What Does It Mean That Jesus Is the "firstborn of All Creation"?
1) Direct answer
“Firstborn of all creation” means Jesus holds the place of preeminence and heirship over everything God made. It does not mean He is a created being. He is the visible image of the invisible God, and all things were made by Him, through Him, and for Him.
2) Scriptural explanation
- The Bible says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by Him were all things created… and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15–17). If all things were created by Him and He is before all things, He cannot be one of the created things.
- It also says He is “the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). So “firstborn” speaks of rank and preeminence—He is Head over creation and Head of the new creation by resurrection.
- God calls the king “My firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89:27). “Firstborn” there clearly means highest place, not first one to exist.
- “God was manifested in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16). The body is the Son; the Life in Him is God. As to the flesh, Sonship began in time (Luke 1:35). As to the Life, He is the Word by whom all things were made (John 1:1–3,14).
- He is also called “the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14)—the One in whom creation has its start and the One who begins the new creation by rising from the dead.
3) Simple clarifying logic
- If He created all things, He is not a creature. Creator and creation are not the same.
- “Firstborn” in Scripture often means the heir with preeminence. Israel was called God’s “firstborn” (Exodus 4:22) as a position, not because it was the first nation.
- So “firstborn of all creation” means He is the supreme Heir over it, and “firstborn from the dead” means He is the first to rise in immortality, bringing in the new creation and taking the Headship.
4) Reinforcing statement
Now notice… it’s not three persons. One God was manifested in flesh. The Son is the body God used, and in that body He took the rights of the Firstborn over all creation and, by resurrection, became the Firstborn of the new creation. That’s the mystery—preeminence, not creaturehood.
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
And knoweth it not
65-0815 §43
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63-1222 §32
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62-0318 §76
So, you see what I mean? It is the germ that come from the seed---He is. He is the Word of God made perfectly manifest. That's the reason that in Him was what? That was the thing that He is correctly ... the son from the first Adam was the son that was promised through Adam continuing on the human race, and Eve hybrid it to the serpent and brought forth a generation of bastard children born to death without life, and Jesus come and was that seed. He proved it. Everything that Adam lost, Jesus was. See it? He is the...
Adoption, part 2: Manifested sons of God
60-0518 §49
Now, that's what it means, friends. That's what that vision (or translation, whatever, a vision---I'll say vision, because I'm afraid that would hurt somebody to say translation), that's what that was. Now, there's when God ... what God did to bring sons and daughters to Him. Now, who are these people? How did they ever... What did these people do to merit this? How did they ever do it? God, at the beginning, before an angel was ever made... How many knows He's infinite? Now, you trinitarian brethren, I'm not wanti...
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65-0911 §28
Now, this great Creator had placed his created son... Now Adam was his first created son; Jesus was his only begotten Son. See, He was begotten by a woman; but Adam was right straight from the hand of God in the creation. Now, the headquarters with his son and his son's bride over all, it looked so perfect. There was a man, the head of all of it, his own son and his bride. And every seed was perfect: the palms, and the oaks, and the grass, and the birds, and the animals. And everything was in perfect order with the...