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Colossians, part 5, The Pleroma of Christ

The Christ Hymn says that Christ was the creator of “all things” (Colossians 1:16), including that which is in the heavens and the earth, seen and unseen, and even thrones and dominions. It says, “all things have been created through Him and for Him.” As the Creator, it is self-evident that He pre-existed all things. Hence, Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things.”

Colossians 1:19 sums up the situation, saying,

¹⁹ For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness [pleroma] to dwell in Him.

The pleroma is everything, not just a portion. So we read also in Psalm 24:1, 2,

¹ The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it. ² For He has founded it…

The pleroma is owned by Christ. All that is in the earth, including “those who dwell in it,” are owned by the Creator of all things.

This has lawful implications, because by God’s law (“You shall not steal”), everyone has the right to own and use the result of his own labor. To steal is a violation of God’s law. So also the US Supreme Court stated in 1884 that labor is a man’s most sacred property right.

“The property which every man has in his own labor — as it is the original foundation of all other property — so it is the most sacred and inviolable. … The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands; and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity, in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.” Butchers’ Union Co. vs Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. at 762 (1884).

Because Christ labored “six days” to create “all things,” He is the rightful Owner of all that He created. Hence, America’s Declaration of Independence, under whose authority the Constitution was written, upholds this biblical principle of divine law. He created it; therefore, He owns it. Furthermore, He owns it; therefore, He is responsible for it as well, as shown in the biblical laws of liability and responsibility. Exodus 21:32-35 says,

³² If the ox gores a male or female slave, the owner [of the ox] shall give his or her master thirty shekels of silver… ³³ If a man opens a pit or digs a pit and does not cover it over, and an ox or a donkey falls into it, ³⁴ the owner of the pit shall make restitution…

The fullness (pleroma) of creation is owned by Christ, and the fullness of God’s glory resides in Him as well. Paul explains later in Colossians 2:9,

⁹ For in Him all the fullness [pleroma] of Deity dwells in bodily form.

In other words, the pleroma of both heaven and earth, material and spiritual, are in Christ. He is the mediator between heaven and earth, called and authorized to bring about agreement between matter and spirit. To bring heaven to earth, according to the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10), is to reconcile and marry the two realms, so that the earth becomes a reflection of heaven.

Gnosticism vs Biblical Christianity

Gnostic doctrine was based on the Greek religion which taught that all matter had been created by the demiurge (a devil figure) and was therefore created inherently evil. Gnostics taught that matter was evil and only spiritual things (i.e., “invisible” things) were good. Even so, both were considered to be eternal while retaining their inherent character (good or evil). Many Christians have adopted this Gnostic view by claiming that the final solution will be to separate good from evil and to place all men either in heaven or in hell, where they will exist forever apart from Christ.

The Gnostics believed that the goal of history was to separate the good from the evil, light from darkness, and then the two realms would continue to exist forever—unless, of course, they again became intertwined and mixed. To them, mixing matter with spirit was the original problem, and the solution was to separate them in a great divorce.

The first chapter of Genesis, of course, teaches that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and that He pronounced it “good” at every stage of creation. At the end of six days of creation, God said it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Paul’s statements were a refutation against Gnostic doctrine, developed by Simon Magus, who taught that God’s “fullness” (pleroma) was divided among many aeons, angelic beings, and emanations. He taught that Christ was only one among many spiritual intermediaries. He said that people needed angels, secret knowledge, and ascetic practices to reach true spiritual fullness.

Paul countered this with the claim that the pleroma resided with Christ and in Him alone. Not only did He create all things on earth, but He has the power and the responsibility to subject all things to Himself. The final solution will be a great marriage between heaven and earth, a marriage that reflects full unity as was originally intended (Genesis 2:24).

Reconciliation of All Things

Colossians 1:20 concludes the Christ Hymn, saying,

²⁰ and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of the cross, through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Christ created “all things,” and He will also “reconcile all things to Himself” by the power of the pleroma of God that He exercises. To reconcile means to make peace and to bring into unity (agreement). In doing so, He fulfills the purpose of creation, which was to express the will of God and the divine nature in the material realm. Christ will not be satisfied with gaining a portion of His creation. He is determined to reconcile “all things,” not just a few things. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:27, 28 that Christ will be successful:

²⁷ For He has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when He says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

Christ’s overall mission, and the purpose of His death and resurrection, is to subject all things to His rule “so that God may be all in all.” His goal is not Gnostic, otherwise His rule would be limited to a few things, rather than “all things.” Likewise, God will be “all in all”—not all in some, or some in all, but “all in all.”

In order for this to happen, death itself must be abolished at the end (1 Corinthians 15:26), and all enemies must be reconciled.

The Law of First Fruits

After the Christ Hymn, Paul writes in Colossians 1:21, 22,

²¹ And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, ²² yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.

The Colossian believers are thus presented as a kind of first fruits, the first installment of Christ’s successful mission to reconcile creation. James 1:18 confirms this:

¹⁸ In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

Again, we read about the overcomers in Revelation 14:4,

⁴ …These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

In the harvest laws, God requires a first fruits offering before the general harvest could begin. Deuteronomy 18:4 says,

⁴ You shall give him [the priest representing God] the first fruits of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep.

There was a first fruits offering of barley at Passover, wheat at Pentecost, and new wine at Tabernacles. In each case, the first fruits sanctified the harvest, as we read in Romans 11:16,

¹⁶ If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.

The first fruits are only the starting point of the main harvest. God has called a few to be the first fruits of the harvest itself, in which Christ reaps the entire field, the pleroma. Paul assures the Colossian believers that they are among the first fruits and that they are the evidence that there is a greater harvest yet in the ages to come. The process of harvesting is not part of Paul’s discussion here in Colossians, nor can we take the time to develop that theme further here. It is treated more fully in my book, The Restoration of All Things, and again in The Milk of the Word, which can be read online free of charge here:

https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/the-restoration-of-all-things/

https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/the-milk-of-the-word/