For through him: the Greek “in” is probably instrumental (as “in whom” in verse 14), “by means of” (Goodspeed Phillips “through”); Barclay “the agent by whom”; but Translator’s New Testament Moffatt New International Version have “by.” But the preposition normally used to convey the meaning “through” is dia (as in the last line of this verse; compare Heb 1.2; John 1.3, 10; 1 Cor 8.6). In light of this, some see “in him” here as the sphere in which creation took place; so Beare and Moule, who combine the two: “by means of him and within him.” But this spatial concept is unusual, to say the least. It could be “in union with him,” but this is not expressed in any translation.
The problem of primary and secondary agency expressed in the phrase through him God created everything must often be rather radically restructured to communicate the same set of relations. In some instances, this is best expressed by a set of causative relationships, for example, “God caused Christ to create everything.” In other instances, the relationship is expressed by a somewhat idiomatic syntactic structure “God created everything; Christ did it.” Some languages, however, prefer to introduce a secondary agency with the verb “to help,” for example, “God created everything with Christ helping him.” None of these expressions are to be taken in a strictly literal sense; they are only different ways in which one may refer to the primary agent and the secondary agent of an action.
Everything in heaven and on earth must be expanded, in some instances, to read “everything which exists in heaven and everything which exists on earth.” A literal rendering of this expression might mean those things which exist at the same time both in heaven and on earth, which is obviously not the meaning of the Greek phrase.
In choosing an equivalent expression for everything, it is important not to restrict the meaning to inanimate objects, for as the rest of the sentence clearly indicates, the spiritual powers are regarded as having certain aspects of personality.
The seen and the unseen things may be rendered as “what can be seen and what cannot be seen” or “what people can see and what people cannot see.”
The rest of the sentence (Good News Translation) expresses the totality of creation, the whole universe, as we would say today, including all supernatural powers. Four terms are used in Greek with no precise distinction intended; see comparable lists in Rom 8.38; 1 Cor 15.24; Eph 1.21, 3.10, 6.12; Col 2.10, 15; 1 Peter 3.22. They denote supernatural creatures, conceived of as angels (in their various ranks) in Jewish thought, or as lesser gods or powers, in Greek philosophy. In this passage, they are treated as existing and as morally neutral (whether good or bad is not in question), but they are included among created beings, that is, without independent existence apart from God. As with all other created beings, they are dependent on and subordinate to God.
A translation need not use four separate titles to describe these beings; compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “the unseen Powers and Authorities.”
It may be practically impossible to translate literally spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. The term powers normally expresses a quality of something else while the adjective spiritual really refers to “spirit beings.” It may, therefore, be important to reverse the attributive relationships and talk about “including spirits which are powerful, govern, rule, and exercise authority.” In some instances, it may be important to indicate something of the realm in which such spirits function. Therefore, one may say “in the region between heaven and earth,” since in ancient times such spirit beings were regarded as having their realm of authority over the earth.
The last sentence summarizes the thought of the first part of the verse. God created here represents the perfect passive of the verb, whereas in the first part of the verse, it is the aorist passive; it is possible that a distinction is intended, that is, “created” and “has created” (but see Turner Moulton III, 68-70). In both instances, the passive voice in Greek is used to expresses divine activity. The new element is for him (also Phillips New International Version Translator’s New Testament New English Bible Jerusalem Bible New American Bible, etc.), which is not an entirely adequate representation of the preposition eis, which indicates purpose or goal. The whole line is better represented by Barclay, “He is the agent and goal of all creation.” That is, creation finds its purpose, its goal, its finality in Christ. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “God has created everything through him, and everything has its goal in him.”
The rendering of God created the whole universe through him must be expressed in essentially the same way as the similar statement at the beginning of verse 16. The phrase the whole universe may be rendered simply as “everything that exists” or, as in some languages, “the earth and the heavens.”
The phrase for him may be simply rendered as “for his benefit.” To say literally that “everything has its goal in him” is extremely difficult to express in some languages. One might approximate this meaning by employing a phrase such as “Christ is the purpose for which everything exists,” but this likewise may be relatively meaningless. Perhaps the closest equivalent would really be “the purpose of everything is to honor Christ.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Colossians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1977. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .