He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

God incarnate, of course, takes the most preeminent position in creation. But we must not confuse this fact with the false notion that Christ was a created being. He took up a place in creation with a created human body, but nowhere does the Bible indicate or even imply that He was created. He existed before the day of His birth 2,000 years ago.

The book of Hebrews identifies Him as the OT character Melchizedek and says that He was “[w]ithout father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life…” (Heb 7:3). He is the One who said, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). No, Jesus Christ was not created at His birth, nor was He created at all. In the beginning, Christ was already there (John 1:1).

So when we read that He is the firstborn of all creation, we do not read that He is the first-created of all creation. So what, then, does “firstborn” mean? It can mean the first in a series. This is the sense in Revelation where we read, “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead” (Rev 1:5). He led the way of resurrection into new life.

Yet the term “firstborn” also carries the sense of priority or prominence. In Jewish history and culture, the oldest male child had special privileges and prerogatives. All the firstborn sons were originally dedicated to God (“The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me” (Ex 22:29). But in time this changed: “Now, behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel instead of every firstborn, the first issue of the womb among the sons of Israel. So the Levites shall be Mine” (Num 3:12). As a nation, God spoke of Israel holding a primary status apart from all other nations: “Israel is My son, My firstborn” (Ex 4:22). God affirmed this much later when He said of His people, “I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn” (Jer 31:9).

We see that the concept of firstborn, while rooted in the first to be born in a family, came to refer to priority or preference, and could be assigned in a non-literal sense (see 1 Chronicles 26:10). Jesus as God’s designated firstborn of all creation is the most important entity in existence: He is most important to God, as He should also be to us. As God in the flesh, He is pre-eminent over all: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Col 1:17-18).

Lord Jesus, I worship You as the central focus, first and priority of everything.