16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
Firstborn status comes from His role in creation. “For” gives the reason. The Lord Jesus Christ is the creator of everything that exists. Since Genesis 1 clearly teaches that God created everything, we irresistibly deduce that Jesus must therefore be the Creator God of the Universe. John corroborated this, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). Lest anyone want to minimize this in any way, Paul described the extent of His creation role: All things were created 1) “by” Him—He is the direct cause of creation, 2) “through Him”—He is the agent of creation and 3) “for Him”—He is the purpose for which all things were created. It’s all about Him! Nothing escapes His sovereignty, nothing is beyond His reach, nothing is outside of His purposes. If anything exists, then He is the one who caused its existence for His reasons.
Furthermore, nothing can continue to exist without the Lord’s divine work in maintaining its existence: “in Him all things hold together” (vs. 17). He is the glue that holds the molecules and the atoms together. Without His active thought, all would fly apart and disintegrate into total chaos.
Emphasizing Christ’s role in the creation of all things flies directly in the face of the budding false teaching. In that false worldview, the ultimate God of the universe is too holy, too pure to have created the physical world. But there were, according to that teaching, a succession of “emanations” propagating out from the Ultimate, Holy Truth—and the farther these emanations flowed out from Absolute Holiness, the less holy they became. In time one of these emanations became the God of the Bible who created all things. But Paul here says that Christ is essentially greater than all things that exist, whether “visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.” The creator God over all is none other than Jesus Christ. He is absolute truth and holiness.
Paul applies this to the church when he points out that Christ is the “head of the church.” “He is the firstborn from the dead,” which means He has the “first place in everything.” There is no authority higher than Christ for believers. He is pre-eminent over all there is.
O Lord, Pre-eminent One, I surrender first place in my life to You!
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