A bar of soap. One of those common household items that gets used on a daily basis. Soap bars fresh out of the wrapper have smooth edges and the brand name etched on the surface is clear and legible. But, over time and daily washing erodes the soap bar into a misshapen lump — a mere shadow of its former glory. If you are like me, you can take that lump of soap then squeeze it together with other lumps of spent soap and — voilà! — you can extend the use of the soap. Still, those fused together lumps of spent soap fused are never possess that same pristine glory they once possessed when they were fresh out of the package. Then again, imagine how peculiarly wonderful it would be to come across a bar of soap which never erodes away over time but forever remains pristine maintaining the same glory as when it came out of the wrapper.
What am I getting at with all this musing on soap bars? I am hoping to draw an analogy between the soap and humanity, specifically what Paul wanted to get across to the Colossians about redeemed humanity. All people are like spent soap, possessing a mere shadow of their former glory. It is only though Jesus Christ that we are able to really grasp what the former glory humanity was like and the way that we can receive back that former glory that was lost on account of the fall.
Colossians 1:15-20 is a magnanimously great Christological poem, perhaps even a hymn, which Paul includes as the crescendo to a prayer of thanks, praise and glory to the Son of God who redeems and forgives those lost in darkness. Christ takes them out of the kingdom of darkness and brings them into the kingdom of light. The hymn goes:
[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 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. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 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. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven (Col 1:15-20).1
Paul wants readers to know that Christ has preeminence over everything, i.e. the firstborn (Col 1:15). He is the creator of the material universe, without beginning nor end, the uncaused first cause of all causation, and that we are merely the tenants living in this world, for everything in this world belongs to Him (Col 1:16-17). He leads the church, He is the first in that community to rise from the dead, and all people are to put Him first in their lives (Col 1:18). The Heavenly Father was pleased to have the Son incarnate Himself in this world, and Christ was infused with the fullness of divine glory (Col 1:19). Christ is the one who through His own sacrificial death upon the cross brings reconciliation between God and man (Col 1:20).
N.T. Wright observes,
Colossians 1:15-20 gives the church not merely an exalted view of Jesus, and hence humanity, but of God and his world. God, man and the world are each now to be understood in relation to Jesus Christ. He makes the invisible God visible; he fulfils the Father’s reconciling purpose on the cross; he is the Father’s agent in creation and redemption. He is the truly human being, the true Image of God. He is the Lord of old and new creation, being in himself the beginning of the latter, the first created being to attain the state of perfection which will one day be shared by ‘all things in heaven and on earth.’ It is this Lord that the Colossians have come to worship, his ‘image’ that they will one day fully share (3:10).2
The poem in Colossians 1:5-20 sets Christ as the centerpiece for the Christian’s understanding of their God and themselves. The invisible untouchable God of the universe is ultimately revealed both visibly and tangibly in the person of Jesus Christ. It is ultimately through Christ that the Christian finds the way to be reconciled with God, whom they have been estranged from since Adam.
Christ provides the way and the means for people to restore their former glory. Being both fully human and fully divine in one person, the Incarnate Deity reconnects humanity with the God of the universe. The Incarnate Deity also shows what life for people was always meant to be like — a deep intimate unexplainably mysterious union between divinity and humanity, which was the way things that were supposed to be since the Garden of Eden.
Paul wanted the Colossians to “be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” so that they would certainly “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light” (Col. 1:9-12). What better way for the Christians at Colossae to understand all this but through setting Christ as the centerpiece of their lives.
I can honestly liken my own self to a spent bar of soap. I make mistakes. I am ignorant about lots of things. I misbehave. I experience my own body breaking down on me. I was born on this earth estranged from God. If there is anything pristine and perfect that is all a former glory which is so far away from the present. But, the very thought of being restored into that former glory, both pristine and perfect, is intoxicating. I am doubtful that any human potential seminar or transhuman technological upgrade is going to do the trick. Yet, Christ stands before me. It is in Christ that I can find my true humanity. Christ is fully human and fully divine, and I am a human created to be in a relationship with God. Christ is the way my problem of being estrange from God can be solved, and the one who ultimately can get the process of me being restored to the former glory started and finished.
WGN
Notes:
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