Why Trinitarians Fail to Understand Colossians 1:16 and the Passive Verb for “Create”

#Creation
#God
#Fristborn

Trinitarians regularly misrepresent the biblical teaching that God the Father is the source (EK) of all creation (1 Corinthians 8:6), including the prehuman Jesus as his "Firstborn" (Colossians 1:15; compare Deuteronomy 21:178).

Trinitarians also completely misunderstand and misrepresent the Father's use of his Firstborn in making "all things" through and in the prehuman Jesus. Nowhere is this failure to understand the Bible more apparent than in Colossians 1:16, which uses a passive form of the verb for "create" for what someone else did "in" and "through" the Firstborn," as is highlighted in this video.

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[ryanbrowne]

Thank you Greg for your continuous work. 1 Co 15:28 is useful for those who believe every case of "all" must be absolute - Paul had to clarify to his readers that the "all" does not include what's before, hence the "all other" translations in various places for the same word _πας_ .

And congrats on reaching 1k subs! Soon it'll be 2k...5k...10k...

[Betsy]

Thanks Greg for helping us, showing us the difference and meaning. Proving that the son is not doing the creating.

[johnwheeler]

Hello Greg and thank you for a wonderful study. I went through the Greek for all the texts and parsed the verbs, participles, and subjunctive form of κτιζω. It shows how the Greek has a more complete conveyance of subtle meaning between the passive and active forms. It's interesting that the Hermeneia, Critical and Historical Commentary, Colossians and Philemon, page 49 makes this very same point with use of the passive form, meaning that God is the creator. I think the only thing that could have made the presentation just a bit more clear to some, is the grammatical reminder that the passive form means that the subject receives the action, not performing the action. All your explanations allude to this but reminders may be helpful for some.

[snowforest]

Just wondering would you be able to do a video on isiaih 40:22??

[cuttingedgetechsongsmovies]

Keep it up..We are getting to know the truth

[antonioterrell]

Hey Greg;

This is why I think a more helpful clarification in the NWT than the insertion of "other" throughout Col. 1:15-20, that admittedly does make the text read somewhat awkwardly.

Would be if the translators added the implied grammatical direct object "by God" at the end of the expressions for the passive verbs for "created" in verse 16.

So that it reads "because by means of him all things were created [by God] All things were created through him and for him [by God]."

"[By God]" referring to God the Father of course as the actual source of the verb's action, the creation of all things that came into existence through Christ in this case.

And which is why in general I will grant Trinitarians (the lay-people in particular) a bit of a pardon here for being confused by the grammar of Col. 1:16. Since English is not an inflectional language like Greek, switching from the active to passive voice grammar is harder to see as the main verb "created" looks indentical either way in English ...

Active voice -- "because God **created** all things by means of him"
Passive voice -- "because by means of him all things were **created** by God."

Then when you consider that similar to English, when Greek uses the passive voice this way the direct object "by God" is usually implied and not explicitly stated.

You can sorta understand the confusion.