Daily Bible Reading 6th June 2025 // Colossians 1:15-19
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, 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 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
In these verses Paul exults in the majesty and mystery of the Person of Christ. Jesus Christ, the man who walked the streets of first century Palestine, Paul affirms, is none other than God in human form. In Christ all the fullness of the Godhead lives in bodily form (1:19; 2:9). In Jesus Christ the invisible God has become visible. He who existed before all worlds (v 17) has become man, putting on hands and feet. Jesus is God with the skin on, the express image and likeness of God. In Jesus Christ, the creator of the whole universe, the one by whom and for whom all things were created and the one in whom all things hold together, became a part of his creation. The supreme creator has stepped out of all the undecaying majesty and glory of heaven and become a part of that which he had made (See John 1:18; 14:8-9; Hebrews 1:1-3). It is astounding, mind boggling. So often folk (even and very often Christian folk!) are afraid of some dark and forbidding God, away up there hidden and menacing. Jesus shows us that there is no such God. There is mystery in God but no dark, hidden terror. God, in all his fullness, has shown himself to us, once and for all, in Jesus Christ His Son. Jesus Christ is God's mercy and God's judgment in action. Christ is God's love and God's wrath carved in the concrete of human life and nature. So, says the apostle, in so many words, 'If you want to know what God is like, don't philosophise or speculate, look at Jesus. If you want to know what God thinks and how God acts, listen to what Jesus says and see what Jesus does. In Christ, and Oh the wonder and the marvel of it, God, the invisible Creator reveals himself, reveals his very heart and his nature.’