Introduction
The title Firstborn (prototokos), like the title Son of God, can have overlapping ideas with human fathers and sons and the divine Father and Son. Love and harmony are similar features in human sons and the divine Son, but there are still many fundamental differences. We are created sons; He is the eternal Son of the eternal God. We must not overly press human concepts into the divine reality. After all, the divine reality is the prototype upon which the human reflection is built.
Just as the firstborn in the Old Testament was marked by glory (Deu 33:17), strength (Psa 78:51; 105:36) and dignity (Gen 49:3), so is the Lord Jesus. However, every firstborn in the OT was created by human generation and listed in human genealogies (1Ch 1:13), but the Lord Jesus is uncreated. Just as He is the eternal Son and Heir, He is the eternal Firstborn.
Old Testament Usage
The word firstborn can be used literally of individuals but is also a title of someone’s representative identity. For example, God says, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn” (Exo 4:22),1 and about David He says, “I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth” (Psa 89:27). Obviously, Israel was not the first nation to exist, neither was David the first king in Israel. The quotation from Psalm 89 shows that the psalmist thinks of firstborn in terms of one who is higher and greater than every other king. To insert into these verses ideas of a first physical birth would render them absurd. But if we see them as representative titles that depict Israel as the most favoured nation, and David as the supreme and preeminent king, then we can understand how Christ is the firstborn.
The word firstborn is often used in terms of rank and preeminence and not chronology. Consider Job 18:13, which speaks of the “firstborn of death”; here “firstborn” is used “of anything which is chief, first of its kind … the greatest of deadly maladies … for disease may fitly be called by a Hebraism, ‘the son of death.’”2 And in Isaiah 14:30, which speaks of the “firstborn of the poor,” “are those [who] not merely belong to the race of the poor, but the poor in the highest sense and first rank.”3
Firstborn of Every Creature (Col 1:15)
Distilling all the above OT references and conceptions of the firstborn, there are three main ideas that are associated with the title: power, preeminence and possession.
Christ is described in Colossians as “the firstborn of every creature” (1:15). Just as the firstborn son was the embodiment of the father’s strength and power, we read of the Lord Jesus that “in him were the all things created” (v16 YLT), on a macro level “all creation” (v15 YLT) down to the microscopic – “all things … visible and … invisible” (v16 YLT). He is the powerful source and powerful supply that designed and built the entire universe. It goes without saying that the maker is greater than the thing made just as the potter is preeminent over the clay. Christ is supremely preeminent to creation because He is the eternal and divine Creator. Just as the firstborn (Heb. bekor) in the OT had a birthright (Heb. bekroa) (Gen 43:33; 1Ch 5:1), that is he had the right of possession, Christ owns all that He has made and presides over. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, has redeemed the globe at the cross, and will glorify the universe in a future day. The firstborn was also a ruler in the OT (2Ki 3:27), and in a future day God will head up all things in Christ, and the universe will sing His praise.
As a side note on Colossians 1, there are a few links between Adam and Christ. Adam was made in the image of God; Christ is the eternal image. Adam was a son of God (Luk 3:38); Christ is the firstborn. Just as man was made the head of woman, Christ is the head of the church (Col 1:18). Adam had the birthright to the globe but forfeited that right to the firstborn. The OT has plenty of references to the first being removed, and the second receiving the right (Gen 48:12-20; 1Ch 5:1; 26:10). Here in Colossians 1, we see by implication the creatorial birthright, lost by the first man due to sin, and given to the second Man, the firstborn of all creation.
Firstborn From the Dead (Col 1:18)
This title comes after the firstborn of all creation, and in the context of the Church. Christ is being presented as the head of a new spiritual creation. He is the beginning (source, originator) of the Church. This new creation required mighty power as He constructs her stone by stone. To save her He went into death. Nobody took His life, but He laid it down and took it up Himself. He came out of death having seen no corruption, and never to return (unlike Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter). He was not the first in time to die and rise, but the first in rank. His resurrection will effect the resurrection of all people, showing that He doesn’t obey death, but death obeys Him, and He is therefore preeminent over death. He now has the keys of hell and death and will possess the harvest that He will extract from the grave in a future day. He will see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.
Firstborn Among Many Brethren (Rom 8:29)
We see Christ’s sovereign power here in that He chose to save all His brethren; He foreordained and predestined them to salvation. This power works for the good and blessing of His people. We will be like the Son because He entered the human family (sin apart) and called us brethren. We will all be like Him in a future day, copies of the prototype and reflections of the true image. We will be sons of God, but He still retains His uniqueness and therefore His preeminence because He is the eternal Son of God. Consistently He calls us brethren, and not the other way around. We are in His family, we are in His house, and He shares His inheritance with us. He is the unique heir, and we are inheritors with Him. In the midst of the assembly, He leads the praise of His brothers, He possesses the centre place, and owns all the glory (Psa 22:22).
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the KJV unless otherwise noted.
2 Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon.
3 Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament.
