Is Jesus the Creator or a Creature?

Read the Study Edition’s own note on Colossians 1:16 before the argument turns into a contest about the word “other.”

The question

Is Jesus the one through whom every created thing came to be, or is he himself the first thing Jehovah created? Jehovah’s Witnesses answer that he is the first creature, and that Jehovah then made everything else through him. The New World Translation of Colossians 1:16 (6) says “all other things.” John 1:3 and Hebrews 1:10–12 are the passages that have to carry that answer, or refuse it.

What Jehovah’s Witnesses teach

The Study Edition states the reason for the added word. The note on Colossians 1:16 (11) says:

all other things: A literal rendering of the Greek text would be “all things.” (Compare Kingdom Interlinear.) However, such a rendering could give the impression that Jesus was not created but was the Creator himself. And that idea would not agree with the rest of the Bible, including the preceding verse, which calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.”

The verse in that same translation reads: “because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him.” (6) “Other” is what keeps the Son on the created side of the line.

The note on Hebrews 1:10 (12) explains why a prayer addressed to God can still be applied to Jesus:

The psalmist addressed these words to God. (Ps 102:1, 24) But Paul applies them to Jesus because Jesus is the one whom God used as His agent, or instrument, in creating everything, as Heb 1:2 and other verses show.

On this account Jesus is the instrument. Jehovah is the Creator. The Son is not “the Creator himself.”

The texts

Colossians 1:16 (1), in the King James Version, says that by him “were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,” and that “all things were created by him, and for him.” John 1:3 (2) says “all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

The New World Translation of John 1:3 (7) says: “All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.”

Hebrews 1:10–12 (3) puts Psalm 102:25–27 (4) in the Son’s mouth, or rather addresses the Son with the psalm’s words to the LORD: “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish; but thou remainest.” The New World Translation of Hebrews 1:10 (8) keeps the address: “At the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.” Its Psalm 102:25 (9) is the same prayer: “Long ago you laid the foundations of the earth, And the heavens are the work of your hands.”

Isaiah 44:24 (5) has the LORD say he made all things and stretched out the heavens “by myself.” The New World Translation of Isaiah 44:24 (10) reads: “I am Jehovah, who made everything. I stretched out the heavens by myself, And I spread out the earth. Who was with me?”

The Kingdom Interlinear (13) at Colossians 1 gives the Greek τὰ πάντα the word-for-word English “all (things),” in the lines “it was created τὰ the πάντα all (things),” “τὰ the πάντα all (things) δι’ through αὐτοῦ him,” and “καὶ and τὰ the πάντα all (things) ἐν in αὐτῷ him.” The book’s own explanation (14) says the Greek on those pages is the 1881 text of Westcott and Hort, with the 1969 word-for-word English between the lines.

A Christian response

Jesus is God, the Creator, not the first item in the inventory of things he made. The Study Edition says out loud what the added word is doing. A literal “all things,” the note warns, “could give the impression that Jesus was not created but was the Creator himself.” That impression is what the sentence gives. “Other” is supplied so the sentence will not say it. The Greek line the Society prints does not contain it.

John 1:3 is the same claim in John’s words, and the New World Translation does not insert “other” there. “Apart from him not even one thing came into existence.” If the Word is one of the things that came into existence, he is a thing that came into existence apart from himself. The prologue does not leave that gap. The Word already “was” in the beginning; the things that “came into existence” came through him. For the grammar of John 1:1, see John 1 and the Word.

Hebrews 1:10–12 is not a metaphor the writer quietly redirects. He has just said he is speaking “about the Son,” and then he quotes a prayer to God as Creator, the God who remains when heaven and earth wear out. The study note agrees that the psalmist addressed God, and agrees that Paul applies those words to Jesus. Calling Jesus an agent is the note’s way of keeping the psalm’s “you” from meaning the Son as the one who laid the foundations. The sentence Paul quotes does not say “you, as an instrument.” It says the heavens are the works of his hands, and that he is the same when they perish.

Isaiah 44:24 asks, in the Society’s own rendering, who was with Jehovah when he stretched out the heavens by himself. A second, created maker beside him is the thing that question rules out. The Christian confession is not that a creature helped. It is that the Son is the one God, acting as the one through whom all things were made, not a second god and not a thing made. The Trinity is the name for that confession. The deity of Christ is the shorter map.

Common follow-ups

“Through him” means he was the helper, not the source. An instrument who is himself created still has to come into existence. John 1:3 says not one thing did, apart from him. The helper reading needs the word the Study Edition added in Colossians and did not add in John.

Colossians 1:15 calls him “the firstborn of all creation.” That title has its own page: What does “firstborn of all creation” mean?. The study note on verse 16 appeals to verse 15 to justify “other.” Verse 16 is the reason verse 15 cannot mean “first creature.”

Hebrews 1:2 says God made the ages through the Son. It does. The next sentences in the same chapter address the Son as God and as the Lord who laid the foundations. “Through” names the Son’s work in creation. It does not place him among the works.

Keep reading

• John 1 and the Word
• What does “firstborn of all creation” mean?
• The deity of Christ