Colossians 1:16

for because. Now follows the proof, given in the creative action of the Son, of His priority to and lordship over created being.

by him Lit. and far better, in Him. "The act of creation is supposed to rest in Him, and to depend on Him for its completion and realization" (Ellicott). In other words, the mighty fact that all things were created was bound up withHim, as its Secret. The creation of things was inHim, as the effect is inits cause.

A meaning so to speak more recondite has been seen here. The text has been taken to mean that the Son, the Logos, is as it were the archetypal Universe, the Sphere and Summary of all finite being as it existed (above time and temporal development) in the Eternal Mind; and accordingly that, when it came into being in time, its creation was "in" Him who thus summed it up. We venture to think that such a view is rather "read into" the words of the Christian Apostle, from non-Christian philosophies, (see Appendix C), than derived from the words.

were … created A real event, or real events, in time. The Son is seen to have been "First with regard to creation" by the fact that He produced it; Himself existing before (or rather above) time, above all succession, all becoming.

" Created:" the Greek verb denotes the making, constituting, of a new state of things. As a Divineoperation, such "creation" is the ordering by sovereign will of the material (of whatever kind) which by that will exists. See on Ephesians 2:10; and cp. John 1:3; Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 1:10-12; Hebrews 3:3-4.

The "Creator" here in view is properly the Father, working "in" the Son. But such, in the light of the context, is the Son, that, being from one point of view the Instrument, He is also from another the eternal Co-Agent of the Father's will.

that are in heaven, and that are in earth In all regions of finite being; in the whole created universe. Cp. Genesis 1:1, and a long chain of passages down to Revelation 21:1.

visible and invisible Belonging to all orders of finite being. The division is not precisely between "material" and "spiritual;" for e.g. human beings might be classed under both these. It practically emphasizes the fact that personal powers of the Unseen Universe were as truly "created in" the Son of God as existences (of any kind) that could be seen. Here, as through the whole passage, the errors current at Colossæ are in view; errors which put "Christ" and the unseen Powers in a very different relation. See Introd., ch. 3.

thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers More strictly, thrones, or lordships, or governments, or authorities. See Ephesians 1:21 for a close parallel. The word "thrones" is absent there, as "powers" (dunameis) is absent here. For similar language cp. Romans 8:38; below, Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 3:10; Eph 6:12; 1 Peter 3:22. See further our notes on Ephesians 1:21 (partially quoted below, Appendix D).

Lightfoot remarks here: "No stress can be laid on the sequence of the names, as though St Paul were enunciating with authority some precise doctrine respecting the grades of the celestial hierarchy.… He does not profess to describe objective realities, but contents himself with repeating subjective opinions.… His language here shews the same spirit of impatience with this elaborate angelology as in Colossians 2:18." We venture to dissent, in measure, from this statement. It is most certain that St Paul is not here directly and as a main purpose teaching a doctrine of angels. But he is glorifying the Son of God by a view of His relation to created being; and assuredly this would not be best done by alluding to phases of created being which might all the while be figments of the imagination. Passingly, but distinctly, so we hold, he does affirm the existence both of angels and of angelic orders, "the powers that be" of the invisible world, "created in" the eternal Cornerstone of order, the Son of God. In Ephesians 3:10, beyond question, "the principalities and powers" are regarded as factsof the unseen world.

all things From the details of his allusion to the hierarchies he returns to the universal statement.

were created Lit. have been created, stand created. (Not so in the first clause of this verse.)

by him Quite precisely, through Him; the phrase of e.g. John 1:3; John 1:10; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:2. It teaches that the Son, in creation, while Himself a true Divine Origin (" Beginning," Revelation 3:14) of finite being, is the Divine Instrument of the Father's supreme Origination. The phrase alone does not quitefix this meaning, for in a very few passages (e.g. Hebrews 2:10) it is used of a supreme Agent's action. But phrase and context together, as here, are decisive.

for him "The Word is the final cause as well as the creative agent of the Universe … the goal of the Universe, as He was the starting-point.… This expression has no parallel, and could have none, in the Alexandrian phraseology and doctrine" (Lightfoot). Thus interpreted, this wonderful phrase points to that "far-off Divine event" shadowed out by 1 Corinthians 15:28; when all finite existence, even all existence which from its own sideis "hostile" to God, shall be "put under the feet" of the Son, made the footstool of His throne, contributing with a harmony perfect from the side of Godto the glorification of the Son, and the realization of the Father's eternal purpose in Him. Meanwhile the words surely refer not to the mysterious future only, but to the present, to all periods and moments. From one side or another all finite being is, consciously or not, willingly or not, always subserving the glory of the Son of God, and of the Father in Him.

We gather from 1 Corinthians 15:28 that the "event" of the final subjection of all things to the Son will open up, in eternity, a mysterious "subjection" of the Son to the Father. What that means we cannot enquire here. Whatever it is, it is no dethronement of the Son (Revelation 22:3); most surely no revolutionin the inner and eternal Relations of Godhead; rather, a mighty Manifestation of Sonship and Fatherhood. It is instructive in this direction to remember that the present passage was written some years later than 1 Corinthians 15, and that thus the course of inspiration did anything but lowerthe Apostle's language about the glory and eternity of the Son.

In the light of this phrase deep is the significance of, e.g., Romans 14:8, and of every Scripture in which Christ appears as the Lord and God of the believer's life and being.

F. CHRIST AND CREATION. (Colossians 1:16.)

"The heresy of the Colossian teachers took its rise … in their cosmical speculations. It was therefore natural that the Apostle in replying should lay stress on the function of the Word in the creation and government of the world. This is the aspect of His work most prominent in the first of the two distinctly Christological passages. The Apostle there predicates of the Word [the Son] not only prior but absolute existence. All things were created by Him, are sustained in Him, are tending towards Him. Thus He is the beginning, middle, and end of creation. This He is because He is the very Imageof the Invisible God, because in Him dwells the Plenitude of Deity.

"This creative and administrative work of Christ the Word [the Son] in the natural order of things is always emphasized in the writings of the Apostles when they touch on the doctrine of His Person … With ourselves this idea has retired very much into the background … And the loss is serious … How much more hearty would be the sympathy of theologians with the revelations of science and the developments of history, if they habitually connected them with the operations of the same Divine Word who is the centre of all their religious aspirations, it is needless to say.

"It will be said indeed that this conception leaves … creation … as much a mystery as before. This may be allowed. But is there any reason to think that with our present limited capacities the veil which shrouds it ever will be removed? The metaphysical speculations of twenty-five centuries have done nothing to raise it. The physical investigations of our own age from their very nature can do nothing; for, busied with the evolution of phenomena, they lie wholly outside this question, and do not even touch the fringe of the difficulty. But meanwhile revelation has interposed, and thrown out the idea which, if it leaves many questions unsolved, gives a breadth and unity to our conceptions, at once satisfying our religious needs and linking our scientific instincts with our theological beliefs."

Lightfoot, Colossians, pp. 182, 183.

"From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,

Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man

In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes

The grand transition, that there lives and works

A soul in all things, and that soul is God.

The Lord of all, Himself through all diffused,

Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.

Nature is but a name for an effect

Whose Cause is God. He feeds the secret fire

By which the mighty process is maintain'd …

[All things] are under One. One Spirit, His

Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,

Rules universal Nature. Not a flower

But shews some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,

Of His unrival'd pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,

And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes

In grains as countless as the seaside sands,

The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.

Happy who walks with Him! whom what he finds

Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,

Or what he views of beautiful or grand, …

Prompts with remembrance of a present God."

Cowper, The Task, Book vi.

The views outlined by Bishop Lightfoot, in the passage quoted above, are pregnant of spiritual and mental assistance. At the same time with them, as with other great aspects of Divine Truth, a reverent caution is needed in the development and limitation. The doctrine of the Creating Word, the Eternal Son, "in" Whom finite existence has its Corner-stone, may actually degenerate into a view both of Christ and Creation nearer akin to some forms of Greek speculation than to Christianity, if not continually balanced and guarded by a recollection of other great contents of Revelation. Dr J. H. Rigg, in Modern Anglican Theology(3rd Edition, 1880), has drawn attention to the affinity which some recent influential forms of Christian thought bear to Neo-Platonism rather than to the New Testament. In particular, any view of the relation of Christ to "Nature" and to man which leads to the conclusion that all human existences are so "in Christ" that the individual man is vitally united to Him antecedent to regeneration, and irrespective of the propitiation of the Cross, tends to non-Christian affinities. It is a fact never to be lost sight of that any theology which on the whole gives to the mysteries of guilt and propitiation a less prominentplace than that given to them in Holy Scripture, tends to a very wide divergence from the scriptural type. Here, as in all things, the safety of thought lies on the one hand in neglecting no great element of revealed truth, on the other in coordinating the elements on the scale, and in the manner, of Divine Revelation.

G. DEVELOPMENTS OF DOCTRINE IN COLOSSIANS. (Colossians 1:16)

In the precise form presented in Colossiansthe revelation of the Creative Work of the Son is new in St Paul's Epistles. But intimations of it are to be found in the earlier Epistles, and such as to make this final development as natural as it is impressive. In 1 Corinthians 8:6 we have the "one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him;" which is in effect the germ of the statements of Colossians 1. And in Romans 8:19-23 we have a passage pregnant with the thought that the created Universe has a mysterious relation to "the sons of God," such that their glorification will be also its emancipation from the laws of decay; or at least that the glorification and the emancipation are deeply related to each other. Nothing is wanted to make the kinship of that passage and Colossians 1 evident at a glance, but an explicit mention of Christ as the Head of both worlds. As it is, His mysterious but most real connexion with the making and the maintaining of the Universe is seen lying as it were just below the surface of the passage in Romans.

H. "THRONES AND DOMINIONS." (Colossians 1:16)

We transcribe here a note from our edition of Ephesiansin this Series; on the words of Ephesians 1:21:

"Two thoughts are conveyed; first, subordinately, the existence of orders and authorities in the angelic (as well as human) world; then, primarily, the imperial and absolute Headship of the Son over them all. The additional thought is given us by Colossians 1:16, that He was also, in His preexistent glory, their Creator; but this is not in definite view here, where He appears altogether as the exalted Son of Man after Death. In Romans 8; Colossians 2, and Ephesians 6 … we have cognate phrases where evilpowers are meant.… But the context here is distinctly favourable to a goodreference. That the Redeemer should be "exalted above" powers of evilis a thought scarcely adequate in a connexion so full of the imagery of glory as this. That He should be "exalted above" the holy angels is fully in point. 1 Peter 3:22 is our best parallel; and cp. Revelation 5:11-12. See also Matthew 13:41; "The Son of Man shall send forth Hisangels."

"We gather from the Epistle to the Colossians that the Churches of Asia Proper were at this time in danger from a quasi-Jewish doctrine of Angel-worship, akin to the heresies afterwards known as Gnosticism. Such a fact gives special point to the phrases here. On the other hand it does not warrant the inference that St Paul repudiates all the ideas of such an angelology. The idea of order and authority in the angelic world he surely endorses, though quite in passing.

"Theories of angelic orders, more or less elaborate, are found in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, (cent. 1 2); Origen (cent. 3); St Ephrem Syrus (cent. 4). By far the most famous ancient treatise on the subject is the book On the Celestial Hierarchy, under the name (certainly assumed) of Dionysius the Areopagite; a book first mentioned cent. 6, from which time onwards it had a commanding influence in Christendom. (See Article Dionysiusin Smith's Dict. Christ. Biography). "Dionysius" ranked the orders (in descending scale) in three Trines;Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers (Authorities); Principalities, Archangels, Angels. The titles are thus a combination of the terms Seraphim, Cherubim, Archangels, Angels, with those used by St Paul here and in Colossians 1.

"Readers of Paradise Lost, familiar with the majestic line,

-Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Pow'rs,"

are not always aware of its learned accuracy of allusion. The Dionysian system powerfully attracted the sublime mind of Dante. In the Paradiso, Canto xxxviii., is a grand and characteristic passage, in which Beatrice expounds the theory to Dante, as he stands, in the Ninth Heaven, in actual view of the Hierarchies encircling the Divine Essence:

-All, as they circle in their orders, look

Aloft; and, downward, with such sway prevail

That all with mutual impulse tend to God.

These once a mortal view beheld. Desire

In Dionysius so intensely wrought

That he, as I have done, ranged them, and named

Their orders, marshal'd in his thought."

Cary's Dante."