This article will be a little more rambling than is typical, since I have less of an actual point to make and am more just thinking out loud about a problem. So that’s what you’re in for.
Colossians 1:19-20 says this:
”For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Sinful humanity needed to be reconciled to God, and that’s clear enough, but the other part of this is more difficult to make sense of: What things in heaven needed reconciling to God?
The reference apparently is to heavenly beings—the “thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” mentioned a couple of verses earlier. The claim here in vs. 19-20 is that the blood of Christ shed on the cross effected “peace,” and this was the way in which the things on earth and in heaven were “reconciled” to God. So again, in what sense were heavenly beings reconciled to God?
John Calvin acknowledges the difficulty here: “As to angels, however, there is a question not easy of solution. For what occasion is there for reconciliation, where there is no discord or hatred?” The answer he offers is that the unfallen angels still had need of being confirmed in righteousness and put beyond the possibility of falling into rebellion, and also that despite their sinlessness, their status as creatures still limited their communion and access to God. Their holiness was not holy enough, in other words. He says: “there is not such absolute perfection as to give satisfaction to God in every respect, and without the need of pardon.”
The English Bishop John Davenant (1572–1641) took basically this same view. Not that the angels were “reconciled” in the sense that enmity was removed (they had none), but that “they may be confirmed in the Divine love, and exalted to the glorious and abiding participation of God, which transcends the power and dignity of created nature.”
Neither Calvin nor Davenant refer to the seraphim of Isaiah 6, but the interpretation they suggest calls to mind the seraphim shielding their faces from the glory of the Lord, and the possibility that now as “reconciled” they can unveil their faces, just as believers can now “with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
I’m not sure this view is correct.
The reconciliation spoken of is one effected by the blood of Christ. Does the blood of Christ reconcile the angels in the sense that Calvin and Davenant describe? To their credit they acknowledge that this interpretation makes Christ in some sense a mediator for angels as well as men: Calvin says, “the grace of Christ does not reside among mankind alone, and… makes it common also to angels. Nor is there any injustice done to angels, in sending them to a Mediator, that they may, through his kindness, have a well grounded peace with God.” Davenant also, “Hence, therefore, it is evident, that the grace of Christ the Mediator is necessary for the happiness even of angels.”
Maybe? But this does seem theologically odd. Jesus’ role as mediator between God and man is grounded in his incarnation as man; if he has a mediatorial role with respect to angels also, it isn’t as an angel.
Two much newer commentaries—Douglas Moo from the Pillar series (2008) and Scot McKnight from the New International Commentary Series (2018) are exegetically substantive and have a lot to say on this verse, but actually don’t really address the question very directly. They seem rather to take the expression “things in heaven and things on earth” as somewhat of a figure of speech to simply refer to all of creation, and take the statement to be an assertion of “cosmic renewal” or “cosmic restoration,” that the death of Christ on the cross has worked to bring about the redemption of the created order, in line with what Paul teaches about the redemption of creation in Romans 8:19-25.
One thing they both do though, which is helpful, is connect the statement to one in the next chapter (Colossians 2:15) which speaks of God disarming the rulers and authorities and triumphing over them in the cross. McKnight gestures toward the thought that the “peacemaking” in 1:20 might actually entail, in the case of the heavenly powers, their defeat and subjugation. If that’s what Paul actually means in 1:20 though, at first blush it sits a bit uneasily with the language of reconciliation. Can we say that heavenly powers which were at enmity with God are “reconciled” by being defeated?
That would depend on what “reconcile” means exactly. The verb used is ἀποκαταλλάξαι, which only occurs two other times in the New Testament—two verses later where it refers to the Colossian believers moving from enmity to friendship, and Ephesians 2:12 where it refers to the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles into the one body of the church. But I wonder if it would be reading too much into the word to assume that it necessarily implies that a state of positive friendship exists between the “reconciled” parties. Perhaps in itself it only speaks of a cessation of hostility, or pacification of effective opposition. After all, if it does imply positive friendship it would be hard to see how 1:20 doesn’t teach absolute universalism (that all people and angels will actually be saved).
So what to conclude? I don’t find Calvin and Davenant’s take very compelling, and Moo and McKnight don’t provide a satisfyingly specific enough answer, though following McKnight’s implication, I think probably the “reconciliation” of things in heaven in 1:20 has in view the pacification of hostile heavenly powers rather than either their salvation (if fallen) or their perfection (if unfallen). What is being described is the re-institution of order in the cosmos, with the new Man Christ taking dominion over creation—heavenly and earthly.
A final thought is that Hebrews 9:23-24 describes Jesus entering the heavenly temple and purifying it by his blood, and the language of Colossians (reconciling all things) may embrace that work of Christ in its scope as well. Whatever reconciliation Colossians speaks of was effected by Jesus’ blood, after all, and that is what we see in Hebrews. Atoning for the sins of man, breaking the power of hostile powers in the heavens, cleansing the heavenly temple—I would say it includes all of this.
Any thoughts?