Col.
1:18 (Gen. 1:1)—The Son of God as αρχη of the New Creation
Having made the point that the Son is πρωτοτοκος in relation to the whole of the present creation,
so as to put “the powers” in their proper place, Paul goes on in the next
strophe to position the Son with regard to his role in the new creation.
Thus this second strophe has primarily to do with the Son’s relationship to the
church and therefore to the powers for the sake of the church. Picking up from
verse 14, the focus is now on the Son’s redemptive work, particularly on the
reconciliation which he has effected for the sake of the church in the context
of the powers. Two matters need to be pointed out.
First,
Paul has previously used the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ (1
Cor. 12:12-25; cf. 10:17) to emphasize the need for diversity within unity. But
here, using the Greek sense of the metaphor “head” (The Greeks considered the
head to be the ultimate necessary part of the body, since all its functions
originate in and are sustained by the head; thus when used metaphorically, the
focus is on the body’s dependence on the dead), Paul emphasizes the church’s
utterly dependent relationship to Christ. Indeed, failure to be connected with
the head, he says later (2:19), means total loss with regard to one’s relationship
with God. The church is thus to be understood as existing “in Christ” similar
to the way creation exists “in him”: As the Son is the sphere of being for all
that exists, so the Son is also the “head” of his body the Church, which not
only exists in him, but also draws all necessary life from the “head” to which
it is connected.
Second,
given this understanding of the janus, or presenting clause, then the relative
pronoun ος (line a) should probably be understood
in a way similar to a in the first strophe. In that strophe the first
thing up was a phrase clarifying the relationship of the Incarnate Son to the
unseen God, as the one who perfectly bore the divine image. In this strophe the
first thing up, Christ as αρχη (“the beginning”), should likewise be understood
in light of the immediately preceding reference to his body, the church. With
an apparently deliberate echo of Gen 1:1 (One is led to think so because this strophe
is as much concerned with the new creation as the first strophe was with the
original creation), the Son of God is asserted to be the “beginning” of the new
creation, just as he is the “cause” of the former creation; and he is so as the
result of his being the “firstborn” with regard to the dead. In this case,
however, πρωτοτοκος carries both sense of
the word: as in the “first” to rise from the dead, he thus also has the rights
of the “firstborn” with regard to his church. All belong to him, the author of
the new creation, and all are thus totally dependent on him with regard to the
life of the future.
The
word αρχη has been claimed for Wisdom Christology, but
on as equally poor grounds as with the preceding word. Philo, for example,
speaks of God’s wisdom once in this way (Leg. 1.43), but whether he is
thinking in terms of personified wisdom is moot (see n. 24 above). In the Wisdom
literature itself the word occurs with reference to Wisdom only in Prov.
8:22-23—and in Sir. 24:9, which is simply an echo of Prov. 8:23.
Although there is a slight possibility in the Septuagint of Prov. 8:22 that the
translator intended to identify “Wisdom” with the word αρχη, the likelihood in fact is remote. After all, the
author’s own elaboration of verse 22 in verse 23 specifically identifies her
not with this word as such, but with her being present “at the
beginning,” before the creation itself. And since this is the only way ben
Sirach understood it (24:9; cf. 1:4), it is altogether unlikely that Paul had
Lady Wisdom in mind when he called the Risen Son, the “beginning.” Paul seems
obviously to be reflecting Gen. 1:1, and is thinking of the Son in terms of the
new creation, an idea totally foreign to the Wisdom tradition.
What
this means, finally, is that the two words that begin each strophe (image /
beginning) are direct echoes of the Son in connection with creation in Genesis
1. With the primary word in the second line in each case (firstborn), Paul puts
a new spin on his own use of this term from Rom. 8:39, and seems to use it in
the present context to point to the reality that the Davidic messianic Son is
none other than God’s eternal Son who has all the rights of primogeniture with
regard to both the original and the new creation. (Gordon D. Fee, “Old
Testament Intertextuality in Colossians: Reflections on Pauline Christology and
Gentile Inclusion in God’s Story,” in Sang-Won (Aaron) Son, ed., History and
Exegesis: New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr. E. Earle Ellis for His 80th
Birthday [New York: T&T Clark, 2006], 201-221, here, pp. 217-18)
Footnote 24 (from p. 214) reads thusly:
It is
elsewhere found in Sir. 17:3 and Wis. 2:23 with direct reference
to Gen 1:27, and Ps-Solomon in several instances referring to idols (Wis.
13:13, 16; 14:15, 17; 15:5) and once in a metaphorical way (17:21) referring to
darkness. IT does occur in Philo, Leg. 1.43, but it is not at all
certain that Philo had Wisdom as a being in mind, since two paragraphs later he
says similar things of virtue. Colson and Whitaker (LCL 1.175) certainly did
not think so, and they are quite ready to capitalize these words when they are
considered personification. Here they read: “By using many words for it Moses
has already made it manifest that the sublime and heavenly wisdom is of many
names,” which include “beginning, image, and vision of God.” And in any case,
bringing Philo into a discussion of the Wisdom literature is itself somewhat
problematic; all the more so when it is the only possible referent that one
has.
