The Portrait of God (Colossians 1:15)

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

In the original Greek, the first word is “He” which clearly refers to the Son (and in some translations, such as here, the word “Son” is used). He has brought us redemption as Paul said in the previous verses. The Son is the image of the Father. The Greek word “eikon” can mean “resemblance”, but it is much more probable that it means “complete likeness” here. The description of God, obviously the Father, as invisible echoes other New Testament descriptions, such as in Romans 1:20 and Hebrews 11:27. As Marcus Maxwell puts it: “God, who is beyond human sight or comprehension, has provided a picture of himself.” Christ makes known to humans an unseen God. This is a major theme of John’s gospel.

The Ten Commandments forbid humans to make an image of God. He was too exalted to be brought down to our levels, too great and powerful to be chained to human form or controlled by human beings. Yet, he voluntarily agreed, from his great love for us, to do all this to himself. To quote Marcus Maxwell again: “If Jesus Christ  calls us to redefine God, it is because he embodies in a living person the reality and nature of God. If God has shown himself to be the saviour of Israel by bringing them out of slavery, that saving nature is made visible and present in Christ the Saviour. If God has shown himself to be compassionate, that compassion takes flesh in Christ, and is shown in daily acts of forgiveness and healing.”

The Son existed before creation itself which also echoes John’s gospel. He is “firstborn” which is a highly significant word in the Old Testament. Notice too that Luke uses the term in reference to Mary having Jesus. However, the word doesn’t just refer to birth order but also to rank and stresses Christ’s eminence in the order of all things and beings. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul writes “Those he foreknew, you see, he also marked out in advance to be shaped according to the model of the image of his son, so that he might be the firstborn of a large family” (translation N.T. Wright). Verse 29 explains God’s plan and verse 30 how he put it into effect. To cite Tom Wright: “God’s plan, you see (explains Paul) was to create a family of Messiah-shaped people through whom he would do what had to be done.” And as Wright also points out about Romans 8, this section concerns “the vocation of the saved community, the calling to implement the already-accomplished work of Jesus the Messiah within and for the benefit of the wider world of all creation.” Christ is the first of many siblings, of a huge family.

As the firstborn before all creation, Christ is identified with the Old Testament concept of Wisdom (which is always personified as feminine). In Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 24:9 Wisdom states; “Before all ages, from the beginning, he created me, and through all ages I shall not cease to be.” In Greek philosophy there is the concept of Logos, word/reason. For example, the Stoics spoke of the logos spermatikos, which was the generative principle of the universe. The Jewish thinker, Philo of Alexandria, brought the concept of Logos into Jewish thought. John identifies the Logos with Christ at the start of his gospel and thus unites Genesis with the story of Jesus of Nazareth.

The evangelical Lutheran scholar, Eduard Lohse argues that for Paul in Colossians: “The point is not a temporal advantage but rather the superiority which is due to him as the agent of creation who is before all creation. As the first-born he stands over creation as Lord.” So Paul is not saying that Christ is not the first created being, and we believe he co-exists with the Father. Note too that time started with creation so Christ is eternal.