Colossians 1:15–20 is one of the highest descriptions of Christ in the New Testament. Its first line calls him “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation”. Read quickly in English, the second phrase can sound as if Christ were the first creature God made: born first, and then the rest. In the fourth century Arius and his followers read it that way, and in the modern period the Jehovah’s Witnesses have. Most readers, ancient and modern, have not. The question turns on one word.
The word
The word is πρωτότοκος (prōtotokos), “firstborn”, and the phrase is πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως. The first part of the word means “first”, and the second comes from the verb for giving birth. Taken apart like that, it seems to answer the question: first to be born.
But words do not always mean what their parts suggest, and this one had a long history in the Greek Old Testament. There it translates the Hebrew בְּכֹר (bĕkôr), and in Israel the firstborn son was more than the oldest child. He held first place in the family and received a double share of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:17). “Firstborn” named a position, and the position could be given.
The word also has a partner in the verse. The first title, “image of the invisible God”, says that the Son makes the unseen God visible and known. The meaning decision for that phrase points back to Genesis 1:26–27, where human beings are made in God’s image, and forward to Colossians 3:10, where believers are renewed in it. Both titles describe the Son’s relation to God and to the world: he shows what God is like, and he holds the first place over everything God has made.
Firstborn as a rank
Three passages show this clearly.
Israel. When Moses goes to Pharaoh, God tells him what to say:
Then tell Pharaoh, ‘The LORD says this: Israel is my firstborn son.
Israel was not the first nation in history. The meaning decision reads the words as a statement of belonging and inheritance: Israel is God’s own son, and the other nations stand behind.
Ephraim. Joseph had two sons, and Manasseh was the elder. Yet when Jacob blessed them, he crossed his hands and put his right hand on the younger, Ephraim (Genesis 48:14). Centuries later God says through Jeremiah, “Ephraim is my firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9). The record there notes that Ephraim received the firstborn’s blessing although he was the younger son. “Firstborn” is a place of honour, not a date of birth.
David’s king. Psalm 89 is God’s promise to David and his line:
Also I will make him [the] firstborn, highest of the kings of the earth.
(English Bibles number this verse 89:27.) The king is not born first. He is made firstborn, and the second line says what that means: “highest of the kings of the earth”. The meaning decision explains that the firstborn son held first rank and the inheritance, and that here the king receives that rank. The Balanced level says “I will give him the rank of firstborn”.
The next verse
Colossians itself gives the strongest evidence. Verse 16 begins with “because”, and explains the title:
He is [the] image of the invisible God, [the] firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
He is firstborn of all creation because all things were created in him: in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, lordships, rulers and authorities. Then verse 17 adds, “He is before all things, and all things hold together in him.” If all things were created in him, through him and for him, he is not one of the created things. He stands on the creator’s side of the line.
The meaning decision for verse 15 makes exactly this argument. “Firstborn” here is the one with the rank and rights of the firstborn, supreme over creation, not the first thing created. It lists two readings it rejects: “the first being God created”, and “born before creation, in time only”.
There is also a point of grammar. The Greek has “firstborn” followed by “all creation” in the genitive case, the case English usually renders with “of”. The record notes that the genitive can mean “of” or “over”. “Firstborn of all creation” could suggest he is part of it. “Firstborn over all creation”, as the New International Version puts it, says he is above it, as the king of Psalm 89 is above the kings of the earth.
Greek had ways of saying “first-created”, and Paul did not use any of them. The New World Translation, published by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, reads the verse as making Christ the first creature, and adds the word “other” in verses 16–17, so that he creates “all other things”. The Greek has no word for “other” there.
What each level does
The Literal level keeps the traditional words, “the firstborn of all creation”, so that a reader can see the phrase and its link to the rest of the Bible. The Balanced and Readable levels say what the title means here:
The Son is the image of the unseen God, the firstborn who stands above all creation. For in him everything in heaven and on earth was created, the seen and the unseen, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him.
Readable says “The Son is the firstborn: he has first place over everything God has made.” A rendering decision gives the reason for both: so that the title is not read as “the first thing created”. A footnote on the verse sets out the meaning decision for any reader who wants to see the argument.
First in both creations
The passage has two halves, and the word “firstborn” stands at the centre of each. Verses 15–16 praise the Son as the one through whom all things were made. Verses 18–20 praise him as the one through whom all things are made new:
He exists before all things, and all things are held together in him. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the first to be born from among the dead, so that he would come to hold first place in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross: all things through him, on earth and in heaven alike.
“Firstborn from the dead” is a different kind of firstborn. Here the sense of time is real: Jesus is the first to rise to a life that never ends, and others will follow him. The meaning decision notes that others were raised before Jesus, but they died again. It also notes that the word repeats verse 15. He is first over the old creation and first in the new. The verse ends by saying why: “so that in all things he might come to have first place”.
The New Testament uses the word the same way elsewhere. In Romans 8:29 believers are shaped into the image of God’s Son, “so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters”; the record reads “firstborn” there as first in time and first in rank. In Hebrews 1:6 God brings his “firstborn” into the world, and the angels are told to worship him; the record calls it a title of rank more than of birth order. Revelation 1:5 calls Jesus “the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth”, and the record notes that the words echo Psalm 89, where the king is God’s firstborn, “highest of the kings of the earth”.
Rank, and more than rank
So “firstborn of all creation” is not a statement that Christ was made first. It is a royal title, carried over from Israel and from David’s king, and given to the one in whom, through whom and for whom everything was made. It says he has the firstborn’s place, the heir’s place, over all that exists.
That does not drain the word of every sense of “first”. Verse 17 says he is “before all things”, and the record’s grammar decision there takes it as before them in time and above them in rank. But the before-ness is that of the creator, not of the first creature.
Open Colossians 1 and tap verses 15 and 18 to see the full records. For another title that some readers take as a statement about birth, see “One and only” or “only begotten”?.