1:20a

through Him to reconcile to Himself all things: 1:20a is parallel to the second part of 1:19. In other words, God was pleased to do two things: (1) to have all his fullness dwell in Christ (1:19), and (2) to reconcile to Himself all things (1:20a).

through Him: The pronoun Him refers to Christ here, as it does in 1:19, and Paul placed the words at the beginning of the verse to emphasize them.

reconcile: The word reconcile means “to change people from being enemies to being friends” or “to make peace between people who were once friends but have become enemies of one another.” When God created the world, he intended that everything and everybody should live in harmony and peace with him. But when Adam and Eve sinned, that peace and harmony was destroyed. When Christ died on the cross, he made it possible for people to have peace with God again.

all things: The words all things mean “everything that has been created.” Remember that in 1:16–17 Paul used these same words, all things, four times to refer to everything that God created. So Paul was saying that God not only reconciled all people to himself, but he also reconciled everything he had created.

1:20b

whether things on earth or things in heaven: This is almost the same as what Paul wrote in 1:16b and the meaning is the same in both verses—it means “everything.”

1:20c

by making peace: The phrase making peace means almost the same as “reconcile” in 1:20a. It means “to cause people to be in harmony.” It does not mean that God caused all things to be at peace with one another, rather it means that he made peace between them and himself.

through the blood of His cross: This explains more clearly what Paul meant by “through Him” in 1:20a. The word blood refers to the way Christ died. God required that blood be shed in order for him to forgive sins (Hebrews 9:22). So Christ’s blood is an important symbol in the Bible, and therefore you should keep it in your translation. One way you could clarify it would be to say:

by sending Christ to shed his blood and die on a cross

General Comment about 1:20

In some languages it is clearer to reorder the parts of 1:20 before translating the verse. Some English versions have done this. For example:

And God was pleased for him to make peace by sacrificing his blood on the cross, so that all beings in heaven and on earth would be brought back to God. (Contemporary English Version)

See also Good News Translation. Another way to reorder 1:20 is:

God decided to send his Son, who shed his blood and died on a cross. God did this in order to restore harmony between himself and all things. In this way, he made peace between himself and all that exists in heaven and all that exists on the earth.

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