In the second portion of Colossians 1, Paul switches to talking about Christology – the part of theology that studies the nature and work of Jesus. But before we dig into the content, let’s quickly look at the style.

Some consider the passage to be an early Christian hymn, called The Hymn in Honour of Christ by F.F. Bruce, who says:

These six verses are cast in a form of rhythmical prose which is found in much early Christian hymnody. The repetition of key words or phrases indicates the strophic arrangement [in music, “to describe any form founded on a repeated pattern”].

So what are the three big ideas in the text?

1. Jesus is the ‘image of the invisible God’

Paul starts the passage in by saying that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:15, NET). This brings to mind an obvious connection with Genesis 1, where God “created humankind in his own image”.

But whereas humans are created in God’s image, Jesus is God’s image. The passage explains further:

…for all things in heaven and on earth were created in him—all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers—all things were created through him and for him.

What we are getting here is an explanation that although when the letter was first being read there were lots of people alive who had met the Jesus in human form, Jesus was actually God. Instead of thinking of God as doing creation and of Jesus as something separate, they are actually inseparable.

As F.F. Bruce puts it:

To say that Christ is the image of God is to say that in him the nature and being of God have been perfectly revealed – that in him the invisible has become visible.

2. Jesus is the head of the church

Colossians 1 continues with the following (from the NET translation):

He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things.

In the Biblical Theology Study Bible (edited by D.A. Carson), notes: “The church exists not to satisfy itself or to ensure its institutional survival but to fulfil the purposes of its head.”

And the inference I make from this verse is that it is vital that churches dedicate time to praying and listening to hear from the head of the church.

3. Jesus reconciled us with God through his death

Then we come to a third aspect of Christology, when Paul writes:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

On the cross, Jesus delivered an act of love for the world by reconciling us to him throught the atonement.

The term atone first came into use in English in the mid 1500s as a verb and was by the end of the century as a noun, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Hensleigh Wedgwood in A Dictionary of English Etymology (1859), dating from 1859, defined atone as:

To bring at one, to reconcile, and thence to suffer the pains of whatever sacrifice is necessary to bring about a reconciliation.