"The Firstborn Over All Creation (Col. 1:15-20) This passage includes a powerful defense of Christ's deity. Apparently, a central component of the heresy that threatened the Colossian church was the denial of the deity of Christ. Ironically, throughout the centuries some cults have used the phrase "firstborn over all creation" (1:15) to undermine Christ's deity. The assumption is that if Jesus was born at creation, then He is more like us than He is like God. The Greek word for firstborn, however, can refer to one who was born first chronologically, but it most often refers to preeminence in position or rank (Heb.1:6; Rom. 8:9). Firstborn in this context clearly means highest in rank, not first created (Ps. 89:27; Rev. 1:5) for several reasons: * Christ cannot be both "first begotten" and "only begotten" (see John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9); and, when the firstborn is one of a class, the class is in the plural form (1:18; Rom. 8:29), but "creation," the class here, is in a singular form. * If Paul were teaching that Christ was a created being, he would be agreeing with the heresy that he was writing to refute. * It is impossible for Christ to be both created and the Creator of everything (1:16). Thus, Jesus is the firstborn in the sense that He has the preeminence (1:18) and that He possesses the right of inheritance "over all creation" (Heb. 1:2; Rev. 5:1-7, 13)."