What Does Colossians 1:17 Mean?
And he is before all things, and in him all things stand together.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.THE KEY
The world does not merely begin in him; it continues to stand together in him.
THE MEANING
He is before everything that is, and everything holds together in him now. What seems separate and self-sustaining exists within a deeper coherence that has its source in him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that the world, or any part of it, is ultimately self-contained and holds itself together.
THE ROOT
συνίστημι
synistēmi
GROWS FROM
σύν + ἵστημι
Together + stand: to stand together, hold together, or establish.
“stand together” in this verse is synistēmi. The verb translated “consist” pictures all things standing together in him. Its other uses can mean “standing” or “commendeth,” revealing both coherence and something being set forth or established.
ALSO GROWS
standing: The earth standing out of the water and in the water.
The same verb describes the earth as having its place and coherence within creation.
commendeth: God sets forth or demonstrates his love.
The same root can describe something being established or made evident, giving “hold together” a sense of sustaining order.
THE PATTERN
What exists is made and sustained within the life and power of its source.
You, even you, are the LORD alone. You made the heavens, the heavens of the heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is in it, the seas and all that is in them, and you keep them all alive. And the host of the heavens bows down to you.Who, being the radiance of his weight and the exact stamp of his foundation, carrying all things by the word of his power, when he had made the cleansing of shortcomings, sat down at the right hand of the Greatness on high.For in him we live and move and are; as some of your own makers have said, for we are also his offspring.THE THREAD
For they wish this to escape them, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth set together out of water and through water.“Standing” here is the same Greek verb as “consist” in Colossians 1:17. The earth’s place within creation and all things’ coherence in him are described with the same image: standing together.
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