Christ The Firstborn of Every Creature & Kinsman Redeemer

[Eusebius]

I write a newsletter called The Saviour of All Fellowship Newsletter. This month’s article may be helpful
for those of you who are on the fence concerning God saving all. For those of you who already realize
the truth of this, the article will hopefully give you a greater understanding:

Christ, the Firsborn of every Creature and their Kinsman Redeemer

Please let me know what you think about the article and maybe we can fellowship around it.

Eusebius (Tony)

[davo]

TRY THIS

[Eusebius]

TRY THIS

Davo, what option did you use at the top of the text type-in box to accomplish that?

[Paidion]

I take it just the way it is translated in the English Standard Version:

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

All things proceed from God, including His only-begotten Son. Of these things, the Son was the first. Justin Martyr described the generation of the Son (or “begetting” of the Son) in this way:

“I shall give you another testimony, my friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself,who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following: ‘If I shall declare to you what happens daily, I shall call to mind events from everlasting, and review them. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He had made the earth, and before He had made the deeps, before the springs of the waters had issued forth, before the mountains had been established. Before all the hills He begets me. God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places underthe sky. When He made ready the heavens, I was along with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds: when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He made the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging. I was that in which He rejoiced; daily and at all times I delighted in His countenance, because He delighted in the finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the man who shall listen to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watching daily at my doors, observing the posts of my ingoings. For my outgoings are the outgoings of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But they who sin against me, trespass against their own souls; and they who hate me love death. (Dialogue with Trypho, Ch 61)

Justin Martyr, as well as many other early Christians understood Proverbs 8:22-31 as referring to the begetting of God’s Son, who is Wisdom personified. They didn’t understand it as the creation of some ethereal wisdom that didn’t previously exist, since wisdom is one of God’s intrinsic characteristics. The early Christian understanding found it way even to the original Nicene Creed in A.D. 325, where it is said that the Son was “begotten before all ages.”

The word translated as “created” had a broader meaning than that which it is given today. It included the present concept, but also that of begetting. However, the word “created” began to be used in a narrower sense in about the 5th century when the Trinitarians carefully stated of the Son in their creeds “begotten not created” in opposition to Arianism. And, of course, this is true. The Son was not created in the sense that everything else has been created by God. He was begotten, for he emerged from God Himself, and was himself of divine essence.

The early Christians said that the begetting of the Son was the first of God’s acts. It is my understanding that the begetting of the Son marked the beginning of time. A wise man once said that the Father preceeded the Son sequentially, but not temporally.

[Eusebius]

Paidion, thanks for the nice thoughts. I do agree with your thoughts on Wisdom.

I think creedal statements and other philosophical statements you brought up tend to make it harder to understand spiritual matters rather than reveal them. After all, the Nicene Creed was formulated for the sole purpose of disenfranchising the Arians from the “church.” It was merely done as a political move.

It is enough to know that “Christ is the Firstborn of every creature FOR (the reason why this is so is) in Him is all created.” That is the divine statement concerning the matter.

“All is out of God.” “All is through Christ.” God is the source. Christ is the channel.
Since Christ is the One through Whom every creature came into being, every creature owes its creation or brought-forthness to Christ. Being the Firstborn, just like any firstborn in the Bible, He comes prior to the rest of the family and so has a direct connectedness to all connected to Him.

That is important to keep in mind. This is how the Kinsman Redeemer comes about by having a direct connectedness to his kin.

No one else could redeem the whole human race if He failed, for, no one else could come forth as another KInsman Redeemer, since no one else had creation come through them. We should be so thankful to God for having such a faithful Son, Who went to the cross and ransomed us all.