Finally it is however, the idea of Jewish wisdom that dominates the strength of the term ‘image’ for the audience. Paul had already identified Jesus strongly as the embodiment of God’s wisdom in 1 Corinthians^[86] but the strength of the term comes from earlier Jewish writing. Sirach speaks of God’s wisdom being part of everything^[87] in creation and existing before time^[88] while Baruch^[89] identifies wisdom as the secret of good living^[90]. The Wisdom of Solomon identifies wisdom as the driving force behind the rule of humanity over creation^[91] even more tightly tying the Jewish imagination of wisdom to the Genesis use of image. This personification of Wisdom^[92] pervades the biblical text and it is this concept of pre-existent wisdom that is now on display being now expressed in Christ^[93]. The rationale being, “not so much that Christ as Jesus of Nazareth had preexisted as such, but that preexistent Wisdom was now to be recognized in and as Christ^[94].” The language of ‘firstborn’ should not be read as problematic for this interpretation. “In Colossians 1:15 πρωτότοκος (firstborn) with the genitive has the same force that πρώτος (before) with the genitive has in John 1:15, 30; it denotes not only priority but primacy^[95].”

It is these four distinct forms of christology that play for influence in the passage. Christ as the second Adam. Christ as the visible expression of God. Christ as the counter to the image of Caesar. Christ as the Wisdom of God.

While this complicates our reading, as Dunn points out, “the tension inherent in setting such different metaphors alongside each other are inevitable in the expression of themes so difficult to conceptualize. That the metaphors and images do not fit neatly together is simply a function of how metaphors ‘work’.^[96]”