Once again: firstborn of every creature

15 Who is the Image of the invisible God, Firstborn of every creature, 16 for in Him is all created, that in the heavens and that on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created through Him and for Him, 17 and He is before all, and all has its cohesion in Him. Colossians 1

A few weeks back, I wrote a blog about the phrase “firstborn of every creature.” In my experience there was still a piece of the puzzle missing. Yesterday, during a walk, I became suddenly aware that Paul’s words in verses 16 and 17 should be understood in conjunction with the preceding sentence (“He is the image of the unseen God”). What eluded me at first, I now see: Paul was giving commentary on Genesis 1! At the end of Genesis 1, we read that humanity is created in God’s image in order to rule over all things. When God creates humanity in His image, He had all things in mind. Without God’s image, there is no man and no dominion over all things. With this insight from Genesis 1, read the above section of Colossians again. The question that remained open in the first chapter of Genesis, finds its answer in Colossians 1! “The Son of God’s love”, “the firstborn from the dead”, HE is the image of the unseen God! God had Christ in view, when He created Adam to be ruler over all things. Christ is the model through which and in view of which, Adam was created as Crown of creation. “The last Adam” (1Cor.15:45) is the prototype of Adam. Although, Adam, indeed, is “a type of Him Who is about to be” (Rom.5:14), preceding this is the truth that Adam himself was created “in God’s image”, that is, in Christ (2Cor.4:4). And therefore, although Christ was born thousands of years after Adam, it was established beforehand that He has prior rights than Adam. By mouth of David, God speaks, prophetically, about Him:

Indeed, I shall make him the firstborn, the uppermost of the kings of the earth. Psalm 89:27 (See also Rev.1:5)

  ——————————— translation: Peter Feddema

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