The firstborn of every creature: Response to Jehovah's Witnesses
The Jehovah's Witnesses claim that Jesus is not God but the Son of God, then a simple creature. How is it to be understood the attribution to Christ of the title "the firstborn of every creature"?
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature (Colossesi 1:15).
The term we translate into Italian as: "Firstborn" and that we commonly understand as: "The son born first", in Jewish culture it is a title which highlights the primacy, the privileged position, the honor of the main heir of the "family assets" and which can be referred to as "the favorite", "the chosen one". As such, this privilege can belong to the literal first son of a couple (physical ancestry), but it can also be attributed to an adopted child, or in any case to whom a father elects, chooses, to entrust this honor, giving it special privileges, greater than those given to others1.
Israel (the people chosen by God to represent him on earth) it is called in the Bible "The firstborn of God" [“You will tell Pharaoh: 'Thus says the LORD: Israel is my son, my firstborn '" (Exodus 4:22); “…because I became a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn " (Geremia 31:9)]. Objectively Israel is not "the firstborn" of God, but it is favored over other peoples and legally made so by sovereign election. “Because you are a people consecrated to the Eternal, your GOD; l'Eterno, your GOD, he has chosen you to be his particular treasure among all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. The Eternal has not placed his love on you nor has he chosen you, because you were more numerous than any other people; in fact, you were the smallest of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you”(Deuteronomy 7:6-7).
This term it passes by natural transition to the Messiah, to the Savior, considered the Chosen one par excellence, the perfect representative of God, "God's heir". He becomes, so, the prototype, the ideal model, the perfect example of how it should be (morally and spiritually) the people of God e, certainly also of the human creature "as it was created", in communion and in perfect harmony with God. “He will invoke me, saying: 'You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation”. I will also make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. I will keep my grace for him forever, my covenant with him will remain stable. I will make his offspring and his throne eternal like the days of heaven '” (Salmo 89:26-28); "Again, when he introduces the firstborn into the world, dice: «All the angels of God adore him!”.
Here is how this title of πρωτότοκος (firstborn) becomes one of the titles attributed to the Messiah cf.. “…when he introduces the firstborn into the world, dice: «All the angels of God adore him!” (Jews 1:6). In the context of Christology, the use of this term is not to define His essence, but to show us dignity2.
The New Testament presents Jesus with two parallel Christological formulas: "The Only Begotten of God" (Giovanni 1:14,18; 3:16,18; 1 Giovanni 4:9) and "the firstborn of every creature" (Colossesi 1:15). Both formulas essentially contain the same idea. The first highlights the relationship between Christ and God, and the second highlights the relationship between Christ and creation. In the first case, Christ "proceeds" uniquely from God (Simililarity3 of the father's generation of a child), in the second case the privilege is emphasized, the record, the superiority of Christ (became a man) respect to all human creatures. Contrary to what anti-Trinitarians claim, they take literally what is expressed only in the form of simile4, both formulas exclude the idea that in eternity there was ever a moment in which Christ passed from non-being to being and that therefore Christ must place himself in the category of "creature". If we analyze the formula well: "Firstborn of every creature", we will find you, indeed:
1) The Christ existed when no created thing had yet been produced, rather, he participated in the act of creation itself and therefore He is distinct from the whole of creation5. This is stated in the next verse:
“In him all things that are in the heavens and on the earth were created, the visible and the invisible: thrones, lordships, principati, powers; all things were created through him and for him” (Colossesi 1:16), cf.. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the beginning with God. All things were made through her; and without her not even one of the things done was done. In her was life, and life was the light of men " (Giovanni 1:1-4)6.
2)He is not only before everything created and distinct from everything created, but he is the one who has absolute primacy over the whole universe (what he intends to affirm Colossesi 1:15.
In the text of Colossians, a magnificent hymn to Christ, to always be read in its entirety to receive and appreciate its entire message, God is invisible, says the apostle, but Christ is the One who makes the invisible God visible to us. In this way, the apostle, to those false doctors who had crept into the church of Colosse and who claimed to bring God closer to the human being through "emanations" or to raise the human being to God on the wings of philosophical speculation, the apostle does not oppose a theory, but the very person of Christ.
“Who sees me, sees the one who sent me " (Giovanni 12:45); “Philip told him: «Sir, show us the Father and it is enough for us ". Jesus said to him: «I have been with you for a long time and you did not know me, Filippo? Who saw me, he has seen the Father; how come you say: “Show us the Father”? You don't believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words that I tell you, I don't tell her about mine; but the Father who dwells in me, does his works " (Giovanni 14:8-10);
“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten God, which is in the bosom of the Father, that's what made it known "(Giovanni 1:18).
The supreme dignity of Christ surpasses that of every creature and could not be equated with any of them. In fact, Scripture prohibits religious worship directed to any creature. When John acts to adore the sublime angel who brings him the revelations of God, the angel reacts by saying:
"" Beware of doing it, I am a fellow member of yours and your brothers who have the testimony of Jesus. Adora Dio! Because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy "" (19:10).
“"Beware of doing it! I am your fellow man and your brothers, the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Adora Dio!»” (Apocalypse 22:9).
If Jesus were a creature, albeit the most sublime, he would have reacted scandalized when they prostrated themselves at his feet to worship him, as when to Satan's proposals:
“So if you prostrate, you adore me, it will be all you ”He replies: “Get away from me, Satan. It is written: “Worship the Lord your God and serve him alone” (Luca 4:7-8).
However, he does not reject the cult, rather, welcomes worship, the honor and glory that grateful men and women bestow on him: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was killed, to receive power, riches, wisdom, the force, honor, the glory and the blessing " (Apocalypse 5:12).
Note
1 See, for example, Jacob favored as "firstborn" over Esau (Genesis 25).
2 The use that is made here of "firstborn" is different from what is done in Matteo 1: “He did not know her, until she gave birth to her firstborn son, to whom he named Jesus”(Matteo 1:25 new American Standard Bible). Inter alia, here the term "firstborn" is present only in the Textus Receptus, in the Byzantine and majority versions, but not in the most accredited ancient manuscripts.
3 By similarity we mean: juxtaposition of two things that look alike, so that one serves to define the other. The similarity does not indicate substantial correspondence.
4 By mistakenly assuming that the same term must always have the same meaning regardless of the context and purpose for which it is used. Many other similar words in the Bible carry a diversity of meanings (and gives. as "world" or "love") and a translation that does not take this fact into account can misunderstand the reader.
5 prōtótokos (gives prṓtos, “first, preeminent e tíktō, “generate, to proceed”) - properly, first in order of time (Matteo 1:25; Luca 2:7); whereby preeminent (Colossesi 1:15; Apocalypse 1:5). “Generate” is explicitly opposed, distinguishing, to "create" in Colossesi 1:15. The first is τίκτω, the second κτίζω (ktizo), create, fare. Commentator Matthew Henry writes: "The firstborn of every creature". Not that He Himself is a creature. Difatti Egli is the firstborn of all creation – begotten before any creature was made, which is the way in which Scripture represents eternity and through which the eternity of God is represented to us: "I was established from eternity, from the beginning, before the earth was. I was generated when there were still no abysses, when there were still no overflowing sources of water. I was begotten before the mountains were founded, before hills existed, when he had not yet made the earth or the fields or the first clods of arable land” (Proverbs 8:23-26). It means dominion over all things, whereby He is "heir of all things" [“…son, that he has made heir of all things, through which he also created the worlds "(Jews 1:2)]
6 Thetranslationof theTorreofguard he adds in a completely illegitimate way the parenthesis "others" where he speaks of the creative work of Christ: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because through him all [others] things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, be they thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All the [others] things were created through him and for him. And he is first of all [others] things and through him all [others] things were made to exist ".