Why “firstborn of all creation” does not mean “the first creature God made,” and why “all other things” goes beyond the Greek text.  A Guide to Colossians 1:15–17

The short answer

Colossians 1:15 calls Christ “the firstborn of all creation.” It does not say that Christ was created. The next verse immediately explains Christ’s relation to creation: all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, were created in him, through him, and for him. Verse 17 then says that he is before all things and that all things hold together in him.

A reader can construct a theory in which God first created the Son and then created everything else through him. But that first act—the supposed creation of the Son—is never stated in the passage. It has to be added before Paul’s own explanation begins. Once that extra premise is added, “all things” can be changed in thought to “all other things.” Without that premise, the Greek text itself gives no independent reason to make that subtraction.

The question, then, is not whether the created-Son interpretation can be made logically possible. It can. The question is whether it is what Paul actually says. The argument of this article is that it is not. Paul presents the Son as standing in a unique causal, purposive, and sustaining relation to the whole created order, not as the first item within that order.

1. Begin with Paul’s explanation, not with a dictionary

The key passage can be rendered quite literally as follows:

“He is the image of the invisible God, firstborn in relation to all creation, because in him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and all things hold together in him.” — Colossians 1:15–17

The most important feature is the flow of the sentence. Paul does not write “firstborn of all creation” and then leave the expression unexplained. Verse 16 begins with the Greek word ὅτι (hoti), which commonly means “because,” “for,” or “since.” In other words, what follows gives the reason or explanation for the title in verse 15.

And what follows is not: “because God created him first.” Paul never says that. The creative action described in verse 16 has “all things” as its object. The Son is the one in whom, through whom, and for whom that created totality came to be.

That observation should control the rest of the discussion. An interpretation of “firstborn” has to fit Paul’s own explanation of the title, not merely one possible dictionary sense of the word when it is isolated from the sentence.

2. “Firstborn” is not the same word as “first-created”

The Greek word πρωτότοκος (prōtotokos) is the ordinary word for “firstborn.” In a normal family context, it can of course refer to the child born first. A sound argument should not deny that birth order belongs to the word’s background.

But in the biblical world, being firstborn was not only a fact about the calendar. The firstborn son was associated with inheritance, privilege, representation, and rank. Because of that social and legal background, “firstborn” could function as a title of status even where literal birth order was not the point.

Psalm 89:27 is the clearest example. God says of the Davidic king, “I will make him firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” David was not Jesse’s first son, and he was not Israel’s first king. Yet he can be “made” firstborn because the title expresses the position granted to him.

This does not by itself prove the meaning of Colossians 1:15. It proves a more modest point: “firstborn” does not mechanically mean “the first member of a class to come into existence.” The context must tell us which aspect of firstborn status is being emphasized.

Greek also had a different adjective, πρωτόκτιστος (prōtoktistos), that could mean “first-created.” It is rare and does not occur in the New Testament. We should not argue that Paul would certainly have used that rare word if he wanted to call Christ created. But the distinction still matters: Paul actually chose “firstborn,” a word carrying the language of sonship, inheritance, and rank. Its meaning here has to be determined from the paragraph in which it appears.

3. Does “of all creation” automatically place the Son inside creation?

The phrase is πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως (prōtotokos pasēs ktiseōs), traditionally translated “firstborn of all creation.” The words “all creation” are in the Greek genitive case. Some readers therefore argue that the sense must be partitive: the Son is one member of the larger group called “creation,” and he is the first member of that group.

That is a possible way to understand a genitive. But it is not the only way. The Greek genitive can express many kinds of relationship: possession, source, dependence, subordination, comparison, part-and-whole, and others. The case ending itself does not announce, “the person named before me belongs to this class.”

A simple English comparison helps. “King of Israel” does not mean that the king is one piece of a larger object called Israel. “Lord of the Sabbath” does not mean that the lord is one Sabbath among other Sabbaths. The relation between the two nouns comes from the meaning of the words and the context, not from the word “of” by itself.

So a partitive reading of “firstborn of all creation” must be argued; it cannot simply be assumed from the grammar. And this is exactly why verses 16–17 matter so much: Paul immediately tells us what relation the Son has to the created order.

4. What does Paul include in “all things”?

The Greek expression τὰ πάντα (ta panta) means “all things.” It is true that words such as “all” can be limited by context. Natural language works that way. When Scripture says that “all Judea” went out to someone, we do not imagine a census proving that every single individual did so. The mere word “all” does not settle every question.

But Colossians 1:16 does something important: it defines the field in an expansive way. Paul does not leave “all things” vague. He spells it out:

• • things in the heavens and things on the earth;
  • things visible and things invisible;
  • thrones, lordships, rulers, and authorities;
  • and then, once again, “all things.”

The movement is outward and comprehensive. Paul deliberately includes the invisible heavenly powers. That is especially significant because a created-Son interpretation normally identifies the prehuman Son as the highest heavenly creature. Yet the passage does not say, “all invisible beings except the Son.” It gives no such exception.

Again, an exception can be supplied if we have already decided that the Son is a creature. But then the exception comes from the prior theory, not from the phrase “all things.”

5. Can “all things” mean “all other things”?

Yes—in the right context. This point should be conceded plainly. Greek can sometimes leave the word “other” unstated where English naturally supplies it.

For example, in Luke 13:2 Jesus refers to certain Galileans and then compares them with “all the Galileans.” English readers naturally understand “all the other Galileans,” because the first group has already been identified as Galileans. Likewise, “the fig tree and all the trees” can naturally mean “the fig tree and all the other trees,” because everyone already knows that a fig tree belongs to the class “trees.”

That is precisely the problem in Colossians. The crucial fact needed to justify “other” has not been independently stated. The passage never first says, “the Son is a creature.” That is the disputed conclusion.

The New World Translation renders Colossians 1:16–17 with “all other things.” Its Study Bible note acknowledges that the literal Greek is “all things” and explains the added word from the interpretation that the Son is created. This is therefore an interpretive expansion, not a translation of a Greek word meaning “other.”

Interpretive expansions are not automatically illegitimate. Translators sometimes have to make an implied relation explicit. The question is whether that implication is already recoverable from the source text. In this case the reasoning is vulnerable to circularity:

1. 1. “Firstborn of all creation” is first interpreted to mean that the Son is a creature.
   2. Because a creature cannot create himself, “all things” is then understood as “all other things.”
   3. The resulting wording “all other things” is then cited as support for the claim that the Son is a creature.

The translation can consistently express the interpretation, but it cannot serve as independent proof of the interpretation that produced it.

6. “Through him” does not mean “therefore he is a creature”

Another argument says that God is the ultimate Creator, while the Son is only the agent or instrument through whom God made the universe. First Corinthians 8:6 does distinguish “one God, the Father, from whom are all things” from “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” That distinction should not be erased.

But the preposition “through” describes mediation or agency; it does not answer the separate question whether the agent is created or uncreated. The statement “God created through the Son” does not contain the hidden premise “God previously created the Son.” That premise would still have to come from somewhere else.

Colossians also says much more than “through him.” Paul uses three relations:

• • all things were created in him;
  • all things were created through him;
  • all things were created for him.

The last phrase is particularly strong. The created universe is not merely produced with the Son as a temporary tool; it is directed toward him as its goal. Verse 17 then adds that all things continue to hold together in him.

A simple instrument analogy therefore falls short. A hammer can be used to build a house, but the house is not built for the hammer, and its continued existence does not depend on the hammer. Paul assigns the Son a much more comprehensive relation to creation than that of a created helper used at one stage of the process.

7. “He is before all things” matters as part of the whole picture

Verse 17 says, “he is before all things.” The most natural reading includes temporal priority: the Son already is before the created totality just described.

By itself, that sentence would not settle the debate. A person who believes that the Son was the first creature can say that the first creature existed before all later creatures. The importance of verse 17 is cumulative. The same Son who is before all things is also the one in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created, and in whom all things hold together.

The question is therefore not whether each individual phrase can be fitted, one by one, into a created-Son model. With enough added assumptions, it can. The better question is which reading follows the paragraph’s own movement without repeatedly inserting an unspoken exception.

8. What about “firstborn from the dead” in verse 18?

Verse 18 is an important objection and should not be brushed aside. Christ is called “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,” and the verse ends by saying that he is to have first place in everything. Here Christ really does stand in relation to a group whose condition he has shared: he truly died and rose.

But the wording is not identical. Verse 18 says “firstborn from the dead” (ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν), explicitly using “from/out of” language. Verse 15 says “firstborn of all creation” with a bare genitive. More importantly, each part of the passage supplies its own explanation.

In the resurrection section, Christ actually enters death in his human life and rises from it. In the creation section, there is no corresponding statement that he entered the class of created beings by being created. Instead, the explanation says that all things were created in, through, and for him.

The parallel between verses 15 and 18 therefore strongly supports one common theme: Christ has primacy in both creation and resurrection. It does not require the idea that the two relationships are ontologically identical.

9. The created-Son reading in its strongest form

It is useful to state the opposing interpretation fairly rather than caricature it. Its strongest form looks something like this:

1. 1. “Firstborn of all creation” means that the Son belongs to creation and is its first member.
   2. God therefore created the Son before every other creature.
   3. God then created the rest of the universe through the Son.
   4. Because the Son cannot create himself, “all things” in verses 16–17 must mean “all other things.”
   5. “Before all things” means before all the remaining created things.

This model is internally coherent. Its problem is not formal logic. Its problem is textual support for step 2. The passage never narrates or predicates the Son’s creation. Step 2 is inferred from one possible reading of “firstborn,” and then the rest of the paragraph is adjusted to fit that inference.

The alternative reading is simpler:

1. 1. “Firstborn” expresses the Son’s unique primacy and heir-like status in relation to creation.
   2. Verse 16 explains that status by relating the entire created order to him: in him, through him, and for him.
   3. Because the passage has not placed the Son inside the created set, “all things” does not need an unstated “other.”
   4. Verse 17 adds both his priority to creation and creation’s continuing dependence on him.
   5. Verse 18 completes the theme of primacy: he is to have first place in everything.

This does not prove every later theological formulation from three verses. It makes a narrower and more defensible claim: Colossians 1:15–17 does not teach that the Son was created, and its own explanation of the “firstborn” title fits much more naturally with the Son standing over and prior to the created order than with the Son being its first specimen.

10. Are we importing later theology into Paul?

We do not need to begin with later doctrinal vocabulary in order to make the argument above. The case can be made from the paragraph itself: the meaning range of “firstborn,” the flexibility of the genitive, the explanatory force of verse 16, the comprehensive scope of “all things,” and the threefold language “in him, through him, and for him.”

Later Christian theology used the formula “begotten, not made” to distinguish the Son’s relation to the Father from the making of creatures. That formula is not a hidden translation of πρωτότοκος, and it should not be smuggled into the Greek text as though Paul had written a fourth-century creed. But neither is it foreign to the basic distinction the passage itself suggests: Paul never describes the Son as something made, while he repeatedly describes the created totality as coming to be in relation to the Son.

So the argument does not run, “a later creed says the Son is uncreated, therefore Colossians must say the same.” It runs in the opposite direction: Colossians itself fails to supply the premise that the Son is a creature and instead gives him a relation to the whole created order that naturally supports the classical confession that the Son is not made.

11. Common objections in one paragraph each

“Every firstborn belongs to the same class as those he is firstborn among.” That is often true in literal family or animal contexts because the class membership is already obvious. It is not a universal lexical rule. Psalm 89 shows that firstborn language can foreground rank and inheritance. Colossians itself must establish whether “creation” is the Son’s class or the domain to which his firstborn primacy relates.

“But ‘all’ can have exceptions.” Certainly. The issue is whether this paragraph marks the proposed exception. Paul expands the scope with heaven/earth and visible/invisible language; he does not signal the subtraction of one supreme heavenly creature.

“First Corinthians 15:27 shows that ‘all things’ can exclude someone.” Yes, and that text explicitly identifies the exception: the One who subjected all things to Christ is not himself subjected. It proves that context can restrict “all”; it does not prove that Colossians contains the same kind of unmarked exception.

“The Father is the source; the Son is only the agent.” The distinction between source and mediation is real, but “through” does not mean “created.” Colossians also says the universe is “in” and “for” the Son and continues to hold together in him.

“Verse 18 makes Christ part of a group, so verse 15 must do the same.” Verse 18 concerns death and resurrection and explicitly says “from the dead.” Verse 15 concerns the relation between the Son and creation and is followed by a different explanation: all things were created in, through, and for him. The shared theme is primacy, not necessarily identical class membership.

Conclusion

Colossians 1:15 does not say, “God created the Son first.” It calls the Son “the firstborn of all creation.” The word “firstborn” can involve chronological priority, but biblical usage also carries the ideas of inheritance, rank, and preeminence. The genitive “of all creation” can be read partitively, but the grammar does not force that reading.

Paul then supplies his own explanation. All things—in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, including the highest powers—were created in the Son, through the Son, and for the Son. The Son is before all things, and all things hold together in him. Nowhere in that explanation does Paul describe the Son as having been created.

The phrase “all other things” can make sense only after the reader has already placed the Son inside the class of creatures. Greek can leave “other” unstated in contexts where class membership is already established, but that is precisely what is not established here. The added word therefore expresses an interpretation; it cannot independently prove it.

A created-Son theory can be constructed around the passage, but it requires an unmentioned first event: God creates the Son, and only after that does the creative work described by Paul begin. The text itself never states that event. Its actual movement is the reverse: it places the whole created order in a comprehensive relation to the Son.

For that reason, the most natural reading is that the Son is not the first item on creation’s list. He is the Firstborn in relation to creation because the created totality exists in him, through him, for him, before him, and in continuing dependence upon him. That conclusion is fully consistent with the historic Christian confession that the Son is begotten, not made—but the argument does not depend on starting with that confession. It arises from the wording and logic of Colossians itself.

Selected sources for further reading

• • Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), especially the discussion of Colossians 1:15 and the genitive of subordination.
  • Kyu Seop Kim, The Firstborn Son in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Study of Primogeniture and Christology (Leiden: Brill, 2019).
  • Sean M. McDonough, Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), especially the discussion of creation in Colossians.
  • N. T. Wright, “Poetry and Theology in Colossians 1.15–20,” New Testament Studies 36, no. 3 (1990): 444–468.
  • New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Study Bible, study note on Colossians 1:16 (“all other things”), which acknowledges that the literal Greek is “all things” and explains the interpretive rationale for adding “other.”

Note: The Greek is included only where it directly affects the argument. The aim of this version is to keep the reasoning readable without requiring prior knowledge of Greek grammar or fourth-century theological terminology.