Jesus Is First at the Beginning and First at the End as Well

Jesus Christ is the beginning of everything that is created, that is, of all life. With respect to life, He is the first. But Paul now says that with respect to death and the resurrection, He is also the first.

He is the firstborn not only of the first creation, which is the physical creation of everything that exists, but He is also the firstborn of the second creation, which is the spiritual creation, the new life, the new order, the new world, the new system that God creates through the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection, and which is, in a sense, a new creation—that creation now redeemed by the blood, the sacrifice, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And in that case, in that new creation that comes about through Jesus Christ, He is also the firstborn; He is the first to rise from that new, redeemed race, so to speak. And that is also what the apostle Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 15, in his famous passage about the resurrection, where he says in verse 20, First Corinthians chapter 15: “But now Christ has risen from the dead, the firstfruits”—there is that word, firstfruits. That is, from what comes first, the first produce, like the first harvest of grapes, like the grape harvest, that first wine that comes from the first harvest.

“He is the firstfruits of those who slept”; that is, He is the first to rise from among all the dead. “For since death came through a man, through a man also came the resurrection of the dead, because just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” It says: “But each one in his proper order: Christ, the firstfruits, and afterward those who belong to Christ at His Coming.”

So in Colossians 1:18, Paul is holding those ideas together when he speaks of Jesus Christ as the head of the body and the firstborn from among the dead. He is the first because God wants Jesus Christ to be, as it were, first in everything—the most important, the One who stands out—because the Father desires to give glory to Jesus, and He wants Jesus Christ to be the firstborn and the first in everything beautiful, everything magnificent, everything lovely, the One who receives the glory. So Jesus is first at the beginning, first in the middle, and first also at the end.

That is why it is important for us to understand that Jesus Christ rose from among the dead. If someone denies that Jesus Christ physically and actually rose from among the dead, that person cannot be called a Christian. Today there are many supposedly evangelical liberal groups that speak of Jesus’ physical resurrection as something rather symbolic, as though they meant that God has certainly given creation that capacity to sustain itself. They try, as it were, to poeticize the resurrection of Jesus Christ and turn it into something metaphorical, poetic, and symbolic, but they certainly do not believe that Jesus Christ rose from among the dead.

And so those people cannot truly be called Christians. Anyone who denies that Jesus Christ actually, physically, and truly rose from among the dead is denying the most fundamental truth of theology and of the Christian faith. We cannot call such a person a brother.

But imagine: if Christ truly rose from among the dead, He is unique in the entire pantheon of gods and supposed religions, because no other religion dares to say that its founder actually rose from among the dead, died, and rose again. Neither Buddhism says that about its founder, Buddha, nor does Hinduism say that about the gods it has created here and there, nor does Islam say it about Muhammad, nor Confucianism in China about Confucius, the founder of its religion. No other religion says that its creator or originator actually rose from among the dead and is still alive.

Only Christianity says that about Jesus, and that is why our faith is something so wonderful, so extraordinary, that it requires acceptance simply because it is so, because God says so. Jesus Christ is the firstborn from among the dead; He is the first whom God raised, and because He rose, He is also powerful enough to raise us. We must have that faith that the same Jesus who was raised from among the dead will also raise us and take us together with Him.

That is why death does not hold for the child of God the terror and threat that it holds for those who do not believe God, who do not believe in God, because our founder has already broken that inevitable, inescapable dominion of death, and now, through that membrane that He opens, we too can enter eternal life. He is the firstborn from among the dead, the firstborn of all creation, so that in everything He may have the preeminence. God bless you, and I hope this is as encouraging to you as it is to us.