Colossians

Colossians Study Bible, click here

Below is a brief summary of what I found in Colossians concerning each of my four questions. The full evidence and commentary are available in the Colossians Study Bible linked above.

Summary: Insights from Colossians

1. Who is God?

God is the Father—the invisible Creator and ultimate source of creation, salvation, resurrection, reconciliation, power, and glory. Paul explicitly calls Him “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” and repeatedly distinguishes God from His Son. The Father delivers believers from darkness into the kingdom of His Son; Christ is the image of the invisible God; God raises Christ from the dead; and Christians give thanks “to God the Father through him.”

Colossians gives Jesus the highest possible human exaltation without, in my reading, identifying him with the God who exalts him. God is the Creator; Jesus is the Son through whom God works. God is the One to whom creation is reconciled; Jesus is the one through whom God reconciles it. Even the extraordinary statement that the fullness of deity dwells bodily in Christ is language of God’s indwelling presence, and Colossians immediately says believers themselves are made full in Christ, indicating they also will be filled with God’s indwelling presence.

Specifically, who is the Holy Spirit?

Colossians itself reveals very little about the identity of the Holy Spirit. Paul explicitly refers to the believers’ “love in the Spirit” (Colossians 1:8) and speaks throughout the letter of spiritual wisdom, worship, transformation, and life, but he does not substantially develop who the Spirit is.

Therefore, Colossians alone does not establish that the Holy Spirit is God or that the Spirit is the divine Mother. Neither does it contradict those conclusions. Unlike John, which gives extensive teaching about the Spirit’s personal activity and spiritual birth, Colossians simply does not focus on this question. My understanding of the Holy Spirit as God and as Mother therefore depends on the wider biblical evidence, not on Colossians by itself.

2. What is God's plan for the world?

Colossians presents God’s plan for creation as universal reconciliation: through Christ God will “reconcile all things to himself.”

Paul says that through Christ God will “reconcile all things to himself…whether things on the earth or things in the heavens” (Colossians 1:20). Significantly, these are the same “all things” Paul has just described in relation to creation. Colossians 1 therefore begins with the scope of creation and ends with the reconciliation of that entire creation through Christ.

I believe this strongly supports universal salvation: God’s purpose in Christ is not merely to save isolated individuals but ultimately to reconcile and restore all creation to Himself, which would include every person. Colossians also speaks seriously of sin and the wrath of God, so the book does not imply that judgment is unreal or unnecessary (Colossians 3:5–6). But judgment and universal reconciliation do not have to be opposites. If “all things” truly means the whole creation Paul has just described, Colossians presents God’s final purpose as reconciliation of every person, not permanent alienation.

3. Who is Jesus?

Jesus is God’s uniquely exalted human Son, Lord, image, mediator, head of the Church, firstborn from the dead, and preeminent ruler—not God Himself. Colossians presents Jesus in an extraordinary relationship to creation: all things are described as created in him, through him, and for him; he is “before all things”; and all the fullness of deity dwells bodily in him. Yet Paul distinguishes Jesus from God: Jesus is the image of the invisible God, God’s fullness dwells in him, God raised him from the dead, and God reconciles creation through him.

4. Who are Christians?

Colossians portrays Christians as becoming profoundly conformed to Christ in holiness, glory, fullness, resurrection life, and perfected character. Paul speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” and aims to present “every person perfect in Christ” (Colossians 1:27–28). Believers are described as being made full in Christ, buried and raised with him, and ultimately appearing “with him in glory.”

Colossians 3 says the new person is continually being renewed according to the image of the Creator, while love is called the bond of perfection. Finally, Epaphras prays that believers will “stand perfect and complete in all the will of God” (Colossians 4:12). Thus Christian maturity does not aim at permanent moral imperfection, but at complete holiness, love, obedience, and conformity to God’s intended image.

Within the larger Adam-Christ framework developed here, this fits the same redemptive pattern: God did not give up on Adam but brought him from disobedience to the perfected obedience revealed in Jesus. Likewise, God does not give up on His other children, but works to bring them to the maturity and perfection for which they were created.