A friend of mine once posed this question to me: Jehovah Witness's refer to Colossians 1:15 where it says that Jesus is "the firstborn over all creation" to show that Jesus is not God, but rather a created being. What's up with this passage? How can we show that Jesus is not a created being, and show that he's really God? Why should we care about this in the first place?
It was a good question, one that had me stumped for a while. But here is what I came up with, and I hope it can help you if faced with the same verse.
To start, let's take a look at Colossians 1:15 "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." If we look at that verse in passing we might get the idea that yes, Jesus is less than God with the word "firstborn" alluding to his creation.
But really if you take the verse apart its quite clear that He isn't. Firstborn is in no way first-"created". By just looking at the wording, "over all", we can see that he's the firstborn *over* Creation. Ancient Near East culture had the firstborn as a status not necessarily a birth order; thus Jesus would be the preeminent being over Creation which is certainly not counter-Biblical.
Scripture that shows Jesus is God:
John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The "Word" being Jesus.
John 17:5 says: "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." Which clearly shows us that Jesus existed before Creation.
Why should this matter? Because if Jesus is in some way less than God, or even a created being; then he is quite plainly not God. If He wasn't God then He wasn't perfect (All have fallen short of God's glory) and if He wasn't perfect than His sacrifice was worthless. So yeah, its pretty important for us that Jesus is God :)
