THE NEW TESTAMENT begins with the four gospels, four ways of telling the story of Jesus. Mark begins the story with the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke begins earlier, with the birth of John the Baptist. Matthew begins still earlier with a history of Jesus’ family lineage that traces all the way back to the time of Abraham.

But John pushes back much, much further, all the way to a time before the universe was created. “In the beginning,” he says, echoing the story of creation from Genesis 1. He portrays Jesus as the earthly embodiment of the eternal Word through whom everything came into being. The story of the man named Jesus, in other words, may begin with his birth in Bethlehem or his childhood in Nazareth. But that story is embedded in a larger, more cosmic one, the story of the Word who was with God from the beginning, the Word who was himself God (John 1:1).

Paul, too, wants the Colossians to understand this larger story of a cosmic Christ. Apparently, they are being tempted by other teachings to worship other beings and follow their religious dictates. Paul’s pastoral strategy is not to refute these teachings, but to show how empty they are compared to the full truth about the Jesus in whom they already believe. Thus, as we’ve seen, he uses a poem or hymn to declare the absolute supremacy of the Son:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers 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. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. (Col 1:15-18, NIV)

Here, Paul uses a variety of prepositions to convey the superiority of Christ to everything and everyone in the created order, even angels or heavenly beings, which is how interpreters often read Paul’s mention of thrones, powers, rulers, and authorities. Everything in heaven and earth, whether visible or invisible, Paul says, was created in him, through him, and for him.

There’s no way for created beings such as ourselves to completely comprehend what Paul is describing, but he says it for a reason, and it’s worth pondering what the three prepositions — in, through, and for — convey when taken together.

First, all things were created in him. Throughout his letters, Paul is fond of saying that we are in Christ, as if he were the very sphere of our existence. I think here of Paul’s impromptu speech to the Athenians on Mars Hill; borrowing from the philosopher Epimenides, he describes God as the one in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Second, all things were created through him: the Son was the agent of creation; some would translate Paul as saying that all things were created by him. And third, all things were created for him. The word can suggest movement toward a goal or purpose. The Son isn’t just the one who got things started; he’s the perfect end toward which creation points. And he is the goal toward which we grow as believers. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, our destiny is “to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters” (Rom 8:29).

And Paul says all of this with a human being in mind, the man named Jesus.

But just as the story of Jesus doesn’t begin with his birth, neither does it end with his death. Jesus is not only the firstborn over all creation; he is the firstborn “from among the dead,” the first to be resurrected to eternal life, and again, the firstborn from among a host of brothers and sisters who will follow in his resurrected footsteps. Paul thinks of our mortal bodies as temporary dwellings like tents, which will one day be replaced by permanent resurrection bodies. He longs for that day, as he tells the Corinthians:

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (2 Cor 5:1-5)

For Paul as an apostle of Jesus, as one who suffers daily for the gospel, this earthly life can be burdensome. He groans as he awaits the day of resurrection. But he doesn’t groan as someone who has no hope. The very presence and work of the Holy Spirit in him and in all the faithful is all the confirmation he needs to know that the promise of resurrection is true.

That’s why, just a handful of verses later, he is able to say, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17). He’s not questioning whether anyone is, in fact, in Christ; again, he says repeatedly that we are. His point, rather, is that the fact that anyone could be in Christ is already a miracle of grace, and he celebrates that miracle as a sign that God’s work of new creation has already begun.

And what God has started, he will finish.

The Son is the firstborn over all creation, the one through whom all things were made, the one in whom the universe holds together. But as the biblical story tells us, the beauty of God’s creation was marred by the fall of humanity into sin. Thus began the work of restoration and reconciliation. That’s the work of new creation, and it began with Jesus too.