Question: What does it really mean when God says Jesus the Christ as His first born? Some people say that, because God says that Jesus is the first born, it means that He is the first created being. How do you see this from the Scripture?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! Praise the Lord!
We see in the context of the Scripture, Six times the Lord Jesus is declared to be the first-born of God (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15, 18; Hebrews 1:6; 12:23; Revelation 1:5). These passages declare the preexistence, the sovereignty, and the redemption that Christ offers. But not even once it has spoken about him being created.
There are those people who want to twist the Scripture to their own destruction (2 Pet 3:16). They take the literal sense of the word to mean something that the Scripture does not express it to be. So such wrong doctrines take people directly to hell fire, because Jesus Himself expressed that the belief that does not ascribe the status of deity that He already is before the creation of all things, such belief cannot be able to save a person from their sins or take them to heaven in their eternity ahead after their physical death (John 8:24; Jam 2:14).
Jesus was the one and only true God in human form. This is a core doctrine of the Christian faith – the Deity of Christ. Anyone who plays with the Deity of Christ to make him become something else that He is really not, is really heading straight to hell fire unless and until they repent and turn to God to ask of His forgiveness for indulging in heresy. No child of God will dare to play with the doctrine of Christology because the fire of God's judgment will start to burn against those who toy with it.
Let us take each verse, one at a time to find what it speaks about Jesus really.
1) ROMANS 8:29-30 - "29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
The above verse clearly shows that Jesus the Christ was the "firstborn among many brethren," which in reality means, that Jesus as God the Son was predestined by God the Father to come to the earth as a man and "learn obedience ... unto death, even the death of the cross" (Heb 5:8; Php 2:8) as God's bond-servant (Php 2:7), so that the image of God that gets imbibed in the soul of Jesus Christ as a human might be taught to all his brethren (Matt 11:28-30). In other words, Jesus earned the rights of first born through obedience to God the Father in the above verse in Rom 8:29, so that likewise we who follow Jesus become the child of God, and through Him become conformed to His spiritual image and character in our soul, which will stay with us for eternity and likewise be rewarded accordingly by Jesus in glory for the rest of our eternity (John 1:12; Rev 22:12). Hence the firstborn here in the above verse speaks about the responsibility and privilege of Jesus as the first one to obey God the Father on earth without sin, and also with the power of the Holy Spirit overcome sin through perfect obedience, and as a result earn the privilege of His sonship as a perfect human, which then He shares with all the human beings who will believe Him to become His brethren and also be rewarded for their obedience accordingly, for eternity ahead! Praise the Lord!
2) COLOSSIANS 1:15-17 - "15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."
The above verse shows that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, it is described by God in anthropomorphic language, which means in a humanly understandable way to make us understand of the heavenly reality. God the Son and God the Father along with God the Holy Spirit are uncreated, all powerful, knowing, & present and the first cause, who is the reason for his own existence! Hence to say Jesus Christ as the firstborn here means, He is the God over all creation and the reason for its existence. That is why Paul the apostle who wrote it, began to explain in the next verse, all things in heavens and earth were not only created by Him, but as uncreated first cause of all things, it was created for Him. Hallelujah! This reveals that the firstborn mentioned in the above verse speaks about the deity of Jesus and his Oneness with God, a class apart from all his creation! Because Jesus was God and is God and forever will be God who created all things, He is before all things and in Him all things consist or hold together having a reason for its existence. Hallelujah!
3) COLOSSIANS 1:18 - "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence."
In the above verse Jesus Christ is expressed as "the first born from the dead", which in other words means, Jesus Christ was the first human to rise up again and never die again in his supernatural glorious body which will stay with him for the rest of the eternity. Jesus Christ by rising up from the dead has become the beginning of the Church on earth, "the chief cornerstone" (1 Peter 2:7), as He is the head of the body. All things created by Jesus Christ, for Him, He has become a perfect living example by the grace of God, so that all new creation in the Church might glorify and worship Him as the creator of all things through their resurrection and obedience to the Father God (1 Cor 5:17). The very resurrection of Jesus the Christ, reveals that the preeminence He deserves is not just something that He not only deserves as our Creator God, but also He earned this privilege so that all who desire eminence in the Church His Body might learn like Jesus to humble themselves before God the Father so that they can be lifted up in glory just like Jesus (Jam 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)! As Jesus is the perfect example, a disciple can be like his Master and should be satisfied with it even though they are unprofitable servants with a sin nature within them that leads them astray (Luke 17:10; Prov 3:5), but can never become greater than him as He is sinless and preeminent (Matt 10:24-25). Here in the above verse, the firstborn is the first human to live forever, who is the resurrected Jesus that it speaks about.
4) HEBREWS 1:6 - "But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”"
When Jesus brings the Church the firstborn in to the world at His Second Coming, God the Father tells all the good angels of God who have served along with him in the past to worship Him as God the Son only deserves the worship for creating them all. There are two things to clarify in this above verse, one is the status of the firstborn had been given to the Church in Christ Jesus. Each one of us in our spirit is "born from above… born of water and the Spirit (John 3:5), thus in the Kingdom of God each one of us have entered "through the word of God" as the firstborn in our spirit-man (1 Pet 1:23).
A married couple’s firstborn male child was given priority and preeminence in the family, and the best of the inheritance. The nation of Israel is identified as God’s “firstborn” in the Bible (Exodus 4:22; Jeremiah 31:9); in other words, Israel held a special place of privilege and blessing among the nations physically. In the New Testament, the Church is the "new ...Israel" of God (Gal 6:15-16), which means we as the Church are the Spiritual Israel who hold a special place of firstborn privilege and blessing spiritually in the heavenly places. We as the Church of the firstborn of God will very soon one day come with the Lord Jesus Christ to rule this earth for a thousand years time from the new heaven and new earth which will be our abode for eternity ahead, and will rule the present earth under the direction of the New Jerusalem, which is the headquarters of God around which the new heaven and earth will be orbiting around, thus receiving and walking in the light of it to transmit it to the present earth (Eph 1:3; Rev 19:14-16; 21:1-2; 2 Pet 3:13).
Thus the firstborn in the above Heb 1:6 is the Church which was brought in to existence the first time spiritually as a "new creation" by Jesus Christ, and again when he brings the Church in to the world, it will be the second time and the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to rule the earth with it for a thousand years time. Hallelujah! Glory Be To God!
5) HEBREWS 12:23 - "23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel."
Here in the above verse, "the general assembly" are all those who by faith have entered in to the New Jerusalem, from the first Adam to the time before the resurrection of Jesus Christ in which all those believing Old Testament saints were all raised in their new glorious bodies and were taken to heaven (1 Cor 15:45; Matt 27:51-53; Eph 4:8; 1 Pet 3:19; 4:6). We know all those who have believed in the virgin birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the day of Pentecost have been registered in the book of life as the firstborn with in the Church (1 Cor 15:1-4). To God the judge over all things, who have already justified the spirits of just men by making it perfect through the Mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ who shed His own blood for them and took His blood to heaven to sprinkle on the mercy seat of God, through which better things of the new order is spoken to and of them from heaven. Praise the Lord! Hence the firstborn spoken over in the above verse is about the Church. Praise the Lord!
6) REVELATION 1:5 - "5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."
Here in the above verse "the firstborn from the dead" speaks about the first person to rise from the dead to live forever and ever, and also it speaks about the rights and privileges of the firstborn that Jesus inherited as a perfect man through obedience to the Father-God, which made God declare that He was pleased with the life and obedience of God the Son, and therefore He could be that person who would be a substitute to justify them and become the firstborn from the dead (Luke 3:22; Matt 3:15-17).
By rising up as a human in a glorious body, Jesus Christ has become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords within the Church (Rev 19:16), and the ruler over the kings of the present earth (Isa 9:6-7), His increasing government upon this earth will increase and increase until one day the zeal of the Lord will take control of the whole wide wold for the Glory of God.
Through Christ loving us and washings us from our sins through his own blood, has made us kings and priests to God the Father, all this was done for the glory and dominion of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever! Hallelujah!
Hence the firstborn is the one and only Jesus Christ who rose from the dead as the first glorious man to live forever and ever, for the Glory of God! Jesus Christ is also the firstborn or in other words the first cause and the Creator over all creation, reveals that He is God who has come as a man to be one among them on earth through the avatar predetermined to redeem all humankind. Thus each context of the first born is unique and specific regarding Jesus Christ and the Church. So one should never mix it in a foolish way to say something that the Scripture never meant to say, and thus become a cult with wrong doctrine and spiritual cancer to lead others too in the way of hell fire. BEWARE!!! REPENT OF WRONG CHRISTOLOGY TO TURN AGAIN TO THE WAY OF LIFE TOWARDS HEAVEN BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
"Never produce the strange fire of toning down and touching up the Christology of Jesus, lest the fire of heaven consume you in hell fire."— Abraham Israel
Much Blessings....
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