Is Jesus a created being?

The question of whether Jesus Christ is eternal or a created being strikes at the heart of Christian theology. Understanding the nature of Jesus is not just a theological exercise but a foundational aspect of the Christian faith.

The quick answer is that Jesus is not a created being. He has eternally existed together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

While many Christians are familiar with this answer, some groups — chiefly the Jehovah’s Witnesses — oppose it from the book of Colossians, where Paul writes:

Colossians 1:16 (NKJV)

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

At first glance this is the opposite of their claim — it says Christ created everything. However their New World Translation inserts a word the Greek does not contain, making it read “by means of him all [other] things were created.” That one bracketed word quietly turns the Creator of all things into the first of many created things. Remove it, and the verse says what the church has always confessed: all things were made by Christ and for Christ — which means He cannot be among the created.

Additionally, Colossians 1:15 is also incorrectly used to justify the argument that Jesus was created by highlighting the word “firstborn”:

Colossians 1:15 (NKJV)

He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

However, to better understand how the word ‘firstborn’ is used, let's look at another verse:

Psalm 89:27 (NKJV)

Also I will make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.

The above Psalm addresses King David as the firstborn son of Jesse — but was David actually Jesse's firstborn son? No, he was the youngest of Jesse’s sons (1 Samuel 16:11).

So why does the verse refer to him as the firstborn? Because “firstborn” was never only about birth order. In the ancient world the firstborn son held a place of rank — the chief heir, first in honour and inheritance. To call David God’s “firstborn… the highest of the kings of the earth” is to name his supremacy among kings, not the order of his birth. And that is exactly how the title works for Christ. He is the firstborn over all creation not because He was the first one made, but because He holds the highest place over all of it — the pre-eminent and rightful heir of everything that exists.

Paul does not leave the point to a single word. Read on, and he closes every door to the idea that Christ is a creature.

Colossians 1:17 (NKJV)

And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

“He is before all things” — before all things, which can only mean before creation itself, since there was nothing else to precede. The One who exists before everything, and holds everything together, is plainly not part of the everything He made.

Jesus said the same of Himself, again and again. He spoke of the glory He shared with the Father “before the world was” (John 17:5), of having “come down from heaven” (John 6:62), of belonging to a realm above this one: “You are from beneath; I am from above” (John 8:23). John gathers it into one verdict: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). That statement is without exception — nothing was made without Him.

So the answer stands. Jesus is not a created being. He is the eternal Son, the Maker of all things and the heir of all things, who in the fullness of time entered the world He had made, to redeem a people for Himself.