John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 5, Firstborn

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)

Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that “the Word was a god” (New World Translation) and that John conceived of Jesus as God’s only first and only direct creation, misusing “only begotten” to suggest this, and the description the apostle Paul uses, “firstborn.”

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Because by him all
things were created, whether in the heavens or on the earth, visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and all things are held together by him, and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, in order that in all things he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1:15-18, ESV)

Prepositions are something we learned about in grammar class and probably didn’t give much concern to them. But they are very important. In its simplest definition, a preposition is “a word which can link verbs, nouns and pronouns together.”  And there are all kinds of relationships these prepositions can define, such as place, time or direction. The Greek language can express a prepositional concept, can link, for example, two nouns in two ways, one, by using an actual Greek preposition, and two, by the use of a particular form of a noun.

So, for example, in the passage above the word “of” (which is a preposition in English) does not reflect an actual Greek preposition. New Testament Greek does not have a preposition “of.” But the ending of the noun “creation” that Paul uses here tells us that it expresses a relationship to the noun “firstborn” and we translate that relationship with the word “of.” The word “of” can express several kinds of relationship.  If I say, “I am the king of the world,” I mean that I am king over the world. If I say, “I am the husband of Mary Ann,” I mean the husband who belongs to the wife, Mary Ann. If I say, “The love of Christ compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14), do I mean “love for Christ compels us” or do I mean “Christ’s love for us compels us”? Here is where the word “of” does not describe with enough specificity and we must use a different preposition (like “for”) or a different way of expressing it (like “Christ’s love for us”).

In Paul’s description of Christ as “the firstborn of all creation,” am I to understand “the firstborn in creation,” meaning the first created being, or “the firstborn over all creation,” meaning the one who holds title and authority over all creation. Well, I think we can see from the remainder of Paul’s description of Jesus that he is concerned to show Jesus’ authority over all creation. And it might be true that being the first created being could give him this authority in some limited sense, but Paul is trying to emphasize that Jesus created all things, has authority over all things in creation, in fact, holds all the creation together by his divine power.

So just what does the word “firstborn” mean? In Scripture it can mean several things. The
Hebrew word normally translated “firstborn” in our Bibles is bekor, and the Greek word so translated is prototokos. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament the Greek word prototokos is used to translate the Hebrew bekor. The concept behind “firstborn” comes simply from the first male child born to parents or the first offspring of an animal. This is the most  common way it is used in the Old Testament. Custom said the firstborn son would have a double inheritance from his father. Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob by his wife Leah (Genesis 35:23, but lost his firstborn privilege because of sin against his father, Genesis 49:4).  When God sent a plague that killed all the firstborn children and animals of Egypt, He passed over the firstborn sons of Israel if they sacrificed a lamb and put its blood on their doorways (Exodus 12:1-13).

But “firstborn” is used another way, as well. In Exodus 4:22 Yahweh tells Moses to assert to Pharaoh that Israel, the nation, is God’s firstborn son. But as a nation, Israel is not the first nation birthed by God. There were many nations birthed before Israel. Is God saying Israel is the only nation He has birthed? No, the term for that would be what we have already seen, monogenes, or “only begotten.” God takes credit for birthing all nations: 

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. (Acts 17:26)

But “firstborn” can indicate one holding a special place of blessing and responsibility. Israel is special to God in that way, as He explains through Moses, 

For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God. Yahweh your God has chosen you to be
a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the
earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that Yahweh
set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is
because Yahweh loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that
Yahweh has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:6-8)

God has given Israel the honor of being “firstborn” because He has chosen her from among all the nations to cradle the Messiah. Throughout the Old Testament it is predicted that Israel will be head over all the nations in the end:

Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle
them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and unite with the descendants of
Jacob. Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And Israel will take
possession of the nations and make them male and female servants in Yahweh’s land.
They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors. (Isaiah 14:1,2)

“Firstborn” in this sense, then, is a position of favor. Is this the meaning in Colossians 1 when applied to Jesus? It certainly does not mean first created. Even if it is not saying Jesus is literally born first, it is saying his has the honor of the first born, not the first created. Whichever meaning it takes it cannot have the meaning “first created.” But Paul’s second use of the word for Jesus is “firstborn from the dead” and that phrase has absolutely no connotation of first created. It is obvious that the Witnesses have an axe to grind and are imposing this meaning on the word.