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.
Ask a Follow-up Question
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.
The Identified Christ of all ages
64-0401 §14
Now, God is a great--a great... like a great Being. "In the beginning God..." See? We... He wasn't even God, to begin with. God is "an object of worship." And He was called... There wasn't nothing, to worship. He was self-existent Elohim, and there wasn't nothing to worship Him. When He created Angels, then there was something to worship Him. But in this great God, Elohim, was attributes. There was attributes in there to be God; attributes to be Father; attributes to be Son; attributes to be Saviour; attributes to...
God's only provided place of worship
65-1128M §106
Then a new creation, not to a denomination but to the Word. You're a creation of the Word. Because the foundation stone was laid in you before the foundation of the world, predestinated to be sons and daughters of God. And upon this come stone upon stone, in each age, to vindicate that Word that's coming up, just exactly as Jesus did in His age, which is the Capstone of it all. In Him laid every age. In Jesus was Moses. In Jesus was David. In Jesus was the prophets. Is that right? Look at Joseph, sold for almost th...
Christ is the mystery of God revealed
63-0728 §235
Notice, Colossians the 18th verse here, in the book of Colossians, 18th verse: Now ... he is the head of the church, the body, ... who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.
The Identified Christ of all ages
64-0409 §28
Now you say, "That took a long time." Not to God. We're finite. We just have to hurry. I was thinking, when I left Jeffersonville and driving 30 miles an hour, I drove down to Birmingham in one day, and a little bit of the night. And I thought, that didn't mean so much to me, but what if a little ant tried to run that. What would it mean to him? See, he couldn't make it in thousands of life times; but it didn't mean nothing much to me. What about a airplane, what about a jet, then an astronaut? Then what about God?...
Five junctions of time
56-0122 §108
There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel's veins, Where sinners plunge beneath the flood, Now remember, what do they do? Lose all their guilty stains, every bit of it, all gone. Do you believe that you'll lose it right now? If you'll believe it with all your heart, and all your guilty stains will be... What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Every man that ever amounted to anything believed that. Just let's think of w...