Traces of the same idiom are found in the Jewish Kabbala-in which Jehovah Himself is called the “first-born of the world,” that is, in all probability, the Divine representative of essential and immanent perfection to the world. The course of the argument seems to require that the stress should lie on the lordship of the Son rather than on His priority to creation. He is the heir of all things. "Though it is grammatically possible to translate this as "Firstborn in Creation," the context makes this impossible for five reasons: (1) The whole point of the passage (and the book) is to show Christ"s superiority over all things. But the reason advanced to prove the Son the firstborn of the whole creation overturns that sense of this passage; for surely the Son’s creating all things doth not prove him to be the first-made creature; unless his power of creating all things originated from his being the first-made creature; which no one will affirm. (3) The "Firstborn" cannot be part of Creation if He created "all things." And by him also all things that are made, were made without any exception, by whom also they continue to exist, and whose glory they serve. Bernhardy, p. 292. Павел страстно сражается против этой вызывающей осуждение ереси. 2:7; Рим. πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως - “The first-born of every creature.” [ πάσης, Ephesians 2:21.] “According to the Arians, the firstborn of the whole creation is the first-made creature. If, however, in order to obviate this ground of objection, πρωτότοκος is combined as an adjective with εἰκών, we not only get a complicated construction, since both words have their genitival definition, but πρωτότοκος (instead of πρωτότυπος) would be an inappropriate predicate for εἰκών. And 2 Corinthians 4:4, he is plainly styled the image of God, for the like reason, because (Colossians 1:6) the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is reflected from his face, or person, as προσωπω signifies. In this text it relates to Christ"s eternal generation. Oltramare says that such a genitive after a substantive is a pure invention, but it is explained to be after the or in (cf.John 1:15, ). the heavens and the earth, with all that is made in them: neither angels, nor inanimate and irrational creatures, are excluded; as in the apostle’s reason immediately following this expression. The interpretation of creation as the new creation, adopted by many Fathers to meet the Arian inference that the Son was a creature, scarcely needs refutation. “No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him.” The Socinian hypothesis, advocated even by Grotius and Heinrichs, that only because He revealed so fully the will of God is He called the image of God, is far short of the full meaning, though as the “image” shines upon us we look and learn. Here he is said to be the image of God; there, the brightness ( απαυγασμα, effulgence) of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, or substance, as υποστασεως more properly signifies: here he is called the firstborn, or Lord, of every creature; there, the heir of all things: here it is said that all things were created by him; there, that he made the worlds: here, that by him all things do consist; and there, that he upholdeth all things by the word of his power. 29. (F.F. "Image" always supposes a prototype, which it not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn: the exact counterpart, as the reflection of the sun in the water: the child the living image of the parent. With this view the sequel also conflicts, which describes Christ as the accomplisher and aim of creation; hence in His case a mode of origin higher and different from the being created must be presupposed, which is, in fact, characteristically indicated in the purposely-chosen word πρωτότοκος. In Greek philosophy also the Firstborn (prototokos) was seen as the one who fully represented the divine Reason, the Logos, in its relation to the world and as being of the same nature as the divine Reason. to the highest dignity (Pelagius, Melanchthon, Cameron, Hammond, Zachariae, and others, including Storr and Flatt; comp. But Christ, the second Adam, perfectly reflected visibly "the invisible God" (1Ti 1:17), whose glories the first Adam only in part represented. The image of the invisible God; the invisible God made manifest. Christ came and took a body of flesh – the Eternal Logos in human form (John 14:10; Hebrews 1:1-3). For the Logos (Word) underlying the passage, see on John 1:1. Jesus was not created, but is God – the Logos. 1:5) по нескольким причинам: 1) Христос не может быть и «первенцем», и «единородным» (ср. We reckon it very wrong on the part of Usteri to translate the Pauline term by Erst-geschaffene, “first-created,” and it is easy to see what must be the theological conclusions drawn from such a rendering. Hence the idea contained in the word “firstborn” is not only sovereignty “above all the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89:28; comp. Paul means that Jesus Christ makes the unseen God visible. ст. Thus John can say, ‘we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only Son of His Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14), and adds, ‘No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son Who is in the Father’s bosom, He has made Him known’ (John 1:18). Colossians 1:20-23 Sharing The Gospel. And in the very distant emanations there was not only ignorance of God, but also hostility to him. Certainly, as Dr. Whitby observes, the more natural import of the phrase is, that Christ is therefore called the image of God, because he made him, who is invisible in his essence, conspicuous to us by the divine works he wrought, they being such as plainly showed that in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily; for the invisible God can only be seen by the effects of his power, wisdom, and goodness, and of his other attributes. When the crested waves were hushed into quiet, as He looked out upon the storm and spoke to it, His fellow-voyagers felt that they had heard the voice of Divinity. Schoettgen instances the fact that R. Bechai spoke of God as “the firstborn of the world,” though, probably, as Bleek says in his note on Hebrews 1:6, this is to be regarded “nur als eine Singularität”. English Version might seem to favor Arianism, as if Christ were a creature. prototokos) may denote either priority in time or supremacy in rank (cf. The firstborn was likewise lord of his brethren, who were all his servants. The polemic purpose of the Apostle also sustains the former sense. "Likeness" [homoiosis] implies mere resemblance, not the exact counterpart and derivation; hence, it is nowhere applied to the Son, while "image" is (cf. Note that it is invisible things which are ‘seen’, that is grasped and understood in the mind, just as the invisible God is ‘seen’ through Christ. Many commentators think both ideas are present here. The entire description takes in both his pre-incarnate, and his incarnate and now glorified state. The first (2) born of every creature. Paraphrase of Colossians and Commentary of Colossians James Rosscup writes that "Lightfoot is excellent in this 1865 work revised in 1879. The ‘outshining’ refers to light that comes from a glorious object, of the same essence and revealing its glory, like the rays of the sun. No creature can create himself, or exist prior to any creation. Having summarized his gospel in verses 1:13-14, Paul launches into one of the loftiest portraits of Christ in all of scripture. For what Paul is concerned to prove is the superiority of Christ to the angels, and for this the idea of priority is not relevant, but that of dominion is. They would also see Him as part of the creation rather than the creator. 118-119). ", "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;", "...His eternal relationship with the Father is in view, and the clause means both that He was the Firstborn before all creation and that He Himself produced creation....", "Not a commencement of existence, but an eternal relation to the Father, ... there never having been a time when the Son began to be, or when the Son did not exist as God with the Father. This glory is not merely official, but it is also essential, not won, but possessed from eternity. fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, ἈΠΑΎΓΑΣΜΑ Τῆς ΔΌΞΗς ΚΑῚ ΧΑΡΑΚΤῊΡ Τῆς ὙΠΟΣΤΆΣΕΩς ΘΕΙῦ, He teaches believers to make application to Christ Himself, as their Saviour, and at the same time the head of all, Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers. And although, in Romans 8:29, we have τον ρωτοτοκος εν πολλοις αδελφοις ton prōtotokos en pollois adelphois, yet there his followers are represented not as his creatures, but as his brethren. This expression is used by Origen (so far is the Greek from favouring Arian views) to mark Christ's Godhead, in contrast with His manhood, (B. Since Christ is the creator of all things, verse Colossians 1:16, he is not himself one of the creation. Paul wroteto the Christians who lived in the city called Colossae. 8:29), но слово «тварь», являясь здесь группой, стоит в единственном числе; 3) если бы Павел учил, что Христос является творением, то он согласился бы с той ересью, с которой он собирался бороться и 4) невозможно, чтобы Христос был одновременно тварью и Творцом всего (ст. He is declared to be an “Emmanuel” God with us; and His kingdom a visible manifestation of God. ', (15) The image of the invisible God.—This all important clause needs the most careful examination. Таким образом, Христос — полностью Бог во всех отношениях (ср. On this relation rests the actual revelation of God in the Person of Christ, but the immediate reference here is not to the latter. This appears from what Isaac said to Esau, after he had bestowed the rights of primogeniture on Jacob, Genesis 27:37. Those groups which insist that Jesus is a created being or only a perfect man while upon the earth must deal with the additional fact that: (a) Only God is to be worshipped (Matthew 4:10). (i) ...the world was not God"s world but that of a power hostile to him...(ii) As the Gnostics saw it, Jesus Christ was by no means unique...They insisted that Jesus was merely one of these emanations. There seems to be no real affinity with Philo’s doctrine of the Logos as .— may be taken either as a collective, “all creation” (Lightf., R.V. We might thus paraphrase, ‘ the Firstborn, He Who was before the whole of creation, who was of the same essence as the Prime Creator, who represented the Prime Creator in His external relationships and was set over all things supernatural, brought the creation into being.’ As Jesus Himself said, ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ (John 8:58). Πρωτότοκος, governs the genitive κτίσεως an irresistible demonstration of the earthly, we in... 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