What is the supremacy of Christ and what does it mean?
Colossians ends its great description of Christ with a purpose clause: everything said before about Him leads up to His holding the first place. The questions that follow are what "all things" covers, on what grounds the claim rests, and what changes for a person who accepts it.
The matter already settled
The first place is not something Christ is competing for. Commentators present it as a decision already made, and made at the highest level.
H J VineThe first place in all things belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ. It has been the pleasure of the Godhead to settle the matter this way. This pre-eminence is universal, covering not only the earth but also the heavens. It is true that an immense work had first to be undertaken and finished by Him, because sin was present, before He could take up the public first place; and that work involved the shedding of His blood at Calvary to bring in peace; but we are speaking rather of the pre-eminence itself, and of the One to whom it unchangeably belongs.
Founded on creation
One reason for His place is that the universe is His own work. He did not enter a world belonging to someone else.
The Christian's FriendThe apostle had already spoken of Him as the firstborn of every creature, or "before all creation," and he explains that this place belongs to Him because He is the Creator... If the Creator Himself steps, so to speak, into His own creation, He must of necessity take the first place, and this is one of the glories of His supremacy.
Founded on resurrection
The verse names a second sphere alongside creation: the church, which the New Testament pictures as a body with Christ as its head. His title there is "the firstborn from the dead."
F. B. HoleThe glorious Head of the body is the centre. Here we find Him as Man come forth in resurrection. He is "the firstborn from the dead," and, as such, "the beginning." Everything that forms part of that new creation finds its origin and takes its character from Him.
A place not yet visible
Looking around at the world, His supremacy is not obvious. Writers are careful to distinguish what is true from what is currently on display.
H J VineAs to Israel, and to people generally, He is still rejected; though at God's right hand He is exalted, and all things are put under Him according to the divine settlement, but not yet as a public fact. Faith sees the present situation clearly, for faith is "the conviction of things not seen," not seen publicly by the natural eye. Those who have faith take their stand with Christ, and shape their present path in loyalty to the One to whom the first place in all things belongs.
Nothing to be added to Him
If Christ is supreme, then no practice or spiritual authority can be stacked on top of Him. This is the argument Colossians itself makes against the specific errors threatening those readers.
H H SnellIt was "not holding the Head" which exposed the young believers at Colosse to be led astray by the false teachings of worshipping angels, ritualism, and philosophy or rationalism... If the Lord Jesus Christ filled our hearts as the Head of all rule and authority, and if we knew that we are complete or filled full in Him, how could we think of worshipping angels who were created by Him and made subject to Him?
The place men try to take
The claim can be disputed from inside as well as outside. One writer notes that the only other appearance of this word group in the New Testament describes a man in a church, not an enemy of it.
H J VineThe Holy Spirit describes this Diotrephes with one word — Philoproteuon, meaning lover of the pre-eminence, or lover of the first place... This man, like those he is a type of, set his heart on the place which belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ alone. He stands out as a solemn warning to anyone who, whatever the stated motive, seeks personal control in the assembly.
First place is not enough
Applied personally, "all things" resists being reduced to a ranking. One writer presses the difference between giving Christ the top slot and giving Him the whole.
W T TurpinIf it satisfied the blessed Lord to take the first place in my heart, then I am free to put whoever I please next to Him. But if Christ has every place, then everything that comes in must come in under Him — that is the difference, and a mighty difference too... If He is only first, then I can put whom I like next; but if He is all, then nothing can come in except in agreement with Christ, and under Christ.
That supremacy is meant to spread outward through ordinary life:
The Christian's FriendIt will be our delight to give Him the first place in every sphere of our responsibility; first of all in our hearts; then in our homes; also among the gathered saints; and in all the activities of our daily lives.
Summary
- Settled — The first place was fixed by God Himself; it is received, not awarded by us.
- Grounded — He holds it in creation as its Creator, and in the church as the firstborn from the dead.
- Hidden — His supremacy is real but not yet publicly displayed, so acknowledging it now is the test of faith.
- Sufficient — Because He is supreme, nothing may be added to Him; those who let go of the Head drift into ritual, philosophy, and lesser objects of worship.
- Total — Giving Him first place still leaves us choosing who comes second; the verse asks for every place — heart, home, gathering, daily work.