THE
FIRST-BORN OF GOD'S CREATION
The term used in Colossians 1:15, has been the
subject of study and controversy, which saw its climax during the first council
of the Christian Church in Nicaea, in the year 325, when conventional
Christians confronted Christian followers of the Presbyter Arius, who, in turn,
was only a public and better known exponent of the Christian martyr Lucian of
Antioch, who is known to have instructed Arius in the idea that if the Son was begotten
of GOD the Father, therefore there must have been a time when the Logos did not
exist, and what is more, if it were so, its nature was created and not eternal
like that of GOD (1).
Because Arianism was harshly condemned by the
Trinitarian Christian Church, the writings of Arius, a highly educated and
intelligent person, were banned and his books burned by imperial order, so that
"his heresy would not spread all over the world."(2)
ARGUMENTS
However, some of the arguments used in this dispute,
the first to divide Post Apostolic Christianity, were verses like Colossians
1:15; where it says:
"He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation."
“Oς ἐστιν
εἰκὼν
τοῦ Θεοῦ
τοῦ ἀοράτου,
πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,”
Colossians 1:15
Or this other:
"The Amen, the Faithful and True
Witness, the Beginning of God's creation, says this"
"Τάδε λέγει ὁ
ἀμήν,
ὁ
μρρτυς ὁ πιστὸς
καὶ ἀληθινός,
ἡ
ἀρὴὴ
ῆῆς
κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ"
Revelation 3:14
Passages like these and others where Lord Jesus says
that the 'Father is greater than Him' (John 14:28), and that there are things
that 'only the Father knows' and He does not (Matthew 24:33); they were used as
arguments to show that Jesus could not have the same divine nature as God, but
that he was just a mere creature, like the angels, although the first and most
complete of God's creations.
It would be long to deal with each of the Arian
arguments, but we will analyze the meaning of Colossians 1:15 and Revelation
3:14; since these were the most used verses.
COLOSSIANS 1:15 AND REVELATION 3:14
Definitely these verses seem to give Jesus a lower
place than GOD the Father, and so they were raised by the Arians, as now by the
modern Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses.
For this reason, many explanations have been tried
in this regard, trying to avoid the obvious meaning that Jesus is the first of
God's Creation, which makes Jesus, even before his earthly existence, one more
creation of God Almighty.
Of all the explanations given, perhaps the best
known and accepted by most Christians today is the one that says that
Colossians 1:15 is a literary expression that places Jesus as the Prince or
Guardian of all of God's creation, and not that Jesus himself was created, or
that he is less divine than the Father himself.
But this analysis somewhat violates the grammatical
form of the sentence. If the original idea had been to say that Jesus was above
all God's Creation, without Himself being one more creation, it would not have
been necessary to express such an idea with those words, but simply to have
said that 'Jesus is above all Creation' or that 'Jesus was the origin of all
God's Creation', as is said in other passages that speak of the Son of God (John
1:3,10; Colossians 1:16).
Furthermore, Revelation 3:14 seems to go deeper into
the problem, saying directly that Jesus is 'The beginning of the creation of
God'.
Although Colossians 1:15 could be taken to mean that
'Jesus is in charge of and above everything created', which could be reinforced
by Colossians 1:16 which states that everything was created by Him; Revelation,
however, is even clearer, saying that Jesus is "the Beginning (ἀρχὴ)
of God's creation."
ἡ ἀΡΧὴ
ΤῆΣ
ΚΤΊΣΕΩΣ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ
However, the use of the word ἀρχὴ
(Arche-Beginning) in Revelation 3:14 and πρωτότοκος (Proto-Tochos-Firstborn) in
Colossians 1:15, do not necessarily have to reduce the divinity of Jesus to
something less than that of the Father, or strip completely his divine
Omnipotence.
In the first place, the concepts of divinity,
progeny, nature and eternity must be clear.
DIVINITY:
The condition of being 'GOD', with all the attributes that qualify a deity as
divine. Omniscience, Omnipresence and Omnipotence.
For any being to be considered GOD he must be
self-aware and know everything. Nothing must be covered up from his knowledge.
NATURE:
A reality endowed with its own laws independent of any external intervention.
The nature of GOD must have the highest form of life in the universe and
eternally. What was once called οὐσία,
or essence or 'form of being', must be unique, immutable and eternal.
ETERNITY:
Constant reality, which has no beginning or end and is self-sufficient. The
'gods' are not born, they do not die, they do not mutate. GOD must be eternally
the same, all-powerful and all-knowing. Only God can be eternal. Not begotten,
not created. Everything else is below GOD and cannot be divine by nature.
PROGENY:
Offspring coming by reproduction, not creation, which shares the same nature as
its parents.
JESUS THE
SON OF GOD
The term 'Son of God', common among Easterners to
describe a man favored by God (Exodus 4:22), was applied to Jesus on the basis
of his supernatural progeniture to Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Although the demons called Jesus 'Son of God';
they did it on the basis that they knew that Jesus was the Messiah (a man
favored by God), but they ignored the virginal conception of Christ. Only
Christians, aware of the miracle of the Annunciation, called Jesus 'Son of
God', because literally JESUS of Nazareth, as a man,
had Mary and GOD as parents. Jesus was literally the Son of God.
However, this status of 'Son of God' never applied
to Him for His Pre-Existence period. Nowhere is the LOGOS called 'Son of God'
in the Old Testament. The custom of calling the Logos 'Son of God' was born as
a consequence of the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century, and is of
human, not divine, making.
THE LOGOS
The divine λόγος, the name given by the NT to the
person who would later become Jesus of Nazareth, was taken by the Christians of
the first century as Divine, participating in the same nature of GOD YHWH, and
yet, with its own identity:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God”
Ἐν ἀρχῇ
ἦν
ὁ
Λόγος, καὶ ὁ
Λόγος ἦν πρὸς
τὸν
Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς
ἦν
ὁ
Λόγος.
John 1:1
The term ἀρχῇ
in this context, 'In the Beginning' denotes when used in relation to the
Father, an eternal 'beginning'. In modern terms, verse 1 of chapter 1 of Saint
John would read:
“From the beginning of eternity, JESUS existed,
and JESUS was with YHWH, and JESUS was
Divine”
The concept of divinity given to Jesus is not
something that was born in the fourth century, but was held by the first
Christians, and that is what leads them to call Jesus 'GOD' in various parts of
the apostolic writings.
(Philippians 2:5-6; John 1:18; Colossians 2:9-10)
How then can the Logos be the first of God's
Creation and be divine at the same time?
THE FIRST OF ALL CREATION
We must be clear before analyzing this phrase, to understand
that God is, and is not halfway or by degrees. GOD is perfect, complete and
immutable for all eternity.
If the Logos has, according to Scripture, its own
personality, and is divine, it can only be a voluntary bifurcation of the
Father, GOD YHWH, who is always the same and the source of all existence.
Moreover, if it is a bifurcation, it must have
happened at some point in eternity. John 1:1, without hesitation says that the
Logos always existed. He speaks like this because it is impossible to
pigeonhole the beginning or end of eternity. It is impossible for angels, men,
and every created being, however sublime it may be. But the bifurcation
occurred, long before time occurred, it is a constant present, a constant
divine emanation, which in a linear time, incarnated in our GOD-MAN, JESUS OF
NAZARETH.
We can only understand this, partially, with
abstract ideas, conceiving ideas impossible to ever physically contemplate, not
even in Glory.
YHWH is the only being not begotten, not created,
and always immutable, invisible and eternal. From him comes the Logos, since it
is divine, and only the eternal personality of GOD, whom we know as YHWH,
Yahveh, Jehovah, Elohim, El, or Elion, is the source in the entire universe of
divinity.
Divinity is also unique and complete. It cannot be
divided in essence, since there would make two gods, which is impossible. This
leads us to conclude that although the Logos and the Father have two different
personalities, both are intimately united by the same inseparable divine nature
of the only GOD of the Universe.
The only way to understand the term that Jesus is
the firstborn, or first born of all God's Creation, is to understand that the
divine bifurcation, which is impossible to measure or pigeonhole because it
occurred from eternity, was God's initial will in the person of the Father, who
at a given moment bifurcates into three, Father, Son and Spirit, from eternity.
Because this act has God YHWH as the promoter and
initiator of this multifaced manifestation of Himself, the Logos can be called
the first in the creation of God, but not in the material creation, since the
Bible does not say that. But creation in the sense of being the first act of
God, who from immeasurable eternity, manifests Himself as three distinct and
independent beings one from the other, yet always being the same God, manifested
in three simultaneous forms.
CONCLUSION
JESUS is
the first born of God's Creation, because he exists by the initial will of the
Father from eternity.
Jesus was not born, he emanates from the Father,
constantly, and this emanative act was the first voluntary act of God the
Father since eternity, the first thing He conceived. His first action of creating
will.
Omar Flores.
(1) Arianism, British Encyclopedia.
Arianism, Catholic Encyclopedia.
(2) Edict by Emperor Constantine Against the Arians.
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