by Giuseppe Monno
Colossians 1:16–17
“For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth: everything visible and everything invisible, thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers—all things were created through him and for him. He exists before all things and in him all things hold together.”
In the New World Translation, the expression “other things” appears several times, even though it is absent from the original Greek text and from the principal biblical translations. This is an interpretive addition that has no foundation in the text and alters the meaning of Paul’s statement.
In the Greek of Colossians 1:16–17, the term àllos (“other”) does not appear. The Apostle Paul affirms in an absolute sense that “all things” were created in Christ, through him and for him. The universality of this expression admits no exceptions: everything that exists, visible and invisible, depends on him as both its source and its end.
The immediate context confirms this: Christ “exists before all things and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). If he is before all things, he cannot be included among created realities.
This truth is fully consistent with the revelation of the Old Testament, where God declares: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth unaided” (Isaiah 44:24). The work of creation belongs to God alone. If the New Testament attributes this work to Christ, this implies his full participation in the being and action of God.
Indeed, the New Testament presents the Son as the mediator of creation: “Through him all things came into being” (John 1:3); “through whom he made the ages” (Hebrews 1:2). He is not a created instrument, but the eternal Word, who is with God and is God (cf. John 1:1).
Therefore, introducing the expression “other things” arbitrarily restricts the universality of the text and subordinates the Son to the order of creatures, in contrast with the entirety of biblical revelation.
Christian faith, instead, professes that the Son, the only-begotten of the Father, is not a creature but true God of true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. In him, with the Father and in the Holy Spirit, all things were created, and in him all things find their foundation and their fulfillment.