made for no other human being.
By itself verse 19 is striking enough as a description of a unique and unrepeatable act of divine condescension, but it is only by seeing this verse in its context that the full implications of what Paul is saying become clear. It is the fullness of the Almighty God who is Maker of heaven and earth that was pleased to dwell in Christ. What this paragraph demonstrates is that such a belief in Jesus as God incarnate was an essential part of the earliest Christian message.
d. God for us in Christ (verse 20)
If verse 19 tells us that nothing of God’s fullness is lacking in Christ, verse 20 asserts that nothing in the universe is outside the range of God’s reconciling work in Christ. Once more, the little word ‘all’ is significant in both verses.
The need for reconciliation between God and his creation implies, of course, an already existing state of strife and disharmony. A gigantic rupture has taken place, dislocating the relationship between God and man, and throwing into disarray the whole created order. The world knows no settled peace. Futility and decay are the hallmarks of creation (Rom. 8:18f.); hostility and evil are the hallmarks of mankind (verse 21).
The ancient world knew what it was to ask questions about the baffling problems of reconciliation. But without the truth of the gospel there was no possibility of an answer so comprehensive, unqualified and decisive, as Paul gives here. It is not from man but God that the initiative has come: it is not through numberless emissaries that the work has been done but ‘through him’, the one Christ: the impossibility, as men saw it then, of reconciliation between heaven and earth has found its solution, not in some ‘other-worldly drama’ (Lohse) but precisely at a certain place, and at a time well remembered, where Christ had endured a bloody and painful death on a Roman cross.
The essence of verse 20 may be summarized by four statements.
(i) Reconciliation is a work of God. The Bible is not the story of man’s search for God. From the first sentence (‘In the beginning God created …’) Holy Scripture is marked out from other religious writings by its unique insistence that the initiative belongs wholly to God. If verse 21 realistically describes man’s moral and spiritual state there can be no hope of peace unless God undertakes the work of peacemaking. Verse 19 precedes verse 20 precisely to make clear that God must even take human flesh to provide the Man who will be able to represent all men. So it is only ‘through Christ’ that reconciliation can be attempted and accomplished.
(ii) Reconciliation is a work that has been accomplished. Man need not wait for reconciliation until the end of time, for peace has been made by the death of Christ. Therefore reconciliation with God waits not upon human achievement but upon human acceptance. This apostolic affirmation cannot be surrendered in the face of liberal Christianity with its oft-repeated claim that the only change necessary for reconciliation with God lies in the heart of man: God, it is confidently said, does not need to be reconciled to us.
If this were so, the work of Christ in dying would be directed only towards man (to melt his heart and shame him from his foolish rebellion). But it is undeniable, if we take seriously the language of the New Testament, that the work of Christ on the cross was directed toward God. ‘We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the rightenous, and he is the propitiation for our sins.’
Propitiation in the New Testament does not deny the love of God, as in pagan religions, but rather demonstrates it. We need an advocate with the Father, just because he is also our Judge. We have an advocate with the Father, just because, in great mercy, God has come in Christ to provide one.
The Christian doctrine of reconciliation is free from all pagan misrepresentations in that the one who requires to be reconciled is the one who carries out the work of reconciliation. ‘In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.’ Once again verse 19 is an essential introduction to verse 20.
The importance of this will be realized when we see that if no objective work of reconciliation was done by Christ’s death, the message of the cross ceases to be a gospel (that is, good news) and becomes simply an appeal.
(iii) Reconciliation was achieved at the cross. The ‘blood’ of the cross means Christ’s sacrificial death. The Christian gospel concerns what happened there. The heart of the church’s message must therefore be the preaching of ‘Christ and him crucified.’19 The church has constantly to return to this ‘word of the cross’ to rediscover her gospel, and her power. Since presumably the principalities and powers know full well the place of their defeat (2:15), it must be their overriding concern to lead the church to espouse a ‘different gospel.’ The serpent’s shrewdest efforts are aimed to take people’s minds off the place where his head was struck a mortal blow. In the case of the Colossian visitors it seems likely that Christ’s cross was not the centre of their teaching. Perhaps they were tempted, as we are, to shift the centre of gravity from the historical faith, and to locate the place of power in their own ministry. Paul never locates power in persons or ceremonies. He would turn our eyes back to the cross for the place of power, and up to the throne for the true man of power.
(iv) Reconciliation through Christ takes in all things. Finally, the scope of this reconciliation is universal. It takes in the whole created order. ‘All things’ will share the wonders of peace with God. Other passages fill in the time scale of this, showing how creation must ‘wait’ for the day when God’s sons will be revealed.
What is particularly important here is that Christ is again put before the Colossians, and ourselves, as a sufficient Saviour. Nothing and nobody lies outside the scope of his reconciling work. That is not the same as saying that everyone will be saved (an impossible hope if we take Christ’s warnings as seriously as his promises). But it is to say that all who are ultimately reconciled to God will be saved by Christ’s blood. Paul’s statement here is the death knell of syncretism, that most popular of modern heresies, which calls upon men of different faiths to join hands against the common enemies of atheism and materialism. Christians have always confessed that there is but one God; they have also found themselves in loyalty bound to confess that there is but one way to that God, the God-man Christ Jesus. He alone is the God-given mediator. God has made him the agent of reconciliation for all just because there is no other mediator capable of reconciling any. ‘He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’[5]
The Supremacy of the Messiah in Reconciliation (1:18b–20)
The next strophe of the poem begins with another relative clause, and two things stand out in juxtaposition here, viz., that Jesus is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead. The mention of beginning is a fairly obvious echo of Gen 1:1: “In the beginning …” As we saw earlier the word firstborn in the New Testament is used largely to denote Jesus as the prototype and provision for God’s renewed humanity. The Jewish hope of resurrection, though not held uniformly by all devout Jews in the first century, looked ahead to the day when God would renew and recreate the entire world and return it to a period of Edenic goodness. Salvation is not escape from the created world through the release of an immortal soul encased in a body (as in Greek philosophy) or the liberation of the divine spark from its fleshly chrysalis (as in Gnosticism), rather salvation consists of the redemption of our bodies to live and abide in God’s new world (see Rom 8:23). That new creation has kicked off, proleptically and quite unexpectedly, in the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is also significant christologically because he is raised and exalted by God in order to rule beside God. It is hardly surprising then that New Testament references to Jesus as the firstborn or firstfruits of the general resurrection are bound up with the reign of God over the nations and the created order (see especially Rev 1:5–7 and 1 Cor 15:20–25).
Paul provides two reasons why God has purposed to launch this new creation through his Son and what singularly suited him for this redemptive role. First, God’s plan was that in all things Jesus would have preeminence; analogous words are “supremacy” (niv, njb) or “first place” (nrsv, nasb, net).30 Here we are talking about far more than being a very important person. We are talking about authority, honor, and power rolled into one. The most analogous background I can think of is the Roman emperor Augustus who claimed to exceed everyone in auctoritas, that is, a combination of power and prestige. The Augustan age created a pyramid of power and hierarchy that put him inviolably at the top. Indicative of this is that Augustus held the proconsulship of Rome well beyond the normal limitations of service; he was invested with the power of the tribunate with right of veto over the senate; he was the princeps or chief citizen of the government; he had direct military command of over three quarters of the Roman legions, the power of intervention in imperial provinces; and he was given titles like pontifex maximus, or “high priest” of the empire, and Imperator Caesar divi filius, “emperor and son of a god.” The implied rhetoric in this poem is that as the preeminent one Jesus is the real auctoritas over and against the pretentious claims of earthly rulers to be sovereign and divine. This becomes all the more powerful if we remember that Paul is imprisoned, in Rome or Ephesus, during the reign of Emperor Nero when writing this. Roman emperors, at death or even while alive, could be lauded as a god, a son of god, or be numbered among a series of deities in a cosmic, cyclic order. Political potentates and heavenly powers were intertwined in antiquity (e.g., Isa 14:4–27). But Caesar was at best a twisted parody of the real Lord of the world and at worst a malevolent tyrant who created “empire” and “peace” through the application of violence. The Pictish King Calgacus is portrayed as saying: “These plunderers of the world having taken all the land, now claim the seas, so that even if we fly to the sea there is no safety from them. They kill and slay, and take what is not theirs, and call it Empire. They make a desert and call it Peace.” The Jesus of Colossians brooks no rivals, be they the malevolent powers of the cosmos or brutal dictators in a foreign land. A second thought is proffered by Paul: Jesus has unique qualification to be the agent of reconciliation. Paul says that in him [God] was pleased to have all his fullness dwell. The subject for the verb pleased (eudokeō) is missing, but the implied subject is probably God (or perhaps a periphrasis: “God in all his fullness”). God was pleased to have all his fullness inhabit the Messiah. The word for fullness (plērōma) was a near technical term in Valentinian Gnosticism for the totality of intermediaries or emanations radiating from the supreme God. There may be an implied critique here of something from Hellenistic philosophy that eventually became part of a gnostic cosmological framework and might even be part of the Colossian philosophy, but the main point is surely christological: the fullness of God—God’s word, wisdom, glory, Spirit, and power—dwells in the Messiah.
In much the same way that this poem attributes to Jesus agency in creation, so now he is regarded as God’s agent in reconciliation. Paul says that through him or by the activity of the Messiah, God was able to reconcile to himself all things. The word reconcile (katalassō) means to exchange hostility for a friendly relationship. This implies a prior state of alienation and hostility between Creator and the creation which has now been restored (see Col 1:12; 2:15). Here we find that the offended party, God, takes the initiative in reconciliation in order to remove the hostility between himself and his creation. Furthermore, the object of reconciliation is not merely human beings, but all things, which gives reconciliation a cosmic scope as Paul says in 2 Cor 5:19: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” As Lohse comments, the “universe has been reconciled in that heaven and earth have been brought back into their divinely created and determined order … the universe is again under its head and … cosmic peace has returned.”36 The mechanism of reconciliation and thus peace is through the blood of his cross, and Paul elsewhere refers to the blood of Jesus’s death with its particular atoning function in securing forgiveness, redemption, and justification (e.g., Rom 3:24–25; 4:7; 5:9). Just as things in the heavens and the earth were created in him, so now are all things in the same realms are reconciled to God through the blood of the cross.[6]
Christ and the reconciliation of all things (1:18–20)
The second half of our passage has three sections corresponding in form to the three in the first half, but going beyond them to speak of Christ and the reconciliation of all things.
a. Summary
This time we begin with the summary of what is about to be said, introduced again by ‘And he is’ (compare 1:17).
And he is the head of the body, the church. Do you sense the shock of the shift of focus? From his eternal priority to all things, his unique role in the origin of all things, and his supreme position in the integration of all things and their final destiny, we turn to the fact that he is ‘the head’ of something called ‘the church’. The word usually translated ‘church’ in English Bibles means, quite simply, an ‘assembly’ or ‘gathering’ of people. What is this ‘assembly’ of which Christ is the ‘head’?
The first half of the passage (1:15–17) could have led us to expect something like, ‘he is the head of the universe’, or ‘he is the head of the totality of all things’. ‘Head’ would be a very fitting metaphor for what has been said of Christ’s relation to ‘all things’ in verses 15–17. But that is not what is now said. ‘The body’ of which he is ‘the head’ is ‘the assembly’! What assembly?
As we imagine the group of believers gathered in Philemon’s house listening to this letter read to them by Tychicus, we should recognize that this gathering was referred to as ‘the assembly [esv ‘church’] in [Philemon’s] house’ (Philem. 2).
Are we to understand that Paul has changed his subject as dramatically as this? Is he drawing some kind of connection between Christ’s relation to the whole universe and beyond (1:15–17), and his relation to this small gathering of people who have come to faith in him in Colossae (1:18a)?
b. Who he is
The answer is, Yes, that is precisely what Paul is doing! This answer will only make sense if we grasp what is now said about who he is, beginning again with the words ‘He is’ (compare 1:15).
He is the beginning. He is not only the beginning of all things (1:16), he is the new beginning. The one who is the firstborn of all creation (v. 15), we are now told, is the firstborn from the dead. Not only is he prior to all things in every sense (1:17), he has been raised from the dead in order that in everything he might be pre-eminent.
There is clearly something unsaid here. The second half of our passage presupposes a problem: a disruption in the totality of all things. A few lines before this passage, Paul spoke of ‘the domain of darkness’ (1:13). In verse 14 he spoke of ‘the forgiveness of sins’. In other words, while Christ is the supreme one, in whom all things have their origin, on whom all things depend for their very existence, and to whom all things move (1:15–17), he is not now the ‘head’ of all things, as he ought to be. All powers do not presently recognize his pre-eminence. There is sin, darkness and death.
But that will change. By his resurrection from the dead, he is the new beginning. And the purpose of this new beginning is that he will become what he in fact is: first, in every sense.
c. Why
And why is it possible to say something as extraordinary as this about him? Verse 19, like verse 16, begins with the words ‘For in him’.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things. We come to the climax of this astonishing passage. Why it is that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead makes him the new beginning is explained by reference to the purpose of his death. Indeed the purpose of the creation of all things comes together in the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
The three prepositions we saw in verse 16 appear again. ‘In him’ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (1:19). ‘Through him’ all things were reconciled ‘to him’ (v. 20). In the death of Jesus, God was doing something fully comparable to the creation of all things. It was as big as that, as important as that, and as purposeful as that.
Verse 19 is not easy: (literally) ‘in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell’. From verse 16 we might remember that all things were created(literally) ‘in him’. Since Psalm 24:1 says, ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,’ perhaps verse 19 is reiterating verse 16: the fullness of all things is ‘in him’. But verse 19 seems to go further. It seems to reflect other Old Testament language:
God was pleased to dwell in [Mount Zion]. (Ps. 68:16)
‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord. (Jer. 23:24)
May the whole earth be filled with his glory. (Ps. 72:19)
The whole earth is full of his glory. (Isa. 6:3)
The glory of the Lord filled the temple. (Ezek. 43:5)
Colossians 1:19 says that all the fullness (all the fullness of God we are to understand, all the fullness of God’s glory and wisdom and goodness, all the fullness of God’s grace, all the fullness of God’s power, all the fullness of God’s purposes) was pleased to dwell in Jesus. It was God’s pleasure and delight that this should be so.
To what end? That ‘all things’ (again filled out as in verse 16: whether on earth or in heaven) might be reconciled through him and to him. The great rupture in the unity and harmony of all things has been mended through Christ’s sacrificial death: making peace by the blood of his cross. The rebellion has been put down, the hostilities have been brought to an end, peace has been made.
The message of Christianity is nowhere more remarkable than in what is claimed for the death of Jesus. The claim here is that the fundamental disharmony in the universe, the dissonance in the totality of all things, the discord in the whole of created existence, has been put right ‘by the blood of his cross’. It is an astonishing thing to say. The word ‘blood’ in verse 20 suggests that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice (‘blood’ was important in the Old Testament sacrificial system, see Lev. 17:11). However, this sacrifice did not just have consequences for Israel and Israelites (like the sacrifices of the book of Leviticus) but for all things ‘whether on earth or in heaven’. How could this be? That his death could have such cosmic consequences is accounted for by who this person is (1:15).
We must wait until later in the letter to learn more about how the death of Jesus could possibly have had such an astounding effect (see especially 2:11–15). Here we are simply told that it has because of who he is.
The breathtaking significance of the death of Jesus Christ accounts for why he is the new beginning and in his resurrection he is the firstborn from the dead (1:18b). It is why the body of which he is now the head is not yet the totality of all things, but the assembly of those who have now been reconciled to him—no matter how small and insignificant such an assembly might for now appear to be. The assembly that had gathered that day in Philemon’s house was that assembly in that place—the assembly of which HE is the head.
The same is true of each assembly of Christian believers today. It is something of extraordinary importance, no matter how unimpressive it might seem. The assembly of believers in any place is the body of which this Lord Jesus Christ is the head.
My hope for this chapter is that it will have helped you to hear these grand words of the apostle about our Lord Jesus Christ. May the hearing of these words be the means by which you are filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord, with a view to fully pleasing him, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, in all power being empowered, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father (1:9–12).
Then you will understand how the atheistic secularist could not be more wrong![7]
19. Note, however, the words, “that he might have.” These words show that this high honor possessed by the Son was a matter of design, the Father’s good pleasure. Hence, the text continues, For in him he [God] was pleased to have all the fulness dwell.
This delight of the Father in the Son was evident even during the old dispensation, yes, even before the world was founded (Ps. 2:7, 8; John 17:5; Eph. 1:9). During the period of Christ’s sojourn on earth it manifested itself again and again (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; John 12:28). It was indeed God’s good pleasure that in his Son all the fulness should dwell. The powers and attributes of Deity were not to be distributed among a multitude of angels. The divine supremacy or sovereignty, either as a whole or in part, was not to be surrendered to them. On the contrary, in accordance with God’s good pleasure, from all eternity the plenitude of the Godhead, the fulness of God’s essence and glory, which fulness is the source of grace and glory for believers, resides in the Son of his love, in him alone, not in him and the angels. It dwells in him whom we now serve as our exalted Mediator, and it manifests itself both in Creation and Redemption.
Explanatory passages are:
John 1:16, “For out of his fulness we have received grace upon grace.”
Col. 2:3, “in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up.”
Col. 2:9, “For in him all the fulness of the godhead dwells bodily.”
20. Now both in Col. 2:9, 10 and here in 1:19, 20 the fulness which dwells in Christ is mentioned with a practical purpose. It is a source of blessing. Thus here in Col. 1:19, 20 we are told that it was the good pleasure or delight of God the Father that in the Son of his love all the fulness should dwell and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens. Not only were all things created “through him,” that is, through the Son of God’s love (verse 16), but all things are also (in a sense to be explained) reconciled “through him” (verse 20). In both cases all things has the same meaning: all creatures without any exception whatever:
“There rustles a Name O so dear ’long the clouds,
That Name heaven and earth in grand harmony shrouds.”
This is the nearly literal translation of the first lines of a Dutch hymn:
“Daar ruist langs de wolken een lieflijke naam,
Die hemel en aarde verenigt te zaam.”
Some have objected to the lines for theological reasons.
Personally, I see no reason for rejecting the idea expressed in this poem. One might as well reject Col. 1:20! It is all a matter of interpretation. Thus, it is true, indeed that heaven and earth are not now united, and are not going to be united, in the sense that all rational beings in the entire universe are now with gladness of heart submitting themselves, or will at some future date joyfully submit themselves, to the rule of God in Christ. This universalistic interpretation of Col. 1:20 is contrary to Scripture (Ps. 1; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 7:13, 14; 25:46; John 5:28, 29; Phil. 3:18–21; 2 Thess. 1:3–10; and a host of other passages). It was Origen who was probably the first Christian universalist. In his youthful work De Principiis he suggested this thought of universal, final restoration for all. In his later writings he seems to imply it here and there, but obscures it somewhat by the suggestion of a constant succession of fall and restoration. He has, however, had many followers, and among them some have expressed themselves far more bluntly. Some time ago a minister told his audience, “In the end everybody is going to be saved. I have hope even for the devil.”
The real meaning of Col. 1:20 is probably as follows: Sin ruined the universe. It destroyed the harmony between one creature and the other, also between all creatures and their God. Through the blood of the cross (cf. Eph. 2:11–18), however, sin, in principle, has been conquered. The demand of the law has been satisfied, its curse born (Rom. 3:25; Gal. 3:13). Harmony, accordingly, has been restored. Peace was made. Through Christ and his cross the universe is brought back or restored to its proper relationship to God in the sense that as a just reward for his obedience Christ was exalted to the Father’s right hand, from which position of authority and power he rules the entire universe in the interest of the church and to the glory of God. This interpretation brings the present passage in harmony with the related ones written during this same imprisonment. Note the expression “the things on the earth or the things in the heavens” (or something very similar) not only here in Col. 1:20 but also in Eph. 1:10 and Phil. 2:10.
There is, of course, a difference in the manner in which various creatures submit to Christ’s rule and are “reconciled to God.” Those who are and remain evil, whether men or angels, submit ruefully, unwillingly. In their case peace, harmony, is imposed, not welcomed. But not only are their evil designs constantly being over-ruled for good, but these evil beings themselves have been, in principle, stripped of their power (Col. 2:15). They are brought into subjection (1 Cor. 15:24–28; cf. Eph. 1:21, 22), and “the God of peace (!) will bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16:20). The good angels, on the other hand, submit joyfully, eagerly. So do also the redeemed among men. This group includes the members of the Colossian church as far as they are true believers, a thought to which Paul gives expression in the following verses.[8]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1992). Colossians (pp. 52–67). Moody Press.
[2] Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians (pp. 72–76). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
[3] McKnight, S. (2018). The Letter to the Colossians (N. B. Stonehouse, F. F. Bruce, G. D. Fee, & J. B. Green, Eds.; pp. 160–167). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[4] Patzia, A. G. (2011). Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon (pp. 32–34). Baker Books.
[5] Lucas, R. C. (1980). Fullness & freedom: the message of Colossians & Philemon (pp. 53–58). InterVarsity Press.
[6] Bird, M. F. (2009). Colossians and Philemon (pp. 55–57). Cascade Books.
[7] Woodhouse, J. (2011). Colossians and Philemon: So Walk in Him (pp. 60–64). Christian Focus.
[8] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of Colossians and Philemon (Vol. 6, pp. 78–82). Baker Book House.
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