Today’s Passage: Colossians 1:15–20
Paul is writing from prison to a small church, and he is writing about Jesus. Some teachers there were willing to call Jesus great, but they would not call Him God, and so they made Him one more rung on a ladder that climbed up to the real thing. Paul does not answer them point by point. He simply tells them who Jesus is, and the telling is enough.
As you read, hold this: Jesus made everything and holds it together. He was never made.
Context They shrank Him
The church at Colossae was young, and false teachers had come in among them. They did not deny Jesus outright. What they did was quieter and, in its way, more dangerous: they made Him smaller, a helpful step along the road, one link in a longer chain. Paul answers not by arguing them down but by lifting Jesus up and showing Him as fully God. Jesus does not need defending. He needs to be seen.
Colossians 1:15–17 (BSB)
¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Jesus is not merely like God. He is the image of God, the prōtotokos, pronounced pro-TOT-oh-kos. Strong's G4416, firstborn, the one holding first rank and honor. This word points to rank, not birth order. Verse 16 says Jesus made everything, so a made thing cannot be Him. He rules over everything, because He made it all. over all creation, which is to say that the God you could never see with your eyes has been made visible in a Person you can.
Read verse 16 again slowly. Heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, thrones and powers and every authority you could name, all of it came into being through Him and for Him. Jesus is not one more item on that list. He is the one who wrote the list.
Verse 17 adds one thing more. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together, right now, this very second. The universe is not spinning along on its own. It is being held, and the hands that hold it are His.
Colossians 1:18–20 (BSB)
¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, ²⁰ and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.
Here Paul turns from the stars to the church, from the whole creation to His own people. Jesus leads them as the head leads the body, and He was the first to rise up into a life that never ends again. Everyone who trusts Him will one day follow Him into it.
Verse 19 makes the claim that shuts every other door. All of God’s fullness lives in this one Man. Not a portion of God, not a bright reflection of God, but God Himself, wholly and truly at home in Jesus.
And verse 20 tells you why all of this comes to rest right here at your table. The same Jesus who flung every star into place is the Jesus who made peace, and He made it with His own blood, poured out on a cross. The Maker of everything reached all the way down and brought you near to Himself.
Study notes The same Word John saw
John opens his Gospel with the very same claim, in words you may have known since childhood.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made." John 1:1–3 (BSB)
Jesus made everything and holds it together. He was never made.
Personal Application
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Where have you quietly settled for a smaller Jesus, treating Him as a wise teacher to admire rather than the God who made you and holds you?
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What in your life feels too big for Him to hold, and what would change if you set that thing down next to the One who holds every star in place?
Today’s decision: Write one sentence today and keep it where you will see it: “Jesus is God, and He holds everything together, including me.”
Pray to Close
The central truth: Jesus made everything and holds it together. He was never made.
Give thanks: thank God that the same One who holds the stars in their places also reached down to make peace with you.
Confess: tell Him honestly about the times you have treated Jesus as small.
Ask: ask Him for eyes to see Jesus today as He truly is.
Worship for Today
Song: Behold Our God, by Sovereign Grace Music
This song simply looks at the sheer size of God and stands amazed. After a passage that tells us Jesus made and holds everything, sing it back to Him as your answer, and let it be praise.
Listen: