Page 15 - BV18

Colossians 1:15-20 15

Dualism — The view that reality may be divided into two essential forces. There are two
forms of this understanding. From a cosmic perspective, the world struggles between two opposing
forces — typically, one of evil and one of good. From a philosophical approach, the essence of a
person is divided between two incompatible natures — that of the body and that of the soul. Early
Christianity incorporated both views from those religions and philosophies with which it came in
contact. This is the same concept used not only in Greek philosophy, but also in Greek mythology.
Hercules is the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. He had a dual nature, he was a man that had su-
pernatural strength which he inherited from his father Zeus. The Pharaohs were godmen and so
were the Caesars. The Bible even provides us with an example of this belief in Acts 14:11 when
YEHOVAH healed a crippled man through Paul and Barnabas:

“When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they cried out in Lycaonian, ”The gods have
come down to us in human form."

The idea of gods becoming men was very prevalent in the Roman-Greco world. This is why
it was so natural to inject this belief into Christianity. As you can see, the idea of Dualism is the ex-
act definition that Trinitarians have used for Yeshua, that he has two natures. He is fully God and
fully Man. This is stated in the Chalcedon Creed of 451 AD. Yeshua is not a godman, he is the
Anointed (the Messiah).

With the proper definitions a proper understanding of John 1:1-3 and 14 is not difficult. The
problem arises when you bring a lot of preconceived ideas with you when trying to interpret this
verse. We today have to do the exact opposite of what Bible scholars of the 3rd, 4th and 5th centu-
ries did. They injected Christianity with a huge and dangerous dosage of Greek philosophy. We
have to remove all the erroneous interpretations that that philosophy brought with it in order to un-
derstand YEHOVAH’s message for us. These verses are a good starting point. As you can see many
people have been falsely lead to believe that John 1:1-3 is saying that Yeshua is God, when in fact it
has nothing at all to do with the deity of Yeshua.

Now we can proceed to Colossians 1:15-20 with a Scripture based background and not a
tradition based background.

Colossians 1:15-20

To start with, Colossians 1:15-20 is not one of the easier passages to understand in the New
Testament. We are going to have to approach it with much patience as we compare its verses to
other verses in the New Testament in order to understand what Paul is trying to say. We are going to
explain this passage verse by verse. First, let us begin by reviewing what this passage is about. In
other words, what is the context that we should try to understand this passage in? We can gather the
topic that leads to this passage from Colossians 1:12-14. It states:

“Giving thanks to the Father, who has made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy
ones in light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the king-
dom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

The Berean Voice November-December 2002