Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Colossians · About this commentary
In Him All Things Hold Together
Colossians 1:17-18
17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together. · WEB
Christ is before everything and holds everything — and then the hymn moves from the universe to the church without changing subject.
He is before all things. The claim is about existence rather than rank, and the verb is present tense — not was before but is, which is how Scripture speaks when the point is that the category of time does not apply in the ordinary way John 8:58.
And in him all things hold together. The verb means to stand fast, to cohere, to be held from flying apart. It describes an ongoing act rather than a completed one, so the universe is not a mechanism wound up and released. Whatever consistency the created order has is a continuous work of the one who made it.
Then verse 18 turns without any transition: and he is the head of the body, the assembly. The hymn moves from cosmos to congregation in a single clause, and the two are not treated as different subjects. The one who holds the galaxies together is the head of a small church in a declining Phrygian town.
The last titles gather it: the beginning, the firstborn from the dead — the second use of the word from verse 15 — and the purpose is stated outright: that in all things he might have the preeminence. That clause is the hymn's own definition of what firstborn means.
settled What this mark means