Jesus at the Center: Colossians and the Cosmic Christ
Setting the Stage
Before we dive into the depths of the Colossians hymn, it’s worth pausing to appreciate what we’re about to encounter. Colossians 1:15-20 is breathtaking. Poetic, sweeping, and theologically rich, this passage stands among the most compelling articulations of Christ in the New Testament. But its grandeur can also obscure its meaning if we’re not paying attention.
These verses are often referred to as a hymn—possibly an early Christian song, maybe written by Paul, maybe not. Regardless of authorship, the text presents a stunning vision of Jesus: not merely teacher or savior, but the wisdom and presence of God woven into the very fabric of creation.
The Shape of the Poem
As we walk through the hymn, something begins to take shape. Structurally, it reads like poetry. We have six verses here, each built as a couplet: a short statement followed by a longer expansion. Statement and implication, introduction and explanation—this rhythmic pattern emerges three times.
And within that structure, Paul outlines three sweeping presuppositions about Jesus that form his cosmic theology:
The Son is the image of the invisible God.
Jesus is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
God was pleased to have all the divine fullness dwell in Christ.
This is the architecture of a theology that locates Jesus at the center of everything.
Jesus as the Image of God
For over a decade now, we’ve said at Commons that Jesus is the center. He is the lens through which we understand God. We even write it in the journal every year: that Jesus is the only exact representation of the divine, that God has always looked like Jesus, even when we didn’t see that clearly.
Colossians reinforces that deeply. Paul says, "The Son is the image of the invisible God" and in him all things—earth, sweat, stars, stones, humans, galaxies—were created. He connects Jesus to the ancient Hebrew idea of divine wisdom, personified in Proverbs 8 as a woman who was present with God at the creation of the world.
So Jesus is not simply a messenger of divine wisdom. He is the wisdom of God. The conversation God is having with humanity. The Sophia. The Logos. The creative word behind the world.
To follow Jesus, then, is more than adopting good life principles. It is to align oneself with the very love that undergirds the universe.
Jesus as the One Who Holds It All
Paul then shifts from origin to purpose. Not only were all things created in Christ, but now "in him all things hold together."
Jesus is not just the beginning. He is also the turning point and ultimately the destination of all stories. Paul calls him "the firstborn from the dead" because in Jesus, even death begins to unravel.
This is how Paul builds a case for cosmic hope. He says that God was pleased to let the fullness dwell in Christ. And that word—fullness—likely functions here as a divine name. The Fullness.
Reconciling All Things
And from that fullness, Paul dares to imagine that all things—everything created in Christ—will one day be reconciled to God. Heaven and earth. All things.
This idea is known as apocatastasis in theology. It’s Paul at his most imaginative and hopeful. He doesn’t give us a systematic roadmap, but he offers a vision so expansive that the church has wrestled with its implications for two thousand years.
What does it mean to hope that all things return to God? Maybe we don’t need to settle that today. But perhaps we can hold to this: that everything truly created in Christ will find its way home. And that anything pointing away from Christ can only ever be temporary.
The Path Home
If that's true, it changes the way we live. Because if Christ is the beginning, the center, and the end, then to follow Jesus is to walk the path already bending toward home.
"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things."
That’s a beautiful place to ground our journey through faith.
