Replies

From: Colossians 1:15-20

Hymn in Praise of Christ as Head of All Creation

[15] He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation;
[16] for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisi-
ble, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were
created through him and for him. [17] He is before all things, and in him all things
hold together. [18] He is the head of the body, the church, he is the beginning;
the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For
in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to re-
concile to himself all things.

*********************************************************************************************
Commentary:

15-20. Now we come to a very beautiful hymn in praise of Christ’s sublime dignity
as God and as man. This was a truth deserving emphasis in view of the danger to
the faith which the false apostles’ teaching represented (cf. note on vv. 7-8). How-
ever, quite apart from the particular situation in Colossae, the sublime teaching
contained in this canticle holds good for all times; it is one of the most important
Christological texts in St Paul’s writings.

The real protagonist of this passage is the Son of God made man, whose two na-
tures, divine and human, are always linked in the divine person of the Word. How-
ever, at some points St Paul stresses his divinity (vv. 16, 17, 18b and 19) and at
others his humanity (vv. 15, 18a, 18c and 20). The underlying theme of the hymn
is Christ’s total pre-eminence over all creation.

We can distinguish two stanzas in the hymn. In the first (vv. 15-17) Christ’s domi-
nion is stated to embrace the entire cosmos, stemming as it does from his action
as Creator: “in him all things were created” (v. 16). This same statement is made
in the prologue to the fourth Gospel (cf. Jn 1:3), and it is implied in the Book of
Genesis, which tells us that creation was effected by God’s word (cf. Gen 1:3, 6,
9, etc.). Since Christ is the Word of God, he is above all things, and therefore St
Paul stresses that all angels — irrespective of their hierarchy or order — come un-
der his sway.

Christ’s pre-eminence over natural creation is followed by his primacy in the eco-
nomy of supernatural salvation, a second creation worked by God through grace.
The second stanza (vv. 18-20) refers to this further primacy of Christ: by his death
on the cross, Christ has restored peace and has reconciled all things — the world
and mankind — to God. Jews and Gentiles both are called to form part of one bo-
dy, the Church, of which Christ is the head; and all the celestial powers are sub-
ject to his authority.

This passage is, then, a sublime canticle celebrating Christ, the head by virtue
of his surpassing excellence and his salvific action. “The Son of God and of the
Blessed Virgin”, Pius XII teaches, “must be called the head of the Church for the
special reason of his preeminence. For the head holds the highest place. But
none holds a higher place than Christ as God for he is the Word of the Eternal
Father and is therefore justly called ‘the first-born of all creation’. None holds a
higher place than Christ as man, for he, born of the immaculate Virgin, is the
true and natural Son of God, and by reason of his miraculous and glorious resur-
rection by which he triumphed over death he is ‘the first-born from the dead’. And
none stands higher than he who, being the ‘one mediator between God and man’
(1 Tim 2:5), admirably unites earth with heaven; who, exalted on the Cross as
on his throne of mercy, has drawn all things to himself” (”Mystici Corporis”, 15).

15. By the unaided use of reason man can work out that God exists, but he
could never, on his own, have grasped the essence of God: in this sense God is
said to be invisible (cf. St Thomas, “Commentary on Col, ad loc.”). This is why it
is said in St John’s Gospel that “no one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18).

In Sacred Scripture we are told that man was created “in the image of God”
(Gen 1:26). However, only the second person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son, is
the perfect image and likeness of the Father. “The image [likeness] of a thing
may be found in something else in two ways; in one way it is found in something
of the same specific nature — as the image of the king is found in his son; in ano-
ther way it is found in something of a different nature, as the king’s image on the
coin. In the first sense the Son is the image of the Father; in the second sense
man is called the image of God; and therefore in order to express the imperfect
character of the divine image in man, man is not simply called ‘the image’ but is
referred to as being ‘according to the image’, whereby is expressed a certain
movement or tendency to perfection. But it cannot be said that the Son of God is
‘according to the image’, because he is the perfect image of the Father” (”Summa
Theologiae”, I, q. 35, a. 2 ad 3). And so, “for something to be truly an image, it
has to proceed from another as similar to it in species, or at least in some aspect
of the species” (”Summa Theologiae”, I, q. 35, a. 1, c.) To say that the Son is “im-
age of the invisible God” means that the Father and the Son are one-in-substance
— that is, both possess the same divine nature — with the nuance that the Son pro-
ceeds from the Father. It also conveys the fact that they are two distinct persons,
for no one is the image of himself.

The supreme revelation of God is that effected by the Son of God through his In-
carnation. He is the only one who can say, “He who has seen me has seen the
Father” (Jn 14:9). His sacred humanity, therefore, reflects the perfections of God,
which he possesses by virtue of the hypostatic union — the union of divine nature
and human nature which occurs in his person, which is divine. The second Per-
son of the Trinity restored man to his original dignity. The image of God, imper-
fect though it be, which there is in every man and woman, was blurred by Adam’s
sin; but it was restored in Christ: God’s true self-image takes on a nature the
same as ours, and thanks to the redemption wrought by his death, we obtain
forgiveness of sins (v. 14).

Jesus Christ is the “first-born of all creation” by virtue of the hypostatic union.
He is, of course, prior to all creation, for he proceeds eternally from the Father
by generation. This the Church has always believed, and it proclaims it in the
Creed: “born of the Father before time began ..., begotten, not made, of one
being [consubstantial] with the Father” (”Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed”).

In Jewish culture, the first-born was first in honor and in law. When the Apostle
calls Jesus “the first-born of all creation”, he is referring to the fact that Christ
has pre-eminence and headship over all created things, because not only does
he pre-date them but they were all created “through him” and “for him” (v. 16).

16-17. Jesus Christ is God; this is why he has pre-eminence over all created
things. The relationships between Christ and creation are spelled out by three
prepositions. “In him all things were created”: in Christ: he is their source, their
center and their model or exemplary cause. “All things were created through
him and for him”: through him, in other words, God the Father, through God the
Son, creates all things; and for him, because he is the last end, the purpose or
goal of everything.

St Paul goes on to say that “in him all things hold together”; “the Son of God
has not only created everything: he conserves everything in being; thus, if his
sovereign will were to cease to operate for even an instant, everything would re-
turn into the nothingness from which he drew everything that exists” (Chrysos-
tom, “Hom. on Col, ad loc.”).

All created things, then, continue in existence because they share, albeit in a
limited way, in Christ’s infinite fullness of existence or perfection. His dominion
extends not only over celestial things but also over all material things, however
insignificant they may seem: it embraces everything in heaven and in the physi-
cal universe.

The sacred text also points to Christ’s supremacy over invisible creation, that is,
over the angels and celestial hierarchies (cf. Heb 1:5). If St Paul stresses this
fact, it is to expose the errors of those who were depicting Jesus as a creature
intermediary between corporeal beings and spiritual created beings, and, there-
fore, lower than the angels.

18. “He is the head of the body, the church”: this image shows the relationship
of Christ with the Church, to which he sends his grace in abundance, bearing life
to all its members. ‘The head,” St Augustine says, “is our very Savior, who suf-
fered under Pontius Pilate and now, after rising from the dead, is seated at the
right hand of the Father. And his body is the Church [...] For the whole Church,
made up of the assembly of the faithful — for all the faithful are Christ’s mem-
bers — has Christ, as its head, who rules his body from on high” (”Enarrationes
in Psalmos”, 56, 1).

St Paul unequivocally teaches that the Church is a body. “Now if the Church is
a body it must be something one and undivided, according to the statement of St
Paul: ‘We, though many, are one body in Christ’ (Rom 12:5). And not only must
it be one and undivided, it must also be something concrete and visible, as our
Predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, says in his Encyclical “Satis Cognitum”:
‘By the very fact of being a body the Church is visible.’ It is therefore an aberra-
tion from divine truth to represent the Church as something intangible and invisi-
ble, as a mere ‘pneumatic’ entity joining together by an invisible link a number
of communities of Christians in spite of their difference in faith.

“But a body requires a number of members so connected that they help one ano-
ther. And, in fact, as in our mortal organism when one member suffers the others
suffer with it, and the healthy members come to the assistance of those who are
ailing, so in the Church individual members do not live only for themselves but
also help one another, alleviating their suffering and helping to build up the entire
body” (Pius XII, “Mystici Corporis”, 7).

“He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead”: this can be said because he
was the first man to rise from the dead, never again to die (cf. 1 Cor 15:20; Rev
1:5), and also because thanks to him it enabled men to experience resurrection
in glory (cf. 1 Cor 15:22; Rom 8:11), because they are justified through him (cf.
Rom 4:25).

So, just as the previous verses looked to Christ’s pre-eminent role in creations
the hymn now focuses on his primacy in a new creation — the rebirth of mankind,
and all creation in its train, in the supernatural order of grace and glory. Christ
rose from the dead to enable us also to walk in newness of life (cf. Rom 6:4).
Therefore, in every way Jesus Christ is “pre-eminent.”

19. The word “pleroma” translated here as “fullness”, has two meanings in Greek:
one, an active meaning, describes something that “fills” or “completes”; for exam-
ple, a ship’s full load can be referred to as its pleroma. The other meaning is pas-
sive, “that which is filled” or “that which is complete”, so that a ship can be said
to be “pleroma” when it is fully loaded. In this passage St Paul is using the word
in both senses: Christ is the fullness (passive sense) of the Godhead (cf. Col 2:9),
because he is full of all the perfections of the divine essence; and he is the full-
ness (active sense), because he fills the Church and all creation.

St John Chrysostom suggests that “the word ‘fullness’ is to be taken to mean
the divinity of Jesus Christ [...]. This term has been chosen the better to show
that the very essence of the godhead resides in Jesus Christ” (”Hom. on Col,
ad loc.”).

Since Christ possesses the divine nature, he also possesses the fullness of the
supernatural gifts, for himself and for all mankind. Hence St Thomas’ comment
that pleroma “reveals the dignity of the head in so far as it has the fullness of all
grace” (Commentary on Col, ad loc.). In this sense, Christ is the fullness of the
Church, for as its head he vivifies his body with all kinds of unmerited gifts. Final-
ly, the entire created universe can be termed the “fullness” (”pleroma”) of Christ,
because everything that exists in heaven and on earth has been created and is
maintained in existence by him (cf. vv. 16-17); they are ever-present to him and
are ruled by him (cf. Is 6:3; Ps 139:8; Wis 1:7; etc.). Thus, the world, which was
created good (cf. Gen 1:31) tends towards its fulfillment insofar as it clearly re-
flects the imprint God gave it at the start of creation.

20. Since Christ is pre-eminent over all creation, the Father chose to reconcile
all things to himself through him. Sin had cut man off from God, rupturing the per-
fect order which originally reigned in the created world. By shedding his blood on
the cross, Christ obtained peace for us; nothing in the universe falls outside the
scope of his peace-giving influence. He who in the beginning created all things in
heaven and on earth has reestablished peace throughout creation.

This reconciliation of all things, ushered in by Christ, is fostered by the Holy
Spirit who enables the Church to continue the process of reconciliation. However,
we will not attain the fullness of this reconciliation until we reach heaven, when
the entire created universe, along with mankind, will be perfectly renewed in
Christ (cf. “Lumen Gentium”, 48).

“The history of salvation — the salvation of the whole of humanity, as well as of
every human being of whatever period—is the wonderful history of a reconciliation;
the reconciliation whereby God, as Father, in the Blood and the Cross of his Son
made man, reconciles the world to himself and thus brings into being a new fa-
mily of those who have been reconciled.

“Reconciliation becomes necessary because there has been the break of sin
from which derive all the other forms of break within man and about him. Recon-
ciliation therefore, in order to be complete, necessarily requires liberation from
sin, which is to be rejected in its deepest roots. Thus a close internal link unites
“conversion” and “reconciliation”. It is impossible to split these two realities or to
speak of one and say nothing of the other (John Paul II, “Reconciliatio Et Paeni-
tentia”, 13).

Jesus Christ also counts on the cooperation of every individual Christian to apply
his work of redemption and peace to all creation. The founder of Opus Dei says,
in this connection: “We must love the world and work and all human things. For
the world is good. Adam’s sin destroyed the divine balance of creation; but God
the Father sent his only Son to reestablish peace, so that we his children by
adoption, might free creation from disorder and reconcile all things to God”
(”Christ Is Passing By”, 112).

*********************************************************************************************
Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.