What Does Colossians 1:20 Mean?
And, having made wholeness through the blood of his cross, through him to bring all things back to himself, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.
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, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.THE KEY
The peace here is wholeness made as all things are reconciled to himself through the blood of the cross.
THE MEANING
Christ is reconciling all things to himself, and you are within that reach; its scope extends beyond any one person to everything in earth and heaven. The peace being made is wholeness, not simply a calm feeling. The verse names its means starkly: the blood of his cross.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that peace is only the absence of conflict: here peace is made through the cross as all things are reconciled.
THE ROOT
ἀποκαταλλάξαι
apokatallaxai
GROWS FROM
ἀλλάσσω
allassō
To change, alter, or exchange.
“bring back” in this verse is apokatallaxai. The Greek word family carries change beneath the sense of reconciliation. Here that change is relational: what is estranged is brought into a new relation, and the reach of that reconciliation is all things in earth and heaven.
ALSO GROWS
allassō: To change, alter, or exchange.
ἀλλάσσω
This is the root whose seed remains audible beneath the verse’s word for reconciliation.
katallassō: To reconcile or restore a relationship.
καταλλάσσω
This related form shows the same root applied to estrangement being brought into relation.
εἰρηνοποιήσας
eirēnopoiesas
GROWS FROM
εἰρήνη
eirēnē
Peace, wholeness.
“made wholeness” in this verse is eirēnopoiesas. The phrase is built from the word for peace as an action: peace is being made, not merely felt. Its wholeness reaches all things, and the verse names the blood of the cross as its means.
ALSO GROWS
eirēnopoieō: To make peace.
εἰρηνοποιέω
This verb family makes peace something accomplished, matching the verse’s description of reconciliation.
eirēnopoios: Peacemaker.
εἰρηνοποιός
The related word names one who makes peace, echoing the active work described here.
THE PATTERN
Scripture locates peace in the costly repair of what is broken, with reconciliation reaching across enmity.
But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.For if, while we were enemies, we were exchanged with God through the death of his Son, much more, being exchanged, we will be delivered by his life.And so that he might return both to God in one body through the cross, having slain the hostility in it.THE THREAD
And so that he might return both to God in one body through the cross, having slain the hostility in it.Ephesians uses the same Greek root ἀλλάσσω (allassō, “change or exchange”) in its word for reconcile, and names the cross as the means of bringing estranged groups into one body. Colossians opens that same movement to all things in earth and heaven, showing reconciliation at the scale of the whole creation.
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