God’s True Image: Christ Before Time Began
Daily Scripture
Colossians 1:15-20
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the one who is first over all creation,
16 Because all things were created by him:
both in the heavens and on the earth,
the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.
Whether they are thrones or powers,
or rulers or authorities,
all things were created through him and for him.
17 He existed before all things,
and all things are held together in him.
18 He is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning,
the one who is firstborn from among the dead
so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
19 Because all the fullness of God was pleased to live in him,
20 and he reconciled all things to himself through him—
whether things on earth or in the heavens.
He brought peace through the blood of his cross.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The apostle Paul was part of a growing, thriving Christian community. One key to his vast impact on the community’s faith was that he joined in the Christians’ expressions of their shared faith in Jesus. Scholar J. R. Daniel Kirk said Colossians 1 was “probably an early Christian hymn. It uses language for humanity from Genesis 1 to describe the preexistent Christ.” * That potent (and very early) expression of Christian faith shaped much of the Nicene Creed’s language.
- Passages like today’s show that Christians did not take centuries to begin speaking of Jesus as God. Scholar Larry Hurtado said, “In historical terms we may refer to a veritable ‘big bang,’ an explosively rapid and impressively substantial christological [i.e., study of Christ’s identity and meaning] development in the earliest stage of the Christian movement.” ** Paul likely sang this profound hymn. What songs have helped shape your faith and sharing?
- Scholar William Barclay wrote, “The object of [Jesus’] coming was… to bridge the chasm between God and man…. The initiative in reconciliation was with God…. God’s attitude to [people] was love, and it was never anything else.” *** The Nicene Creed clarified some of the mysteries about Jesus’ divinity to refute Arius. Paul simply quoted the hymn which said Jesus gave the early believers new life. In what ways has serving Jesus changed your life for the better?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Paul and those early Christians believed what the Nicene Creed later said: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.” I join them in that faith and loyalty. Amen.
GPS Insights
Amy Oden
Dr. Amy Oden, who serves as Adjunct Professor of Early Church History and Spirituality at the Oklahoma campus of Saint Paul School of Theology, wrote today's Insights. Teaching is her calling, and she looks forward to every day with students. Her book (Right Here, Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness, Abingdon Press, 2017) traces ancient mindfulness practice for Christians today.
“The fullness of God” – this phrase caught me up short as I read Colossians 1 for the umpteenth time. How had I missed it before? As I paused to re-read verse 19, I felt my chest open up with longing and possibility, surely a holy invitation to rest in these words awhile.
This led me to check out The Message translation because Eugene Peterson so often offers a refreshing turn of phrase. Here it is: “So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding” (Colossians 1:19 from Peterson, Eugene H. The Message Numbered Edition Hardback. Navpress. Kindle Edition.)
Wow, a powerful image for what it means to say Jesus is fully God! Imagine God’s fullness as Jesus’ ever-expanding arms, encompassing more and more, all of life reconciled and healed here. These descriptions speak to me, pull me into a vision of fullness that can hold all my life, all the world’s joy and suffering and everything in between.
What if the “fullness of God” in Jesus is not a divine status set above us, but is an expanse holding us? What if Jesus’ way of being is “so spacious … so expansive” (The Message, v. 19) that nothing is left outside of it, nothing thrown away or wasted, nothing unacceptable or unreceivable? This is the good news I want to live in.
My prayer today is that I follow Jesus into the abundant, overflowing Way, spacious and expansive.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* J. R. Daniel Kirk, study note on Colossians 1:15-20 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 383 NT.
** Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003, p. 135.
*** William Barclay, The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians and Thessalonians (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 122.
