GARLAND'S INQUIRY

January 1, 2018

  I’m delighted when I’m questioned. For questions help us sharpen one another. This morning is no different as I received the following inquiry from Garland: “Your title implies you have determined that FIRST BORN is not the same FIRSTBORN.  Forgive my ignorance and/or also my ineptitude (laziness), but I do not draw any such conclusion from "reading* Colossians 1:1-20.  Can you please enlighten me? (Perhaps you'll advise me to read all of those other references???)
Thank you,
Garland”

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Garland,

  Thank you for your inquiry. Inquiries from one person or a few out of many are important for if one person wonders, I assume as a matter of education and experience others also do. So, in responding to your question I’m writing today’s DT to explain to readers and studiers that may be puzzled. 

  First, to reiterate the central topic of 12/31/17 DT, NOT THE FIRST BORN, FIRSTBORN: There are those teaching God created Jesus as He did the first 2 beings. Though born of a woman, the person of Christ is eternal, He not being generated by God as was Adam, but always being He became Incarnate. The many Bible references I gave yesterday are proof verses of Jesus eternality; Christ not having beginning of days or end of life, He being existent and ever-ongoing. Please note the real life example in Hebrews 7:1-3.

  Secondly, on the question: “firstborn” is 117 times in 100 verses (KJV). Biblically, and continued formally or informally in many cultures. The firstborn being the one endowed with birthright(s) . . . including authority. Genesis 25:28-34 is a memorable example. Gen.33:33 is also noteworthy to ponder.

  Reading and pondering Colossians chapter one we see Jesus is not a person created as was Adam, nor a man who became God incarnate. Nor is Jesus simply the first born among his siblings. Jesus is God Incarnate, God’s Son, Eternal Creator and Sustainer, God’s (Jn.3:16) firstborn . . . by His Sovereign Father having authority over “all things”!

  I leave you this morning with a few applicable verses to consider.

   Ephesians 1:22; 3:9 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, … And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

   Colossians 1:15-18 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

EBB4