Is Jesus God? What Colossians 1 says in New Testament Greek

Does Colossians chapter one support the deity of Christ, and if so, how

Well, in this video we’re going to do a walkthrough of Colossians chapter one, verses 15 through 17 to look at what the New Testament actually says, and particularly what this passage says about the deity of Christ. We’re going to be working primarily from the greek text, but as we go, we’ll make sure we’ve got the english text up there so you can see exactly what the text says in english translation as well.

And we’re going to walk through this bit by bit, do a little bit of a study on it, and just sort of talk about how this passage really supports the deity of Christ. So let’s get into it. Hi, I’m Daryl Birling from biblical mastery Academy, here to help you with the tools, habits and systems to learn to read and study the New Testament in the original language. If you’re interested in doing that, then check out some of our free resources at BMA to get started, where you can really get a bit of an overview of what the process looks like and get into it right away.

So, as I mentioned, we’re going to be looking at Colossians chapter one. So if you have a Bible, maybe this is a time to look at it. So we start with verse 15, which says, in English at least, he is the image of the invisible God. And this is really your core base proposition. A proposition is just a statement of truth, right? So Paul here is putting forward this statement as a fundamental proposition, starting point, if you like, from which then the rest of this passage comes forth.

And in fact, this verse itself actually depends on what comes forward. It’s actually a dependent clause, it’s a relative clause that is rooted in what comes prior. In fact, we just tend to see in Paul these really, really long sentences where one thought flows into another. The question on this verse, though, is what does it mean that he is the image of the invisible God? Well, the idea of an icon, which is what we have here in the greek, can mean one of two things.

It could mean to start with the likeness of something. And so the idea here is that if you take Jesus’s mention of the denarius. And he holds that up for the people around him to say. And he says, whose images on this? It’s like, whose likeness is this picture here on this coin? But there is another way this word is used, and that’s the idea of representation. Now, these two ideas, I think, in this verse, actually come together in an important way.

Here we have the image, if you like, of the invisible God, the God who was invisible, if you look at the way the greek construction is done there. So what we have here is the idea that Jesus is. Yes, he is the likeness, but he is not just the likeness of something that, you know, what that looks like. He’s the likeness of something you’ve never seen, can’t see, because he is invisible.

So Jesus then, is the likeness of God, the physical likeness of an immaterial being, but he’s also the physical representation of the invisible God as well. So I think Christ fills both roles with regards to the image, the econ of God in this verse. Now, one of the interesting things about Paul is he sort of layers things together. And so here Paul goes on to talk about the prototokos, the.

The firstborn of all creation. So this whole piece here, the protonikos, the firstborn of all creation, the idea of this is actually that this sits in what’s called apposition. So in other words, it’s. And perhaps he is better as epexygetical. But the idea here is, it’s giving further explanation of what it means to be the image of God. He is the firstborn. And this is where that representation idea really kicks in, the firstborn of all creation.

Now, that doesn’t mean to say that Jesus is created. That’s not the point. The emphasis here is on the prototokos, the firstborn element of that. And the firstborn idea here does not necessarily mean the one who is born first. Now, typically, the one who has this firstborn status is born first, but it’s really more about the status than it is about the actual order of birth. And we can see that when we look at patterns such as Exodus chapter four, verse 22, where God refers to Israel as his firstborn.

Now, if you go back prior to this, to when Isaac had Esau and Jacob later on named Israel, you’ll find that actually Esau was born first, but he sold his birthright, and therefore Israel became the firstborn. And again, that doesn’t apply just to the whole multitude of the nation that we see in Exodus chapter four, but actually to Jacob as the youngest son, taking over and inheriting the birthright of his older brother and therefore becoming the prototokos, the firstborn by status, even though he didn’t possess that by order.

Now, in most cases, the firstborn status is something that comes with being born first, but it’s transferable, as we see from this. And we see this also in roman law, where you could actually adopt a son, and that son would then become the heir of your property and your actual son, who might have been born into your family, who may be older. He loses that right of inheritance because you adopt somebody who can actually take on that role.

So there is then this idea of prototypos, which actually refers not just to the order of birth, but actually to the status of birthright, the inheritance, right, that comes normally with that firstborn order. And so Jesus here is that firstborn, but not necessarily just because he’s the first one born, but we’ll see that in a moment. Not to say that he’s the first created being, that’s not the point, really, just to show that he has this birthright.

So here’s the primary one of the children of those who are created, if you like, those who inhabit flesh is probably a better way of putting it. Jesus is the dominant one, the primary one. That’s the whole point here. So these two ideas of the image of goddess and the prototypos are really two ideas that go together. And then what we have following on from that is this otti clause where we have oti en av tau ectiste.

Now this then is because, right, this is explaining why Jesus has this preeminence, if you like, that we see in verse 15. So in verse 15, he is the image of the invisible God. That which can’t be seen is now visible and represented in the person of Christ. And he is the firstborn, the one who has the right of inheritance over all creation. And you could actually, in fact, argue that all creation is the inheritance rather than that he is one of creation.

But anyway, we’ll put that aside because the reason for all of this, though, is because all things by him were created. Now there is this, with this enough to here there is this question of, well, what does this actually mean? And there are two different translations we find in our two main translations, I think, that we find in our english bibles here. The first one is that it has this idea of a location.

So in him all things were created. We find this in the legacy standard Bible, for instance. And if we do take that idea of location, which I’m not a huge fan of. We do need to note that it’s different to the in the heavens and on the earth. Right. So that is a clear location. All things in the heaven and on the earth were created in him. Right?

Okay. But they’re in the heavens and in the earth. So the sense in which they’re in heaven and on earth is different to that in him. And so this would then render this as a dative of sphere, if you like, which would sort of be calling Jesus God anyway, because in him all things live and move and have their being according to acts chapter 17. And so Christ then is equated with God on the basis of that dative of sphere.

However, translation, some translations, and the new world translation by the Jehovah’s witnesses actually does this as well. It actually breaks out of this and it gives it a little bit more explicit meaning. And it says, by means of him, all things were created. Now, the idea of the new world translation doing this, I think, is to sort of reduce Jesus to merely a tool in the hand of God and not actually being God himself.

But I don’t know that this is actually, it’s not as big a problem, I think, as the Jehovah’s witnesses want it to be, because it doesn’t mean that Jesus can’t be God. Still, I think what they’re trying to do here is to say, well, Jesus was not the active agent in creation, and therefore he was passive, and therefore he’s not God because God was the active agent creating things.

The idea of creation always includes the entire godhead. And so there is no real conundrum here in that sense. And in fact, the context argues for Jesus being God as creation is taking place, as I’ll show you now, even if en avto here is a dative of means, which I think is reasonable, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Jesus was not God and was used by God as a tool for creating, because there are other issues that you need to actually deal with to get Christ out of the equation here, which I think are very difficult to do.

And one of those things is the fact that the next word is tapanta, all things. Okay, this is your nominative. This is the subject of the verb all things were created. Now, in Greek, in him was created. All things is the literal word order here, putting in him up front. So the idea here is that the preeminence of Christ is actually reflected in the word order to say that Christ is the firstborn, he is the prototypos, and the econ, the icon of the image of the invisible God, because he created in him, all things were created.

So in other words, this is actually saying, because of his role in creation, Jesus actually is this firstborn and he is this image bearer. So that’s one of the key things that you’ve got to deal with here. And the way that the new world translation does this is, it inserts a word when you’ve got all things, it says all other things. Now, there’s no warrant for this in Greek whatsoever.

As you can see, tapanta is just simply all things. And to make it even more clear, what follows that are two merisms. Now, a merism is a figure of speech that’s used normally, taking two opposite things that constitute the whole. An example of a merism is day and night. Okay? So whatever time of day it is day and night, it’s still a day part of the day, right?

You can’t get around that. It’s still within the timeframe of a day. It might move from one day to another day. But the point is that if I say to you, this is open day and night, you mean that it’s always open, it never closes. And that’s what a merism is all about. It’s two opposite ideas that are there to present the whole. So the two merisms that he has here, the first one is in the heavens and upon the earth.

Now, the idea here is that all that exists is either on the earth or in the heavens. And the heavens then include the spiritual realm, as well as just the sky and space and all that kind of thing. And some would argue that that’s the reason behind the plural here in heavens. The heavens plural, the air we breathe, the space and the immaterial part of the universe as well, the heavens.

So all that exists that’s being created is either on the earth or in heaven. Therefore, everything was created by him. The second merism here is the things visible and the things invisible. Now, all that was created is either visible or invisible, right? Whether it’s spirits or air, on the one hand, being invisible or whether it’s, you know, rocks, trees and grass, on the other hand, being visible. So in other words, everything that is created is either visible or invisible.

And he created all of it. So the use of these two mirrors, these two figures of speech here, is to further explain what tapanta, the all things, actually refers to. He’s really bringing this point out to say all things that you don’t get Christ out of the equation just by saying all other things were created by him. You have to recognize that all things were created by Christ, and that includes everything that’s visible and everything that’s not visible, everything that’s in the heavens and everything that’s on earth.

It’s everything. All things were created by him, not all other things. All things. Now, he then goes on, whether thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities. And again, these are supposed to pull out things that, to the Romans thinker, are things that can’t possibly be included in that. And remember, they lived in a very polytheistic world, and they had a much more superstitious worldview than we do. And so they would point to things that would be ruling over different elements, things, fire, earth, whatever it happens to be.

And they would point to those to say, well, those things exist in and of themselves. And now Paul is saying here it doesn’t matter if it’s visible or if it’s invisible. All things were created by Christ. And then he says it again, just in case it’s not clear. All things, okay, were created through him. Again, the new world translation, all other things, is what it inserts there to try and make it sound like something.

Everything except for Christ was created by means of Christ, but it just doesn’t work that way. If Christ was going to create all things, he had to be present before those all things, whether they’re visible or invisible, whether they’re thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, whether they’re on the earth or in the heavens, he had to be present before all those things were created. And you have to actually say then that God created something before he created everything else.

And there’s nowhere in the scripture that we get any evidence of that whatsoever. When God created, he started his creation of all things altogether. And Christ was the means, if you like, by which God is acting, to create everything. So Christ is either part of the all things that are created, or he is pre existent to the all things and therefore is the creator. And that’s the position the author of colossians wants us to recognize.

Because, again, he is the image of the invisible God. The whole reason he can be the representation and the likeness of God is because he is God. And he was there in the beginning when creation took place, before, temporally before, if you like to call it that, an eternity past prior to the creation of the world. And I know the idea of eternity and before just doesn’t work, right, but you get the point I’m making.

So some have tried to argue that the all things here is limited in scope it doesn’t include everything. And I think it, the text itself, as we’ve just walked through it, makes it really clear that it is. That they would appeal, though, to verse 20 to say that the all things you have down there refer to things that are to be reconciled. And therefore Christ didn’t create all things, he created all the things that are to be reconciled.

And so if we continue into verse 17, then we get this nice summary that says he is before. And this goes back to the temporal idea that before all things were, he is before all things. And because of that, all things hold together in him. The point of what we see here in chapter, in Colossians chapter one, verse 15 through to verse 17, is really to say that Jesus is the preeminent Christ.

He is God incarnate. He is the one who bears the image of God and represents God. And he is the one who has the rightful heir over the earth, if you like. He is that because he was the creator, the one through whom creation came about. So Jesus then shares in this role that God had creating the universe. And so we have the spirit of God involved in creation.

We have the father, if you like, involved in creation. And here very clearly, among other passages, we have the son of God involved in the role of creation. And this is why he is worthy of our worship, because he is God himself incarnate, came to earth. The creator himself came and gave himself on our behalf so that we could be saved from our sins. So here’s the key takeaway I want you to take for this when you find a text or a translation, like what we find with the new World translation.

My recommendation. Well, I recommend you don’t use these translations anyway because the new world translation is tremendously biased. You can’t call it a translation. It’s not really a paraphrase. It tries to be a translation, but it’s so biased that you can’t even call it eisegesis. It’s not reading into the text, it’s just adding to the text, which is something that the text itself warns us not to do.

So I would advise, first of all, don’t use those translations. But secondly, let this text speak for itself. You can see here, this is a really clear argument for the deity of Christ. That’s what Paul intends it to be. The context demands that to be. And it’s very easy when we read some of these translations that are heavily biased like this, is that they try to sway you away from that view by putting in individual words that are there to just obfuscate to make something more confusing rather than to allow the context to stand for itself.

And here’s where there’s a danger for all of us, too. This is where we can focus on the individual elements and exclude and overlook the actual context. And that’s, I think, one of the challenges that the new world translation faces here is it’s got to try and explain the whole context here away. Get rid of the context by adding these words. And so you get so stuck talking about these individual words, you miss the point of the passage.

And the passage, even when you add those words in, those words don’t make sense because the passage overrides it. Okay? And all it takes is just a little bit of thought, thinking about the passage in context, to see the power of it. Now, if you’d like to learn how to do this kind of study for yourself in the original Greek, we’d love to be able to teach you.

If you’re interested in doing this, go to BMA to get started and get started on your path to getting down this track and starting to learn the Greek and get into some Bible study for yourself as well. 

Keep taking small, consistent steps toward mastery. We’ll see you there.

Dr. Darryl Burling,
Found of Biblical Mastery Academy