Reconciling All Things
19 For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
The fullness dwells in him by the Father's own pleasure — and the peace is made by something specific and bloody.
For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him. The noun is plērōma G4138, fullness, totality, and it appears to have been a term the Colossian teachers used — Paul takes it and empties it into one person. Chapter 2 will make the content explicit: all the fullness of Deity, bodily Colossians 2:9.
The verb was pleased matters: the indwelling is something the Father wanted, which keeps the hymn from being a diagram. And dwell means taking up permanent residence rather than lodging — a distinction that tells against any teaching that the divine visited Christ and departed.
Verse 20 states the purpose: to reconcile all things to himself, peace having been made by the cross where his blood was shed. The scope matches verse 16 — things on earth and in heaven — so the reconciliation is as wide as the creation.
But the means is deliberately narrow and physical. Not emanation, ascent, or knowledge, but an execution. The hymn that has ranged across the universe lands there, and that is where the letter anchors its whole argument against supplements.
settled What this mark means