The following is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 13. Was Christ the First Creature?, pp. 263-267.

In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.

HEAD OF THE CREATION (REVELATION 3:14)

In John’s seven letters to the churches in Asia Minor, he says that the angel of the church in Laodicea told him to write the following (translation ours): Thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the archē of the creation of God. (Rev. 3:14)

We have left the Greek word archē untranslated because English versions render it in what may seem like surprisingly different ways:

• “beginning” (ESV, KJV, NKJV, NLT)

• “source” (CEV, NABRE)

• “origin” (GNT, NASB, NRSV)

• “originator” (CSB, LEB, NET)

• “principle” (NJB) • “head” (BBE)

• “ruler” (CEB, NIV)

All of these renderings are linguistically plausible and at least contextually possible. Moreover, none of them means or implies that Christ was the first creature God made. The only wording that might seem to carry that implication is “the beginning of the creation of God,” but even this wording falls short of making the idea of Christ as the first creature clear. The text almost certainly does not have that meaning in Greek. Even the Arians in the fourth century, who ransacked the Bible looking for proof texts supporting their belief that the Son was a created being, did not appeal to Revelation 3:14 as one of their proof texts.⁴⁶ Scholars propose two main interpretations of Revelation 3:14. The first is that it means that Christ is the origin, originator, or source of creation.⁴⁷ The second view is that the text means that Christ is the ruler or head of the creation.⁴⁸ Some commentators suggest that both ideas are present.⁴⁹ The view that Revelation 3:14 describes Christ as the first creature God made does not seem to be even seriously entertained.

Three considerations make it virtually certain that John did not mean that Christ was the chronologically first being that God created. These points also make it most likely that “ruler” is the dominant or primary idea.

First, archē, when used of a person or persons, everywhere in the New Testament outside Revelation means something like “ruler” (Luke 12:11; Rom. 8:38; 1 Cor. 15:24; Eph. 1:21; 2:2; 3:10; 6:12; Col. 1:16; 2:10, 15; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 3:22), including one other reference to Christ: “who is the archē” (Col. 1:18). Since Paul had just used the plural archai to refer to cosmic or worldly rulers (Col. 1:16), archē here as a term for Christ most likely means “ruler.” A connection between Revelation 3:14 and Colossians 1:18 is made even more likely by the fact that Revelation 3:14 is part of John’s letter to the church in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14a, cf. 1:11), which Paul mentioned in his letter to the Colossians because they were in neighboring cities and could exchange letters from him (Col. 2:1; 4:13–16).⁵⁰

Second, the meaning of “ruler” nicely fits the context of the book of Revelation. In the immediate context, Christ promises a place on his throne to those who conquer through their faith in him (Rev. 3:21). The titles of Revelation 3:14 noticeably overlap the titles of Christ in the opening of the book: “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler [archōn] of the kings of the earth” (1:5); “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler [archē] of the creation of God” (3:14). Since archōn definitely means “ruler,” and archē regularly has this meaning in the New Testament, the parallels between these two texts (both of which contain three titles for Christ) give strong support for interpreting archē as meaning something like “ruler.”⁵¹

Third, the word archē in the book of Revelation is used only two other times, and in both cases it refers to God (the speaker):

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” (Rev. 21:6)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Rev. 22:13)

It cannot be mere coincidence that Christ is also called “the first and the last” (Rev. 1:17; 2:8).

The three expressions found in Revelation 22:13 are synonymous (alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and omega is the last letter). Indeed, Christ is speaking in Revelation 22:13, as we will show later (see pp. 525–26). Obviously, though, these synonymous titles as applied to God in Revelation 21:6 do not mean that God was created or had a beginning in time. Nor should Revelation 3:14 be interpreted with that meaning. The title “the beginning and the end” likely means that God is the sovereign ruler of history from beginning to end.

These three considerations are the basis for the translation “ruler” in the NIV and several other versions, as well as the similar rendering “head.”

Although Revelation 3:14 does not mean that Christ was the first creature God made, it might be referring to Christ as having become part of creation in order to redeem creation. Specifically, it may be designating Christ as the “head” or ruling member of creation by virtue of his redemptive work. In New Testament teaching, Christ is the divine Son who humbled himself to become a man, thereby joining himself permanently with his own creation (John 1:9–14; Phil. 2:5–11; Heb. 2:14–18). As the resurrected and glorified Son exalted in heaven, Christ is still a man (Acts 17:31; 1 Cor. 15:47; 1 Tim. 2:5; see also Luke 24:36–43; Acts 2:24–32).52 This is why in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, the Lord Jesus is regarded as permanently both divine or fully God (John 1:1; 20:28; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1) and human or fully man. As such, Christ is not the first creature made but the preeminent member of the new creation. He “belongs to the sphere of creation,”⁵³ as Chandler puts it, but only because he graciously chose to enter that sphere in order to bring about the restoration of creation. There are several reasons for thinking this interpretation is the best explanation of Revelation 3:14.

• The context of similar titles in Revelation 1:5–6 focuses on Christ’s redemptive work (“the firstborn of the dead . . . has freed us from our sins by his blood”).

• In the letter to the Laodicean church, Christ states that he sat on the throne with his Father after he “conquered” by his death and resurrection (Rev. 3:21).

• In Colossians 1:18, the parallel use of archē refers to Christ’s headship in the new creation, especially because it is immediately followed by the title “the firstborn from the dead” (a clear parallel to Rev. 1:5).

• The primary background to the three titles in Revelation 3:14 is most likely Isaiah 65:16, which twice refers to the Lord in Hebrew as “the God of ʾāmēn” (usually translated “the God of truth”). The Greek word amēn in Revelation 3:14 is a direct transliteration of the Hebrew word in Isaiah 65:16, and that Hebrew word can mean both “faithful” and “true”—the two descriptions in the second title in Revelation 3:14. The “blessing” that this faithful or true God promises is that he will “create new heavens and a new earth” (Isa. 65:17). This expression referring to the new creation also is used in that sense in Revelation (Rev. 21:1, 2). It is also anticipated in the context immediately preceding Revelation 3:14, where Christ speaks of “the new Jerusalem” that will come down from God (Rev. 3:12). Thus, the reference to “the creation of God” in Revelation 3:14 in context likely is focused on the new creation that God is making.⁵⁴

Let us summarize the key points of this explanation of Revelation 3:14. “The creation of God” refers to the creation as God is renewing it to become “the new heavens and the new earth.” Christ is its “beginning” (archē) in the sense that he is the head, the ruling member of the new creation, by virtue of his death and resurrection to immortal, glorious life and exaltation to the very throne of God. The text is not saying that Christ was created at or as the beginning of the original creation of the universe.

46. Michael J. Svigel, “Christ as Archē in Revelation 3:14,” BSac 161 (2004): 215–31.

47. E.g., Bratcher and Hatton, Revelation, 78–79.

48. E.g., Craig S. Keener, Revelation, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 158; Craig R. Koester, Revelation: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYBC 38A (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 336.

 49. E.g., Osborne, Revelation, 204–5.

50. Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 108. Other commentators have made the same observation.

51. Note the lack of any engagement with these two points in Stafford, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, 3rd ed., 418–24. Stafford’s main parallel to Revelation 3:14 is the superficially similar statement about Behemoth in Job 40:19 (archē followed by a genitive expression about creation), which is certainly not thematically related in any way.

52. Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that Jesus Christ ceased to be a man when he was put to death and that he was resurrected as an angel. For a detailed critique of the Watchtower’s arguments for this false doctrine, see Bowman, Jehovah’s Witnesses, 38–49.

53. Chandler, The God of Jesus, 466 n. 1404.

54. For this interpretation, see further Beale, Book of Revelation, 297–301.

FURTHER READING

Revelation 3:14 Revisited: Jesus as the Arche of God’s Creation

Revelation 3:14: Jesus the Arche of Creation

Does Revelation 3:14 Teach That Jesus is God’s First Creation? Pt. 1, Pt. 2

FIRSTBORN OF CREATION REVISITED… AGAIN!

A HYMN TO THE DIVINE CHRIST

HOW MANY THEOIS IN THE NT?

GOD GAVE JESUS LIFE?