Colossians 1:15 Study Bible: who is the image of the invisible God, preeminent over all creation.

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◄ Colossians 1:15 ►

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

The Son
This phrase refers to Jesus Christ, emphasizing His unique relationship with God the Father. In the Greek, "ho huios" signifies not just any son, but the Son, indicating a special status. This title underscores the divinity and preeminence of Christ, affirming His role in the Trinity. Historically, this was a profound declaration in a polytheistic world, asserting the singularity and supremacy of Christ as the divine Son.

is the image
The Greek word "eikōn" is used here, meaning "image" or "likeness." This term conveys the idea of representation and manifestation. In the ancient world, an image was not merely a reflection but carried the essence of the original. Thus, Christ is the perfect representation of God, embodying His nature and character. This challenges believers to see Christ as the full revelation of God, making the invisible visible.

of the invisible God
This phrase highlights the nature of God as spirit, unseen by human eyes. The Greek word "aoratos" means "invisible" or "unseen." In the context of Jewish monotheism, God was understood as transcendent and beyond human comprehension. Yet, through Christ, the invisible God is made known. This revelation is central to Christian faith, as it bridges the gap between humanity and the divine.

the firstborn
The term "prōtotokos" in Greek can mean first in time or first in rank. In this context, it signifies preeminence rather than chronological birth order. Historically, the firstborn held a place of honor and authority. Here, it affirms Christ's supremacy over all creation, not as a created being, but as the eternal Son who holds authority and inheritance over all.

over all creation
This phrase establishes Christ's authority and dominion. The Greek "pāsēs ktiseōs" encompasses all that is created, both seen and unseen. In a world where various powers and deities were worshiped, this declaration asserts Christ's sovereignty over the entire cosmos. It reassures believers of His ultimate control and purpose in creation, encouraging trust in His divine plan.

Persons / Places / Events

1. The Son (Jesus Christ)
Central to this verse, Jesus is described as the image of the invisible God, emphasizing His divine nature and role in creation.

2. God
The invisible God, whose nature and character are perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ.

3. Creation
Refers to the entirety of the universe, over which Christ holds preeminence as the "firstborn."

Teaching Points

Christ's Divine Nature
Jesus is not merely a reflection but the exact image of God, affirming His divinity and equality with God.

Preeminence of Christ
As the firstborn over all creation, Jesus holds authority and supremacy, reminding believers of His rightful place in their lives.

Revelation of God
In Jesus, the invisible God is made visible, providing a perfect revelation of God's character and will.

Relationship with Creation
Understanding Jesus' role in creation encourages believers to view the world through the lens of His sovereignty and purpose.

Imitating Christ
As the image of God, Jesus serves as the ultimate example for believers to emulate in their daily lives.

Bible Study Questions

1. How does understanding Jesus as the "image of the invisible God" impact your view of His divinity and humanity?

2. In what ways does recognizing Christ's preeminence over creation influence your daily decisions and priorities?

3. How can you better reflect the character of Christ in your interactions with others, knowing He is the perfect image of God?

4. What are some practical steps you can take to acknowledge and submit to Christ's authority in areas of your life where you struggle?

5. How do the additional scriptures (John 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:3, etc.) deepen your understanding of Colossians 1:15 and its implications for your faith journey?

Connections to Other Scriptures

John 1:1-3
This passage connects to Colossians 1:15 by affirming Jesus as the Word, who was with God in the beginning and through whom all things were made.

Hebrews 1:3
This verse complements Colossians 1:15 by describing Jesus as the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being.

Philippians 2:6-7
These verses relate to the concept of Jesus being in the form of God and taking on human likeness, which ties into His role as the image of the invisible God.

Revelation 3:14
This verse refers to Jesus as the "beginning of God's creation," which aligns with the idea of Him being the firstborn over all creation.

Sermons

Christ in His Relations to God and to the World	W.F. Adneney	Colossians 1:15
Christ is Intended to be Familiarly Known		Colossians 1:15
Christ is One of Us		Colossians 1:15
Christ the Image of God		Colossians 1:15
The Firstborn	J. Morison, D. D.	Colossians 1:15
The Image of God	T. Guthrie, D. D.	Colossians 1:15
The Image of the Invisible God	H. W. Beecher.	Colossians 1:15
Prayer Leading Up to the Person of Christ	R. Finlayson	Colossians 1:9-23
Christ First	Professor Reuss.	Colossians 1:14-20
Forgiveness and Remission of Sins	J. Morison, D. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
Jesus Christ the End of the Creation	C. P. Jennings.	Colossians 1:14-20
Pardon, not Justice, Wanted		Colossians 1:14-20
Plan of Redemption	Christmas Evans.	Colossians 1:14-20
Redemption	T. Guthrie, D. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
Redemption Atonement for and Remission of Sin	T. Guthrie, D. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
Redemption God's Forgiveness as King and Father	G. Calthrop, M. A.	Colossians 1:14-20
Redemption Incomplete Until Accepted by Faith in Christ	P. Bayne, B. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
Redemption Partial and Complete	Bishop Davenant.	Colossians 1:14-20
The Deity of Christ	B. W. Noel, M. A.	Colossians 1:14-20
The Greatness of Redemption	P. Bayne, B. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
The Value of Pardon	H. W. Taylor.	Colossians 1:14-20
The Witness of Creation to the Gospel	J. O. Dykes, D. D.	Colossians 1:14-20
We have Redemption Through His Blood		Colossians 1:14-20
Christ's Headship Over Nature	T. Croskery	Colossians 1:15-17
The Glory of the Son	E.S. Prout	Colossians 1:15-17
The Dignity of Christ	A. J. F. Behrends, D. D.	Colossians 1:15-19
The Divine Pre-Eminence of Christ	U. R. Thomas.	Colossians 1:15-19
The Glory of the Son	A. Maclaren, D. D.	Colossians 1:15-19
The Person of Christ	T. Watson, B. A.	Colossians 1:15-19
The Glories of King Jesus	R.M. Edgar	Colossians 1:15-20
Christ All in All	U.R. Thomas	Colossians 1:15-29

People

Colossians, Epaphras, Paul, Thessalonians, Timotheus, Timothy

Places

Colossae, Philippi

Topics

Christ, Creation, Creature, Existence, Firstborn, First-born, Image, Invisible, Representation, Unseen, Visible

Dictionary of Bible Themes

Colossians 1:15

     1145   God, transcendent
     1225   God, as Spirit
     1403   God, revelation
     1436   reality
     1513   Trinity, mission of
     1690   word of God
     2051   Christ, majesty of
     2063   Christ, perfection
     2203   Christ, titles of
     2595   incarnation
     5023   image of God
     5034   likeness
     5263   communication
     5657   birthright
     5688   firstborn
     5971   uniqueness
     7923   fellowship, in gospel
     7950   mission, of Christ
     8135   knowing God, nature of
     8203   character
     8321   perfection, divine
     8474   seeing God

Colossians 1:15-16

2345 Christ, kingdom of

Colossians 1:15-17

     2018   Christ, divinity
     2303   Christ, as creator
     4287   universe
     5441   philosophy
     8366   wisdom, source of

Colossians 1:15-18

4909 beginning
5700 headship

Colossians 1:15-19

2069 Christ, pre-eminence

Colossians 1:15-20

     1441   revelation, necessity
     1444   revelation, NT
     2423   gospel, essence
     5030   knowledge, of Christ
     7927   hymn
     8028   faith, body of beliefs

Library

February 11. "Strengthened with all Might unto all Patience" (Col. I. 11).
"Strengthened with all might unto all patience" (Col. i. 11). The apostle prays for the Colossians, that they may be "strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." It is one thing to endure and show the strain on every muscle of your face, and seem to say with every wrinkle, "Why does not somebody sympathize with me?" It is another to endure the cross, "despising the shame" for the joy set before us. There are some trees in the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

February 18. "Christ in You" (Col. I. 27).
"Christ in you" (Col. i. 27). How great the difference between the old and the new way of deliverance! One touch of Christ is worth a lifetime of struggling. A sufferer in one of our hospitals was in danger of losing his sight from a small piece of broken needle that had entered his eye. Operation after operation had only irritated it, and driven the foreign substance farther still into the delicate nerves of the sensitive organ. At length a skilful young physician thought of a new expedient. He …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Fourth Sunday after Trinity Prayer and Spiritual Knowledge.
Text: Colossians 1, 3-14. 3 We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have toward all the saints, 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in the heavens, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which is come unto you; even as it is also in all the world bearing fruit and increasing, as it doth in you also, since the day ye heard and knew the grace of God …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'All Power'
'Strengthened with all power, according to the might of His glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy.'--COL. i. 11 (R.V.). There is a wonderful rush and fervour in the prayers of Paul. No parts of his letters are so lofty, so impassioned, so full of his soul, as when he rises from speaking of God to men to speaking to God for men. We have him here setting forth his loving desires for the Colossian Christians in a prayer of remarkable fulness and sweep. Broadly taken, it is for their perfecting …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Thankful for Inheritance
'Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.'--COL. i. 12 (R.V.) It is interesting to notice how much the thought of inheritance seems to have been filling the Apostle's mind during his writing of Ephesians and Colossians. Its recurrence is one of the points of contact between them. For example, in Ephesians, we read, 'In whom also were made a heritage' (i. 11); 'An earnest of our inheritance' (i. 14); 'His inheritance in the saints' …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saints, Believers, Brethren
' . . . The saints and faithful brethren in Christ.'--COL. i. 2. 'The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,' says the Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by outsiders, and like most of the instances where a sect, or school, or party is labelled with the name of its founder, it was given in scorn. It hit and yet missed its mark. The early believers were Christians, that is, Christ's men, but they were not merely a group of followers of a man, like many other groups of whom the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Christian Endeavour
'I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.'--COL. i. 29. I have chosen this text principally because it brings together the two subjects which are naturally before us to-day. All 'Western Christendom,' as it is called, is to-day commemorating the Pentecostal gift. My text speaks about that power that 'worketh in us mightily.' True, the Apostle is speaking in reference to the fiery energy and persistent toil which characterised him in proclaiming Christ, that …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gospel-Hope
'The hope of the Gospel.'--COL. i. 5. 'God never sends mouths but He sends meat to feed them,' says the old proverb. And yet it seems as if that were scarcely true in regard to that strange faculty called Hope. It may well be a question whether on the whole it has given us more pleasure than pain. How seldom it has been a true prophet! How perpetually its pictures have been too highly coloured! It has cast illusions over the future, colouring the far-off hills with glorious purple which, reached, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Next Performance is Mainly Directed against Faith in the Church...
The next performance is mainly directed against faith in the Church, as a society of Divine origin. "The Rev. Henry Bristow Wilson, B.D., Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts," claims that a National Church shall be regarded as a purely secular Institution,--the spontaneous development of the State. "If all priests and ministers of religion could at one moment be swept from the face of the Earth, they would soon be reproduced [76] ." The Church is concerned with Ethics, not with Divinity. It should therefore …
John William Burgon—Inspiration and Interpretation

All Fulness in Christ
The text is a great deep, we cannot explore it, but we will voyage over its surface joyously, the Holy Spirit giving us a favorable wind. Here are plenteous provisions far exceeding, those of Solomon, though at the sight of that royal profusion, Sheba's queen felt that there was no more spirit in her, and declared that the half had not been told to her. It may give some sort of order to our thoughts if they fall under four heads. What is here spoken of--"all fullness." Where is it placed--"in him," …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

Thankful Service.
(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.) COL. i. 12. "Giving thanks." In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a lonely and dangerous part of the mine. One day a visitor to the coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I sing." My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings which the loving …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Twenty-Third Day for the Holy Spirit in Your Own Work
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Holy Spirit in your own Work "I labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily."--COL. i. 29. You have your own special work; make it a work of intercession. Paul laboured, striving according to the working of God in him. Remember, God is not only the Creator, but the Great Workman, who worketh all in all. You can only do your work in His strength, by Him working in you through the Spirit. Intercede much for those among whom you work, till God gives …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Knowledge and Obedience.
"For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father."--COL. i. 9-12. The Epistles …
W. H. Griffith Thomas—The Prayers of St. Paul

The Inheritance.
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.--Ep. to the Colossians i. 12. To have a share in any earthly inheritance, is to diminish the share of the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has, goes to increase the possession of the rest. Hear what Dante puts in the mouth of his guide, as they pass through Purgatory:-- Perche s'appuntano i vostri desiri Dove per compagnia parte si scema, Invidia muove …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

The Disciple, -- Master, if Thou Wouldst Make a Special Manifestation of Thyself to The...
The Disciple,--Master, if Thou wouldst make a special manifestation of Thyself to the world, men would no longer doubt the existence of God and Thy own divinity, but all would believe and enter on the path of righteousness. The Master,--1. My son, the inner state of every man I know well, and to each heart in accordance with its needs I make Myself known; and for bringing men into the way of righteousness there is no better means than the manifestation of Myself. For man I became man that he might …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

Victory Found
AT THE close of this little volume it seems fitting to recount again a wonderful personal experience, narrated in The Sunday School Times of December 7, 1918. I do not remember the time when I did not have in some degree a love for the Lord Jesus Christ as my Saviour. When not quite twelve years of age, at a revival meeting, I publicly accepted and confessed Christ as my Lord and Master. From that time there grew up in my heart a deep yearning to know Christ in a more real way, for he seemed so unreal, …
Rosalind Goforth—How I Know God Answers Prayer

section 3
But we will go back from this glimpse of God's ultimate purpose for us, to watch the process by which it is reached, so far as we can trace it in the ripening of the little annuals. The figure will not give us all the steps by which God gets His way in the intricacies of a human soul: we shall see no hint in it of the cleansing and filling that is needed in sinful man before he can follow the path of the plant. It shows us some of the Divine principles of the new life rather than a set sequence of …
I. Lilias Trotter—Parables of the Christ-life

Christ and Man in the Atonement
OUR conception of the relations subsisting between God and man, of the manner in which these relations are affected by sin, and particularly of the Scripture doctrine of the connection between sin and death, must determine, to a great extent, our attitude to the Atonement. The Atonement, as the New Testament presents it, assumes the connection of sin and death. Apart from some sense and recognition of such connection, the mediation of forgiveness through the death of Christ can only appear an arbitrary, …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

The Mystical Union with Immanuel.
"Christ in you the hope of glory." --Col. i. 27. The union of believers with Christ their Head is not effected by instilling a divine-human life-tincture into the soul. There is no divine-human life. There is a most holy Person, who unites in Himself the divine and the human life; but both natures continue unmixed, unblended, each retaining its own properties. And since there is no divine-human life in Jesus, He can not instil it into us. We do heartily acknowledge that there is a certain conformity …
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

A Preliminary Discourse to Catechising
'If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' - Col 1:23. Intending next Lord's day to enter upon the work of catechising, it will not be amiss to give you a preliminary discourse, to show you how needful it is for Christians to be well instructed in the grounds of religion. If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled.' I. It is the duty of Christians to be settled in the doctrine of faith. II. The best way for Christians to be settled is to be well grounded. I. It is the duty of Christians …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Fourthly; all the [Credenda, Or] Doctrines, which the True, Simple, and Uncorrupted Christian Religion Teaches,
(that is, not only those plain doctrines which it requires to be believed as fundamental and of necessity to eternal salvation, but even all the doctrines which it teaches as matters of truth,) are, though indeed many of them not discoverable by bare reason unassisted with revelation; yet, when discovered by revelation, apparently most agreeable to sound unprejudiced reason, have every one of them a natural tendency, and a direct and powerful influence to reform men's minds, and correct their manners, …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den? …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Of Love to God
I proceed to the second general branch of the text. The persons interested in this privilege. They are lovers of God. "All things work together for good, to them that love God." Despisers and haters of God have no lot or part in this privilege. It is children's bread, it belongs only to them that love God. Because love is the very heart and spirit of religion, I shall the more fully treat upon this; and for the further discussion of it, let us notice these five things concerning love to God. 1. The …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

The Rise of the Assyrian Empire
PHOENICIA AND THE NORTHERN NATIONS AFTER THE DEATH OP RAMSES III.--THE FIRST ASSYRIAN EMPIRE: TIGLATH-PILESUR I.--THE ARAMAEANS AND THE KHATI. The continuance of Egyptian influence over Syrian civilization after the death of Ramses III.--Egyptian myths in Phoenicia: Osiris and Isis at Byblos--Horus, Thot, and the origin of the Egyptian alphabet--The tombs at Arvad and the Kabr-Hiram; Egyptian designs in Phoenician glass and goldsmiths'work--Commerce with Egypt, the withdrawal of Phoenician colonies …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 6

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