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"Firstborn" and the JWs

In Colossians 1:15, Paul calls Jesus "the firstborn of creation." Thus, the JWs erroneously think that the term prwtotokoj, prōtotokos (“firstborn”) means “first created.” This assertion, however, is not only foreign to the context, but also it is not consistent to the first century meaning of the term. Contextually/historically, in Colossians, Paul is refuting the Gnostic heresy that denied all "matter" (teaching that it was inherently evil) and asserted that only "spirit" was real and hence, good (as refuted by John in 1st & 2nd John). Basically, they believed the supreme God was spirit existing in the plērōma ("fullness").

So, keeping to Paul's context, Paul points to the fact that redemption is through His "physical body" (cf. 1:14, 20ff.) and that in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form (2:9). Note that Paul even uses the gnostic's own theological term plērōma ("fullness") in affirming that Christ is the supreme God in human flesh.

Thus, in verses 15-17, Paul states in the strongest way that Christ created ALL THINGS (i.e., all matter), which would have been a repulsive idea to the gnostics, to whom Paul was refuting.

But why does Paul call Jesus the "firstborn" of creation?

In this context (Christ as Creator), the word denotes “supremacy” or “first in rank” (as seen in Exod. 4:22; Ps. 89:27) as the context of Colossians indicates.

This is seen very clear in the OT: In Genesis 41:51 Manasseh is called “firstborn” and Ephraim is called “second.” But in Jeremiah 31:9, Ephraim is called “firstborn” because it is was Ephraim who now had the preeminence or supremacy, and not Manasseh. Also note:

Ø Exodus 4:22: Israel is called “firstborn.” Firstborn cannot mean first-created, for there were many nations before Israel--but Israel had preeminence as God's chosen nation.

Ø Psalm 89:27: David is called “firstborn.” And technically David was "last born."

Referring to Psalm 89:27, the Watchtower correctly recognized that fact that "firstborn" here refers to David's preeminent position as stated in their JW training book, Aid to Bible Understanding:

David, who was the youngest son of Jesses, was called by Jehovah the "first-born," due to Jehovah’s elevation of David to the preeminent position in God's chosen nation (Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, 584; emphasis added).

But yet they ignore and distort the primary and contextual meaning of the term "firstborn" as applied to Christ in Colossians. This is, of course, due, not to term's meaning in its context, but rather to their precommitted theology that Jesus Christ was not God.

The term translated “firstborn” denotes Jesus as “having special status associated with a firstborn” (BDAG, Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon, 894). Biblical scholar Robert Reymond extracts the true significance of the term:

Paul’s intention behind his description of Jesus as “the Firstborn of all creation” is a universe away from the Arian interpretation of the JWs that would insist that the word shows that the Son was the “first” of all other created things; the entire context demands the term is to be understood in the Hebraic sense as an ascription of priority of rank to the firstborn son who enjoys a special place in the father’s love. (Reymond, Systematic Theology, 251).

Furthermore, commenting on the force of prōtotokos (v. 15) and the comparison of Christ as Creator and “all things,” Robertson remarks:

The word does not show what Arius [and the JWs] argued that Paul relegated Christ as a creature like “all creation” (pasēs kitseōs, by metonomy the act regarded as result). It is rather the comparative (superlative) force of prōtos that is used (first–born of all creation) as in Col. 1:18; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:6; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 1:5. Paul is here refuting the Gnostics who pictured Christ as one of the aeons by placing him before “all creation” (angels and men). . . . Paul takes both words [eikōn and prōtotokos] to help express the deity of Jesus Christ in his relation to the Father as eikōn (Image) and to the universe as prōtotokos (First-born) (Robertson, Word Pictures, 4:478).

The fact is, if Paul wanted to convey that Jesus was first created, he certainly could have used the word prwtoktistoj, prōto-ktistos (“first-created”) to do so (cf. 2 Cor. 5:18: kainē ktisis, “new creation”). Clearly, the NWT forbids the biblical text to speak for itself. Thus, the first allegiance and starting point of the NWT is the WT’s prior theological commitment: unitarianism, that is, God is one Person—Jehovah, and hence, Jesus is not God, but rather “a god,” the first of Jehovah’s works (viz. Michael the archangel).