How Is Jesus the Firstborn of Creation? Colossians 1:15–18, Part 1

Look at the Book
Teacher: John Piper

[MetanoiaMan]

This video helped me to understand ever slightly more the sheer gob-stopping love poured out by Jesus Christ on Earth; to be fully Divine and thus God in the flesh down here, just so He could do His Father's will and see us saved?! All while facing the torment and ridicule we've thrown at Him leading up to the cross, where He bore our sins! It's a great blessing to have this resource to come to. I hope to renew my awareness, understanding, and praise of the triune nature of God! Thank you so much.

[TheCreepypro]

thank You Lord for your Son and all the wonderful things that come through Him!

[coracee]

How beautiful. Thank you for for this. A beautiful description of my Master, my Saviour, my Lord and my God. Oh, what a beautiful description of Jesus.

[ronkebarber]

2 Corinthians 5:19.
All creations came from Him, the model and the visible image of God, and one of the reasons why He came into the world is to eventually reconcile everything back to God in Himself.
Everything in heaven and in earth and under the earth- both visible and invisible all proceed from inside of Him. Psalm 95, tells us that in His hands are the deep places of the earth. He became the Warehouse where everything for this story plot came from, and will return to. Unimaginable, but that's what it is. Just like it is unimaginable to figure out how Believers are the Church, members in particular of His body and He is the Head. Colossians 1:18; Ephesians 5:30.
This is the same reason that Daniel couldn't understand the revelations of the angel that talked with him and was commanded to shut the book until the prophesy of the suffering and killed Messiah would come to pass. Then, he continued and picked up from where he left off in Daniel 12, in Revelation 5...
It will all be clear on that day. We only know in part. But we should still believe and hold it dear.

[PennySmart]

Very uplifting. How beautiful and glorious is our King!

[godfredbaiden]

God bless you Pastor John for sharing this insight on the nature of Christ

[nikapetit]

Amen! Thank you for sharing. The word of God is a great way to start the day ❤

[andje_izidor_music]

Great and free resources. Thank you Pastor John!

[PaulLee-rsuw]

Amen to Colossians 1:15-18.
Hebrews 4:14-5:10( Jesus the Great High priest) and praise to the Lord( Jesus😊1st❤) and thank you for sharing Colossians 1 :15-18 too.

[maxaplin]

It is quite common for Bible commentators to translate this Greek phrase into English as 'the firstborn OVER all creation', to make it clear that the divine Son of God wasn't created.

The most natural way of putting the Greek into English, however, is 'the firstborn OF all creation', just as John Piper translates it. This doesn't mean that the divine Son of God was created, although it has the potential to be misunderstood in this way.

Importantly, if God has inspired the original Greek with the potential to be misunderstood, then it should be translated into English with the potential to be misunderstood. Those who translate with 'over' instead of 'of' are essentially trying to improve on the biblical text in order to deal with a problem.

This attitude basically doesn't trust that God knew what he was doing when he inspired the text. The humble Bible translator will do his best to reproduce the original text no matter what the consequences.

[kiwihans]

ts important to realise that the right or wrong translation of ONE word can greatly alter the meaning! Take Co 1:16 "By him were all things created". So is Christ the Creator? NO because the word 'by' in greek here is 'en' which means BY MEANS OF or THROUGH" thus the 'Good news Bible renders it "God created all things THROUGH him". Heb 1;1 Paul says "...God spoke BY ( greek 'en' same word) the prophets". Now if we match the two verses; Col 1:`16 & Heb 1:1 we realise that it was NOT Christ that created, but 'God THROUGH' HIM as it wasnt the prophets who ORIGINATED their prophesies but God ! and then he used the prophets to speak HIS words!

[LavernLee-zzln]

Excellent explanation on the meaning “first born” in reference to Jesus.

[maxaplin]

Very helpful teaching.

We need to note carefully that Jesus' being the image of God referred to in this passage is a very different thing from every human being being the image of God (e.g., Gen 1:27).

Actually, because Jesus is fully human (as well as fully divine), he is the image of God in both ways.

[tongakhan]

Col 1:15 'FIRSTBORN of all Creation'.
Col 1:17 'He is before all things'

What else can it mean other than a being being CREATED FIRST by God.

[jdwagman]

Let me see if I am understanding this. The main premise of the argument is that Paul chose to use a word, that would not only be misleading but also considered blasphemous, instead of the correct word that would be understood correctly. However so that we (simple uneducated farmers, carpenters and fishermen) would not be mislead into blasphemy by his poor choice of words he qualifies it with a statement that would require, that for the first place we take the word "all" literal and then to deduce from this using our logic that he could not have possibly meant what he had just written in the previous sentence. Was it a trick to test us?

If he meant preeminence, or supremacy (próteuó) instead of firstborn or eldest (prototokos), the why didn't he just write "próteuó" in the first place? It not like he didn't have a word for supremacy in Greek, or that Paul didn't know the word. We know this because he actually used both words in verse 1:18. And if firstborn doesn't mean the first born or first to be, then does that means Jesus was not the first to be raised from the dead?

Another question I have is that when we look at how they used "firstborn" in the scripture why is it that we look at only one other verse is Psalms 89, and don't consider the other 99 places it is used? Like the firstborn of Egypt, or the firstborn of every man and animal will be consecrated to the LORD, or Canaan was the father of Sidon his firstborn. ???

It seems to me that rather than changing our belief to be congruent with the bible that we need to change what the bible is saying to align with the beliefs we received first from the Roman Catholic Church.

[kuexiong]

Pastor John, can you do colossians chap 3 too?

[turtlesoup]

Isn't that translation of Philippians 2:6 a direct contradiction of some of the other translations?

For example, what you quoted from vs the King James Version says:

Your quote:
"Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped..."

vs

King James Version:
"Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

Yours says he didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, while the KJV says he didn't think it was wrong to grasp equality with God, or-- he didnt consider it robbery to be equal with God.

[unletteredandordinary]

I address all your faulty arguments in my video on Col. 1:15. You’re free to try and refute it if you like.

[mzubuki]

Matthew 24:12 And because iniquity(ἀνομία, :Lawlessness: the desire to have no rule or law of God.) shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
2 Timothy 3:1-9, Matthew 24:7 Nation = έθνος = Ethnos = race: different groups and segregations of people, Matthew 24:8 Beginnings of sorrows is likening and calling the situation to the birth pangs of women in which contractions of labor get more frequent and intense the closer the baby gets to delivery, so in context shall the things aforementioned and in relation to the verse in the Holy Bible will get more frequent and intense the closer christ gets to returning.

[UtubeAdviser]

But I am very confused now because in Genesis 19:31 Lot fled with his 2 daughters and both daughters said they need to sleep with their father to preserved their seed as Sodom was destroyed and on verse 32 it said that the firstborn went in and lay with her father, meaning she had sex with him then on verse 34 it said that the firstborn told the younger sister that basically it was her turn to lay with her father to preserved their seed. So if the bible in this text refers to firstborn literally as the one who was born first as the older person, then why is it that Jesus when he is called firstborn it means something different according to different Christians? Could the Jehovah Witness be correct and that Jesus was created and was the firstborn of Jehovah? Can someone please explain this?
Thank you!