KenTheExegete

The following excerpt is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes Chapter 13: Was Christ the First Creature, pp. 257-58.

Words vary in their precise meaning and connotation depending on context. If we want to understand what Paul meant by expression “first-born of all creation,” then we need to read it in context. This means looking at what the passage says leading up to that expression as well as what it says in the lines following it. Here is the statement in its context (translating very literally):

¹² giving thanks to the Father, who qualified you for the share of the inheritance of the saints in the light;

¹³ who delivered us from the domain of the darkness and transferred [us] into the kingdom of the Son of his love,

¹⁴ in whom we have the redemption, the forgiveness of sins;

¹⁵ who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation,

¹⁶ because in him all things were created-

in the heavens and on earth,

whether thrones or dominions

or rulers or authorities-

all things have been created through him and for him;

¹⁷ and he is before everything,

and all things in him hold together.

¹⁸ and he is the head of the body, the church

Who is the beginning, the first born from the dead,

so that he might become preeminent in everything. (Col. 1:12-18)

This passage strongly emphasizes Christ’s relationship to God the Father as his Son. Note the references to “the Father” (v.12) and the Son of his love” (v.13). Between these references Paul says that the Father has qualify Christians “for the share of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” The idea here is that the Father’s beloved Son in the primary heir of this “inheritance” from the Father, and yet those redeemed in Christ are graciously invited to receive a “share” of that inheritance. The other key theme that introduces our passage is that of kingdom or rule: we have been rescued from the domain or authority exousia of darkness and transferred into the kingdom basileia of God’s beloved Son (vv.13-14).

It is in this context of Father, Son, kingdom, and inheritance that we should understand the word “firstborn” (prōtótokos). Although the literal meaning of the word is the first offspring born to a biological parent, the cultural significance of the word is that of the father’s primary heir. In ancient Israel and Mediterranean world generally, the firstborn son in a family was customarily the father’s primary heir, inheriting that largest or best portion of his estate (and sometimes all of it). In the context of the preceding explicit reference to an “inheritance” and the use of the titles “Father and Son, this significance of firstborn as the primary heir is clearly the point of the term “firstborn.” As God the Father’s beloved Son, Christ rules the divine kingdom. Probably the main Old Testament text influencing this reference to Jesus as the “firstborn” is God’s promise to David to establish his kingdom forever above all other rulers: “And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Ps. 89:27). The title “firstborn” thus has clear messianic significance, in which, according to Paul, the Messiah (Christ) rules over all creation.

This understanding of Paul’s meaning is amply confirmed by what follows Immediately after calling the Son “the firstborn of all creation,” Paul says that “in him [the Son] all things were created.” Paul here distinguishes the Son from the creation by stating that all things were created in the Son, which means he was not one of the members of those created things. The words “all creation” (pasēs ktiseōs, v. 15)²⁹ and “all things were created” (ektisthē ta panta, v. 16) are clearly synonymous in what they signify: pasēs and panta are two different grammatical forms of the same adjective meaning “all” or “every” and ktiseōs (“creation” or “creature”) is the noun corresponding to the verb ektisthē (“were created”) . In the Greek text, as in most English versions, these two expressions are separated by only three word, “for in him” (hoti en autō). Thus, Paul clearly is not including the Son in the category of “all creation.” Instead, he is saying that “all creation” was created in the Son.

29. The KJV translated this expression “every creation,” but every modern version we reviewed says “all creation.” For a detail explanation of why “all creation” is correct” is correct, see G. K. Beale, Colossians and Philemon, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 86.