Image and Firstborn One
The Firstborn is a title of exalted pre-eminence which the Holy Spirit gives to the Son in order to enhance the majesty of His Person in our eyes, and thereby to awaken and sustain our adoration and worship of Him Who deigned to humble Himself to manhood and death for the Father's glory and the creature's redemption.
The highest orders of created beings worship the Son at the divine behest. "When He bringeth in the Firstborn into the inhabited earth, He saith, And let all God's angels worship Him" (Heb. 1: 6, W.K.). If God in His jealousy for the honour of the Son commands the angels to own and respect the personal rights of the Firstborn, we may be sure that the redeemed must and will gladly yield to Him their unbounded adoration, not only as the Firstborn of all creation, but as the Firstborn from among the dead (Col. 1: 15, 18).
Who will question the Firstborn rights of the Son? Among men the rights of the firstborn are acquired by priority of birth, but the Son possesses those rights on other and superior grounds. Unlike the sons of men, His rights are independent of date of birth. In Himself, He is "without beginning," though at an appointed moment of time He became manifest among men, the Mediator between God and men. It is His eternal worth and dignity as the Uncreated Son of the Father's love which ensures to Him in humiliation and glorification alike the pre-eminent rank of Firstborn — a rank infinitely superior to the loftiest of created beings, in which rank all created beings must in due time acknowledge Him.
What sacred and soul-elevating truth is this concerning Him, the Creator of all, Who, nevertheless, would "like wretched man be made in everything but sin!" May we guard our souls, lest being "vainly puffed up" in our "fleshly minds," we should omit to bow our hearts in adoring homage before these eternal glories of our Redeemer. Can we do other than worship the Son, Who is the Firstborn of all creation, the Firstborn from among the dead, the Firstborn among many brethren?
Let us now see how the glories and rights of the Image of the invisible God and the Firstborn One have their origin in and rest upon His Eternal Sonship.
The Teaching in Colossians
It is noteworthy that in scripture, the glories of Christ Jesus are frequently revealed in close connection with the privileges of grace conferred upon those who believe in Him. Accordingly, in Colossians these glories are disclosed along with references to our inheritance, our deliverance, our translation, our redemption. Here this Blessed One is set before us as the Son of the Father's love, the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1: 12-17) — to mention no more at the moment.
Indeed, the glories of the Son form a marvellous galaxy in this chapter. Look where we will — in the past, in the present, in the future — the Son in His sublime and unapproachable dignity is before us. If, looking back, we ask, Who created all things? It is the Son (ver. 16). If, looking upwards, we ask, Who is the Head of the body, the church? It is the Son (ver. 18). If, looking onward, we ask, Who is the Reconciler of all things? It is the Son (ver. 20). So that, from the foundation of the world we see an unbroken continuance of the almighty and all-gracious activities of the Son of the Father's love, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.*
{*Appendix C
"The Son is here presented to us as Creator, not to the exclusion of the Father's power, nor of the operation of the Spirit. They are One, but it is the Son Who is here set before us. In John 1 it is the Word Who creates all things. Here, and in Hebrews 1, it is under the name of Son that He, Who is also the Word, is revealed to us. He is the Word of God, the expression of His thought and of His power. It is by Him that God works and reveals Himself.
"He is also the Son of God; and, in particular, the Son of the Father. He reveals God, and he who has seen Him has seen the Father. Inasmuch as born in this world by the operation of God through the Holy Ghost, He is the Son of God (Ps. 2: 7; Luke 1: 35). But this is in time, when creation is already the scene of the manifestation of the ways and counsels of God.
"But the Son is also the name of the proper relationship of His glorious Person to the Father before the world was. It is in this character that He created all things. The Son is to be glorified even as the Father. . . .
"In the Epistle to the Colossians that which is set before us is the proper glory of His Person as the Son before the world was. He is the Creator as the Son. It is important to observe this. But the Persons are not separated in their manifestation. If the Son wrought miracles on earth, He cast out devils by the Spirit; and the Father Who dwells in Him (Christ) did the works.
"Also it must be remembered that that which is said, is said, when He was manifested in the flesh, of His complete Person, Man upon earth. Not that we do not in our minds separate between the divinity and the humanity; but even in separating them we think of the one Person with regard to Whom we do so. We say Christ is God, Christ is man; but it is Christ Who is the two.
"I do not say this theologically, but to draw the reader's attention to the remarkable expression, 'All the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him.' All the fullness of the Godhead was found in Christ."
{J.N.D.'s Synopsis, (Colossians i).} It is no small benefit to our souls thus to be conducted by the Holy Spirit through the dim corridors of past ages to the utmost boundary of time itself — to that point when created things were about to be brought into being. There and then, existing in His omnipotence "before all things," we see the One by Whom were created all things, the Son of the Father's love. Before creation's work begins, love is present and active for the Father is loving the Son, before Love's hands formed all existing things. This is the faith of God's elect, and in this "thought beyond all thought" we humbly adore the Son, Who is "before all" things, and in Whom all things "subsist together" (ver. 17).