To have a clear understanding concerning the Triune God, concerning redemption, and concerning God’s full salvation according to the revelation of the pure Word of God is not a simple matter for us today. The hardship is always due to the traditional teaching we have received in the past concerning these matters. The teachings we have received in a traditional way have become a frustration to our vision.
To know Christ’s redemption we first need to know the Accomplisher of this redemption. If we know the Accomplisher, the Redeemer, then we surely know His redemption. We need to realize who Christ was at the very time He was condemned and put to death to suffer God’s just and righteous judgment. This matter needs to be considered very carefully because it involves the so-called theology concerning the Trinity and concerning Christology, the study of the Person of Christ. Our Redeemer, dying there to accomplish redemption for us, was the Head of all creation, the Firstborn of all creation, and also the image of the invisible God.
For Christ to be the Head of all creation involves the matter of Christ being the Firstborn of all creation. In Colossians 1:15, speaking of Christ as a portion allotted to us by God, Paul tells us firstly that Christ is the image of the invisible God, and also that He is the Firstborn of all creation. In Colossians 1:15 we see, on the one hand, that Christ is related to God. He is the image of the invisible God, the expression of God, or the invisible God expressed.
On the other hand, Christ is related to all of the creation, and He is the Firstborn of all creation. For Christ to be the Firstborn of all creation means that He is the first item of all the creatures. Due to the heresy of Arius, not many Bible teachers would take this point in Colossians 1:15 according to the literal meaning of the Greek. Arius taught that Christ was not divine, that He was not God, but was rather something created by God in eternity, and he based his heretical teaching on Colossians 1:15. According to history, Arius was condemned because of his heresy and cast out, even exiled, by the Nicene Council in A.D. 325. Due to this heretical teaching of Arius, from the time of the Nicene Council until today, most of the Bible teachers would not interpret Colossians 1:15 according to the literal translation, for fear that they might be condemned for heresy as Arius was.
We have studied this phrase, the Firstborn of all creation, carefully according to the Greek, and we have the assurance that this is an absolutely accurate translation. Some translators have even changed the translation to “the Firstborn before all creation.” Every Greek student, no need to say the Greek scholars, can recognize that this kind of translation is altogether inaccurate. To change the preposition from of to before would indicate that Christ is something apart from the creatures, but to use the preposition of indicates that Christ is one of the creatures. There is a big difference. The reason some teachers would change the translation is that they are afraid of being condemned if they say that Christ is one of the creatures, even the first one of the creatures. Therefore, they dare not say that Christ is the Firstborn of all creation.
Some teachers have even interpreted Christ being the Firstborn of all creation to mean merely that Christ was prior to all creation. They say that He was the Creator and that He could never be a creature. They avoid saying that Christ is one of the creatures.
One expositor says that according to the Greek this phrase must be translated the Firstborn of all creation, and he says that the word of as a preposition in Greek indicates that the Firstborn is one of the many items of the creatures. Even though he admits that this is the meaning according to the Greek, he goes on to say that we must avoid saying that Christ is one of the creatures. His own word is contradictory. He did not have the courage to interpret this verse according to the literal meaning.