Charles Ellicott Commentary Colossians 1:15

"who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;" — Colossians 1:15 (ASV)

The image of the invisible God.—This all-important clause needs the most careful examination. We note accordingly:

1. The word “image” (like the word “form,”Philippians 2:6–7) is used in the New Testament for real and essential embodiment, as distinguished from mere likeness. Thus, in Hebrews 10:1, we read, The law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things; we also note in Romans 1:23 the distinction between the mere outward “likeness” and the “image” which it represented; we find in 1 Corinthians 15:49 that the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly Adam denote actual identity of nature with both; and in 2 Corinthians 3:18, the actual work of the Spirit in the heart is described as changing us from glory to glory into the image of the glorified Christ.

2. Next we observe that although, speaking popularly, St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:7 calls man the image and glory of God, yet the allusion is to Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:28, where man is said, with stricter accuracy, to be made after the image of God (as in Ephesians 4:24, created after God), and this more accurate expression is used in Colossians 3:10 of this Epistle, renewed after the image of Him that created him.

   Who then, or what, is the image of God, after which man is created? St. Paul here emphatically (as in 2 Corinthians 4:4 parenthetically) answers, “Christ,” as the Son of God, first-born before all creation. The same truth is conveyed in a different form, clearer (if possible) even than this, in Hebrews 1:3, where the Son is said to be not only the brightness of the glory of the Father, but the express image of His Person. For the word “express image” is character in the original, used here (as when we speak of alphabetical “characters”) to signify the visible drawn image, and the word “Person” is substance or essence.

3. It is not to be forgotten that at this time in the Platonizing Judaism of Philo, “the Word” was called the eternal “image of God.” (See passages quoted in Dr. Lightfoot’s note on this passage.) This expression was not peculiar to him; it was merely a working out of that personification of the “wisdom of God,” of which we have a magnificent example in Proverbs 8:22-30, and the effect of which we trace in the Alexandrian Book of Wisdom .

   Wisdom is the breath of the power of God, and a pure stream from the glory of the Most High—the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness. It seems to have represented in the Jewish schools the idea complementary to the ordinary idea of the Messiah in the Jewish world. Just as St. John took up the vague idea of “the Word” and gave it a clear divine personality in Christ, so St. Paul seems to act here in relation to the other phrase, used as a description of the Word. In Christ, He fixes in solid reality the floating vision of the “image of God.”

4. There is an emphasis on the words of the invisible God. Now, since the whole context shows that the reference is to the eternal pre-existence of Christ, ancient interpreters (of whom Chrysostom may be taken as the type) argued that the image of the invisible must also be invisible.

   But this seems opposed to the whole idea of the word “image” and to its use in the New Testament and elsewhere. The true key to this passage is in our Lord’s own words in John 1:18: No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son (here is the remarkable reading, the only begotten God), who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him. In anticipation of the future revelation of Godhead, Christ, even as pre-existent, is called The image of the invisible God.

The firstborn of every creature (of all creation).—

1. As to the sense of this clause. The grammatical construction here will bear either the rendering of our version or the rendering “begotten before all creation,” from which comes the “begotten before all worlds” of the Nicene Creed. But the whole context shows that the latter is unquestionably the true rendering. For, as has been remarked from ancient times, He is said to be “begotten” and not “created;” next, He is emphatically spoken of below as He by whom all things were created, who is before all things, and in whom all things consist.

2. As to the order of idea. In Himself He is the image of God from all eternity. From this essential conception, by a natural contrast, the thought immediately passes on to distinction from, and priority to, all created being. Exactly in this same order of idea, we have in Hebrews 1:2-3: By whom also He made the worlds...upholding all things by the word of His power; and in John 1:3: All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. Here St. Paul indicates this idea in the words firstborn before all creation, and works it out in the verses following.

3. As to the name “firstborn” itself. It is used of the Messiah as an almost technical name (derived from Psalm 2:7 and Psalm 89:28), as is shown in Hebrews 1:6, when He bringeth the first begotten into the world. In tracing the Messianic line of promise we notice that while the Messiah is always true man, the seed of Abraham, the son of David, yet on Him are accumulated attributes too high for any created being . He is declared to be an Emmanuel, God with us; and His kingdom a visible manifestation of God. Hence the idea contained in the word “firstborn” is not only sovereignty, above all the kings of the earth (Psalms 89:28), but also likeness to God and priority to all created being.

4. As to the union of the two clauses. In the first we have the declaration of His eternal unity with God—all that was completely embodied in the declaration of the Word who is God, up to which all the higher Jewish speculations had led; in the second we trace the distinctness of His Person, as the begotten of the Father, the true Messiah of Jewish hopes, and the subordination of the co-eternal Son to the Father. The union of the two marks the assertion of Christian mystery, as against rationalizing systems of the type of Arianism on one side and Sabellianism on the other.