Jesus – First-born Over Creation?

In Colossians 1.15, Paul uses a phrase that has led to many debates over the years.  Here is the verse:

“He is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation;”

The debate is over the term “first-born.”  In fact, it was a key term in the Christological debates of the early church.  The issue that must be dealt with is whether we are to understand this term as meaning that Christ was the first created thing, who then helped with the creation of all other things, or if Christ is eternal, never being created.  In other words, is Christ eternally co-existent with the Father, or a creature (albeit, a creature with a higher status than the rest of creation).

The word behind our translation is the word πρωτότοκος (prõtotokos). There are two main definitions which are the focus of the debate: 1)the first born- of animals or humans, i.e. the first in succession of offspring, and 2) a superlative statement of rank, such as the special rights that was given to the first-born child.  In this second definition,  πρωτο is not to be understood as the “first of a type,” but rather in a sense of “supreme over.” The difference between the two are undeniably important to how we understand the nature of Christ.

It is important that we do not let our theological biases interpret this text for us.  It is not a matter of picking which definition we like best and plugging it in, because the word does not mean both/and in any given situation, but either/or depending on the context we find it in.  Consider the English word “board.”  There are many definitions of the word, but it does not mean all of them all the time.  A board of wood is not the same as a board of trustees.  You can not just pick and choose whether a board of wood is a group of people, or that a board of trustees are made of wood (no matter what their personality is like!).  It is my opinion that Paul uses this term in Colossians 1.15 as a mark of the supremacy of Christ over all things.  In order to explain why I believe this is so, that Christ is not a creature but eternally existed and not created, I will look at the surrounding context of the passage, and then branch out to the context of other Scripture.

The Argument from Context

This argument from context comes in the very next verse.  If we take  πρωτότοκος here to be “first created thing,” then verse 16 doesn’t make any sense.  After saying that Jesus is the “first-born over creation,” Paul then states that “for by Him all things were created.”   The ‘for’ in this verse signals that what follows is a ground clause for what follows.  We can paraphrase it thus: “Christ is the first-born over creation, because all things were created by Him.”  This seems to be a statement of why Christ has supremacy over creation, because it was created by Him.  The Arians, who believed that Jesus was created, countered this argument by stating that Christ was created, and then He Himself created everything else.   This does not follow, however, because Paul states that everything that it was created was created by Christ.  Paul then categorically states explains the word “all” by unpacking the word in terms of visible and invisible things, things in heaven and things on earth, etc. There is nothing that was created that was not created by Christ.   If Christ Himself was created, then this use of the word “all” does not make sense. In fact, if Paul intended that Christ was created, and then created everything else, we would expect the addition of the word ἄλλος (allos) or ἕτερος (heteros). The first term would mean “first-born over all other things (of the same type, i.e. creatures/creation)” while the second one could be understood as “first-born over all other things (unlike Himself, because He Himself created them).” I wouldn’t push these two different interpretations too far; I think both could be used, but if this was Paul’s intention, we would expect one or the other. To say that Christ Himself was created, and then to say that everything that was created was created by Him is self-contradictory– Christ could not have created Himself if He did not exist in order to create Himself. At this point, John Gill, in his commentary on the verses, introduces a discussion whether a later scribe changed the placement of an accent, changing the term from “first-parent” to “first-born.” Though the UBS text makes no mention of such a variant in the text here, I am not sure whether the NA27 mentions this, or even if there is textual evidence for it. As such, that particular argument doesn’t hold weight with me, but I will direct you to his commentary.

It seems best to me, contextually, that Paul is using the term in a sense of supremacy.  We should then understand the verses like this: “Jesus is supreme over all creation, because all of creation was created by Him.”  I think the rest of Scripture also attests to this, and I will now turn to three texts that I think supports this interpretation.

The Argument from Other Scripture
John 1.1-3

The beginning of John’s prologue to his gospel is considered by many to be one of the most rich Christological passages in the Bible, and for good reason.  The first three verses contain many of the same ideas that Paul talks about in the above Colossians passage.  John is emphatic that Christ was “from the beginning,” i.e. eternal.  “In the beginning was the Word,” (v. 1); “He was in the beginning with God,” (v. 2).  John points out the deity of Christ (as opposed to His creatureliness): “[T]he Word was God,” (v. 1).  Also, like Paul, John says that all things were created by Christ: “All things were made through Him, and nothing was created apart from Him” (v. 3, my translation).  Here, the arguments from above are even more clear.  If Jesus was eternal, that means that He did not have a beginning, and thus was not something created, but something that always has been.   Furthermore, John states that nothing was created apart from Him– which introduces the same self-contradiction as Colossians 1.16.  There was nothing created that was not created by Christ Himself.  This presupposes the existence of Christ prior to all of creation.

Mark 1.3

I argued in a previous post that Mark 1.3 is a Christological passage, not only in the sense of fulfilled prophecy, but also a subtle (to us anyways) acknowledgment on Mark’s part that Christ is deity.  The gist of the argument is that in Mark’s quotation of Isaiah 40.3, a quotation that he regards as being fulfilled in Christ, he changes the phrase τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν (tou theou hemõn) with αὐτοῦ (autou). This is important, because what he is doing is changing “our God” to “Him,” which is a statement of the deity of Christ. Mark is essentially saying that not only is Christ the Messiah, but He is also God. Since I have already written on this topic, I will let you to check out the previous post.

If Christ (”Him”) is equal with God, then He cannot be on the same level as creation.  A creature, by definition, cannot be equal to God.  However, this is exactly what we saw that John was saying, Mark was implying, and next, that Paul explicitly affirmed.

Philippians 2.6

A lot of translations of Philippians 2.6 say something along the lines of:

“though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”

Typically, when we see the word “grasp” we take it as “to grab hold of” or “to understand.”  It would seem, at first glance, that this verse is saying that Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be an actuality (to take hold of) or a thing that Christ could understand.  However, neither of these are correct.  The term used here, ἁρπαγμὸν (harpagmon), means “a prize to be seized, robbery.” I think the TNIV and the HCSB bring out the meaning the best:

“[Christ], existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage.” (HCSB, cf TNIV)

The NRSV uses “exploited.” Jesus didn’t consider it “robbery” for Himself to be equal to God, i.e. not something to be exploited or used to His own advantage. Instead, even though He is equal to God, He still “took the form of a servant (v. 7). This is a type of “addition by subtraction.” In other words, Christ did not lose any of His deity in the incarnation, but added something that was less than deity to Himself (the human nature). In other words, the verse does not attempt to downplay the deity of Christ, but instead presupposes the truth that Christ is equal to God. This is, of course, impossible with any created thing. The word “grasped,” used in so many translations, is at best, very vague. In this text, Paul is not denying the truth of the deity of Christ, but is in fact affirming it, and placing it in contrast to the fact that God Himself took on the nature of man. This is quite a humbling truth, and has many applications for what the Christian life should look like! That is not our purpose for now, however, so we will leave it at the fact that Paul is affirming the deity of Christ and His equality with God, something that can not be said of a creature.

Romans 1.18-32

The New Testament commands the worship of Christ. If we say that Christ is a creature, then we must say that the Bible commands something that it expressly forbids. In Romans 1.18-32, Paul is discussing the wrath of God against the unrighteousness of men. Within this discussion, Paul talks about the fact that due to our sinful nature, mankind twists the revelation of God in nature into the worship of creatures over creator. They exchange the glory of God for created things (v. 23). To worship something created is to place the creation above the creator. This is idolatry at its most basic point. The result is that God’s wrath is poured out on people who practice such idolatry, and the form that this wrath takes is that God will allow them to spiral deeper into their sins.

If we say that Christ is a creature, then we have two options: 1) we must deny that we are to worship Christ, or 2) we must affirm that we are commanded to worship a creature. The problem with 1) is that the overwhelming support of Scripture affirms that we are to worship Christ. The problem with 2) is that the Bible expressly forbids such a practice, explicitly here in Romans 1!

Conclusion

The obvious conclusion to draw, both from the context of Colossians 1 and the entirety of Scripture, is that Christ was not Himself created, but that He is equal to God, and also God Himself.  He is God who has come in the flesh (John 1.14).  He was also the means by which all things were created.  As such, He has supremacy over all of creation, and should be the true object of our worship.  The testimony of the Scripture is more than sufficiently clear that we should understand  πρωτότοκος not in the sense of Christ being created, but as Himself supreme over creation, because He is the source of creation itself. All things were created through Him, and for Him (Colossians 1.16). On the basis of this evidence, any understanding of Jesus being created must be rejected.