Death Anxiety
He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. Colossians 1:18 NASB
Firstborn from the dead – Clearly Yeshua was not the first human being to be raised from the dead. Every theologian recognizes this. Then why does Paul use the phrase ‘firstborn from the dead”? Perhaps a bit of investigation is warranted.
First, a Christian point of view:
The Greek word for ‘firstborn’ does not always apply to one born first, and Jesus certainly was not the first human to be resurrected from the dead. In Colossians 1:15 & vs 18 the Greek word Prototokos is used with reference to Jesus Christ. This noun (#4416) refers to a parent’s firstborn child. As an extension of this literal meaning, it can also refer to a person who holds a special status as pre-eminent. There is another Greek word – Protoktistos – which means ‘first created’. Nowhere in the Bible is that word ever applied to Jesus Christ.
Consider also how Ephraim is blessed as ‘firstborn’ when he was the second-born son of Joseph. But Jacob blessed him as the firstborn (Genesis 48). The other meaning of priority is meant. So with Jesus being the firstborn from the dead. This cannot be taken literally as he was not the first human to be raised from the dead, but it is meant to be taken symbolically, as the one who has total pre-eminence over all other resurrections, for His resurrection was utterly unique and has the priority.
This other Greek word needs to be considered – Monogenes (#3439). It means ‘unique, one and only’. It refers to something that is the only representative of its kind, being special or extraordinary in some way. That word is used in John 1:18. Of Jesus it is said that He holds the first place in all things – but not because He was ever ‘born’ as a ‘firstborn’. That is clear from Protoktistos – which means ‘first created’ – never being used in the Bible anywhere to apply to Jesus Christ.
This is not speaking of first in time, but of pre-eminence, priority and uniqueness. Jesus was the unique one because He died without sinning, thus death could not hold Him (death can only claim sinners), so Jesus had to arise in triumph from the grave, having conquered it!
That is why Romans 1:1-4 states that the proof of Jesus being the unique, uncreated Son of God is in His resurrection from the dead. We can declare Jesus to be this Son of God because He was raised to life in an utterly unique way – the first ever to be so raised. He was the Son of God prior to His resurrection (as the gospel accounts show) but after His unique resurrection, Christians had the proof of that claim being true. Only Jesus’ resurrection gives the guarantee of the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous on the Day of Judgement, and that all who are raised as believers in Him will share in His resurrection to eternal glory (1 Corinthians 15:20-26). I suggest that this is what Paul meant in Colossians 1:18.[1]
With this is mind, consider the insight of Irvin Yalom: “Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, . . .”[2] Yalom’s insight reminds us that the promise of something after death is religion’s greatest appeal. Paul’s statement comes in a letter to the Gentile/Jewish audience in the assembly in Colossae. In the Gentile world, death is the blockbuster issue. Yalom comments: “Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.”[3] The Greek-pagan world of Hellenism sought to overcome this terror with the idea of an afterlife, eventually adopted by Jewish thinkers as well. But what guaranteed that the afterlife even existed? Oh, it’s a nice idea, but where’s the evidence? You can’t consult the dead. There’s no information coming back from the other side of the grave. If you want to believe that there’s more than this life, you need something better than hopes and dreams.
And that’s why Yeshua is the first born from the dead. All those others who were resurrected still died. Their lives might have been extended but they still ended up in the grave. Gone. Silent. Yeshua is the only one who came back and stayed back. His resurrection is the evidence that there is something else—a proof desperately needed by all those Gentiles who looked beyond the grave, who weren’t quite satisfied with the sentence: “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people” (Genesis 25:8).
Topical Index: death, firstborn, prōtótokos, resurrection, Colossians 1:18
[1] https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/25943/what-did-paul-mean-when-he-called-jesus-the-firstborn-from-the-dead
[2] Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Being at peace with your own mortality, p. 5.
[3] Ibid., p. 1.
