God’s Son, the King
by Edwin Crozier
I hope you are into memorizing Scripture. If not, I encourage you to get started. And a great place to start is Colossians 1:15-20. This passage answers the question, “Who is Jesus?”
The description of Jesus falls naturally into two sections. Both sections explain Jesus as the firstborn (πρωτότοκος/prōtotokos). Psalm 89:26-27 describes the descendant of David, saying, “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (ESV). Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise. Paul’s poetic description of Jesus as the firstborn who created all the kings, not only of the earth but also of the heavens, drives that fulfillment home.
In Colossians 1:15-18, Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation. “Firstborn” is a versatile word. Obviously, when referring to actual birth order, it means the one who is born first. However, it was also used, as in the Psalm above, to refer to supremacy and superiority. Jesus is not the first created being. John 1:3 explains that all created things were created by Him. That statement can’t be true if He Himself is a created being. Jesus is the firstborn of creation because He is the ruler of creation, and because He created all created things. He even created the rulers and authorities. He is supreme over all creation.
Paul wants to make sure we understand His rule over creation by explaining He was before all things–implicitly before all created things. No wonder He is the image of the invisible God.
Further, He holds all things together. The universe doesn’t continue because Christ set it in motion, and it just continues. His creative power sustains it as well. If Christ removed His sustaining hand, existence as we know it would fall apart. Being above all rule and authority, He is the head of the church as well as of creation.
In Colossians 1:18-20, Jesus is the beginning. Though that word can also mean “ruler.” In fact, it is the same word translated “rulers” in Colossians 1:16. He is the “firstborn from the dead.” The use of the preposition “from” seems to signify Jesus as the first, not as the supreme.
Jesus was not the first person to be raised from the dead. Even in Jesus’s own story, He raised several others from the dead–Jairus’s daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, and Lazarus. He was, however, the first to be born from the dead, never to die again. Even for that, though, the real issue is not His status as the first, but His status as the one who defeated death. Because He was raised from the dead, never to die again, we too can be raised from the dead. In that way, even while saying He was the first to be born from the dead, the point still gets back to being the ruler, the supreme, the superior. Thus, Paul says that because of this resurrection, He is pre-eminent. Not merely is He before all, He is above all. He is above even death, the seeming unmaker of all that is made.
Not only is He the image of the invisible God, but the fullness of God dwelt in Him. Many English translations make explicit what the Greek only implies. The fullness in Jesus is the fullness that is God. As firstborn from the dead, He not only created all things in heaven and on earth, but He also reconciles all things in heaven and on earth to God. He did that by the very blood which redeemed us from our sins and qualified us to be transferred into His kingdom of light in Colossians 1:13-14.
Jesus is incredible. He is the firstborn. He is the creator. He is the redeemer. He is our King and our Lord. May we confess Him and give our full allegiance to Him that we might be brothers and sisters of the Firstborn.
