Was Jesus Christ Not Created by God?

One of the earliest articles written by me was an 8-page article captioned “Is Jesus Christ a created being?” In it, I contended that our Lord Jesus Christ is not one of the creation of God. I argued that if all things, with no one excepted, were created by him, as written in John 1:3 and Col. 1:16, he couldn’t have been one of such creations of God. I had also engaged in a debate on the subject with my Jehovah’s Witness (JW) friend who said the Trinitarian creed which agrees that Jesus was the “only begotten Son of God” has implicitly admitted that he was created. He argued that the Trinitarian concept of Christ being “begotten but not made or created” is clearly self-contradictory because the Son’s begotten-ness simply means he derived his life or existence from God. He also argued that in life and in the Scriptures the concept of sonship and fatherhood always connote the one called the son deriving his existence from the one called the father. He concluded that if Christ was begotten by God, that simply means he was created by God before God used him as the creative agent of all things.

My polemical article was consequently written to fault this stand of my JW friend. But after I had published my article in my website (Jude1v3.com), it began to dawn on me that I had unwittingly made myself one of the apologists of Trinitarianism through the article. Having become fully convinced that my JW friend had a biblically- supported argument, I had to remove it. This article is therefore written to correct the error in the first one. This should however not be taken as my wholesale endorsement of whatever the JWs espouse.

Now, the question is whether or not Jesus was created by God. If he was not created, that will mean he self-existed. It then means that he came into existence by and of himself, independently of God the Father. Does the Bible teach this? Let us reason from the Scriptures.

The Oneness and Fatherhood of God

Both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament teach very clearly that there is one God. What does this one-ness of God mean? It simply means that there is only one being who possesses aseity – the quality of existing of and from oneself, independent of any other being. Only one being, not two, not three, possesses this attribute and His name is YHWH (Yahweh). The Bible does not teach that this one God is made up of two or three self-existed, coequal and coeternal Gods. He is a singular spirit Being who created all things in heaven and on earth. The true Christian belief is built on the true teachings of the Bible which says there is one God (Deut. 6:4; Mal. 2:10; Mark 12:32; 1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jam. 2:19).

This one God is called the Father of all (Eph. 4:6). He is called the Father of all because He is the one who brought all beings and all things into existence. He gave life to all things that has ever existed, both visible and invisible, whether in the heavens or on the earth. And this include our Lord Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. There is no single Bible verse that teaches the self-existence of any other being  other than YHWH.

The sons of God

The angels in heaven are called the sons of God (Gen. 6:2-4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). The human being (Adam) created by God is also called the son of God (Luke 3:38). The entire human race, as descendants of Adam, are therefore offspring of God (Acts 17:29). Our Lord Jesus is also called the Son of God (Mark 1:1; Luke 1:35; John 1:34; 9:35-38; 10:36; 20:31; Acts 8:37; 9:20; Rom. 1:4; etc). The primary reason he, like the angels and Adam, is called the Son of God is because he derived his life or existence from God. He did not self-exist as erroneously believed by Trinitarians. Before creating the universe in the beginning, God had brought forth His only begotten Son into existence out of Himself. John called Yeshua the Word (John 1:1; Rev. 19:13) because in his pre-human existence he was the mouthpiece of God.

John 5:26 Misunderstood

In John 5:25-26 Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given tothe Son to have life in himself” (John 5:25-26 KJV, emphasis added).

Many have erroneously interpreted the phrase “life in Himself” as self-existence. But that is not what Christ meant. What our Lord meant is “source of life.” He said the Father has the life-source in Himself and that the Father has given this power to give life to the Son. It is from this life-source given the Son by the Father that Jesus created all things in the beginning at the behest of God the Father of all. It is also from this life-source already given the Son that Jesus will resurrect all that have died and are in their graves (vv. 25, 28, 29). The context clearly  speaks about the power to give life; it does not speak of self-existence.

The only begotten Son

Jesus is the “only begotten Son” (Greek: “monogenes huios”) of God. This means God brought him (the Son) forth out of Himself (God). In other words, God gave birth to him. The begettal of the Son by God took place before the creation of the universe. We must bear in mind that God the Father must have been existing before he begot the Son. The fact that the Son was begotten by God means he did not self-exist. This is what John had written down for us by his use of the words “monogenes huios” (“only begotten son”). The summary of this is that the Son was brought into existence by the Father. Another way of saying it is that he was created by the Father.

Why is Yeshua (Jesus) called the only begotten son? I suppose His sonship is unique. Whereas the other sons of God were called forth out of things which were previously non-existent, that is, out of nothing (Rom. 4:17), Jesus was brought forth out of God Himself. God simply brought out one who is of His own kind (Heb. 1:3; Phil. 2:6). This means that all the sons of God derived their existence from God, although not in the same way. The derivation of Jesus was of a unique type – from God Himself. The fact however still remains that Jesus was begotten by God prior to the creation of all other things by the Son at the behest of God, the Father of all. Jesus himself had, at various times, affirmed this truth. He called himself the Son of God (John 9:35-37; 10:36; Rev. 2:18). He has also told us that he is the beginning of God’s creation (Rev. 3:14). In other words, he was the first being created by God.

The debate about “arche” in Rev. 3:14

The words “the beginning” used by Jesus in Rev. 3:14is translated from the Greek word “arche” or “arkhe.” Strong’s Greek Lexicon #746 gives five different definitions of arche (or arkhe):

1. beginning, origin

2. the person or thing that commences, the first person or thing in a series, the leader

3. that by which anything begins to be, the origin, the active cause

4. the extremity of a thing a) of the corners of a sail

5. the first place, principality, rule, magistracy a) of angels and demons.

Some Bible scholars have interpreted “arche” here  as “source” or “originator.” Their conclusion may have been influenced more by the Trinitarian motive of denying the creation of Jesus Christ by God than by meticulous, honest, and objective hermeneutics. The following points should be noted:

• The word “arche” (or “arkhe”)is used 56 times in the New Testament. It was translated “the beginning” in 40 of the places. John used the word 20 times. In all the places where he used the word, including Rev. 3:14  it was translated “the beginning.” If “the beginning” was rightly meant by John in 19 places, why not here in Rev. 3:14? In fact, God, not Christ, is the originator of the creation of all things. Our Lord Jesus Christ was only an agent employed by God to create all things otherthanhimself.
• In the places where arche is followed by a noun, the word “beginning” fitly takes the meaning of “the first of” or “the start of” the noun. A typical example of this is found in Matt. 24:8 where Jesus said, “All these are the beginning (arkhe) of birth pains.” In other words, wars, rumours of wars, famines, earthquakes (vv. 6-7) will be “the first of” or “the start of” the foretold sufferings, also known as tribulations. Other examples are in Mark 1:1, Phil. 4:15, and here in Rev. 3:14 where John wrote unambiguously that Jesus is “the first of” the creation of God. The inability of many scholars to arrive at the right conclusion is not due to the lack of internal evidence, such as the usage of arkhe in the scriptures; it is due more to the Trinitarian bias of the scholars.
• Strong’s Greek Lexicon #746 gives five definitions of arkhe. The decision of the scholars to ignore the first two definitions is suggestive of dishonest or biased hermeneutics. Many of the scholars simply cherry picked the option that suited their theological preference.

If anyone should put aside what they have been taught by men and carefully consider the following passage, he or she will agree that it was talking about the creation of our Lord Jesus Christ by God. As seen in the context, the event took place before the beginning when the universe was created by God through His Son.

“The Lord created me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. From eternity I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no ocean depths, I was born, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was born; while He had not yet made the earth and the fields, nor the first dust of the world. When He established the heavens, I was there; when He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep, when He made firm the skies above, when the springs of the deep became fixed, when He set a boundary for the sea so that the water would not violate His command, when He marked out the foundations of the earth; then I was beside Him, as a master workman; and I was His delight daily, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the sons of mankind.” (Prov. 8:22-31 NASB2020).

This was not written as a reference to wisdom which is one of the attributes of God; wisdom has ever been in God. Therefore wisdom as an attribute is not the entity created at the beginning of His (God’s) way. But the only begotten Son of God whom Paul called the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24) is the one alluded to here. And John’s use of arkhe in Rev. 3:14 affirms what has been written here in Prov. 8:22-31. The two passages say the Son was brought forth by God before God created all things through the Son.

Debate about Monogenes

Apologists of Trinitarianism in recent times say the word monogenes used in the original Greek textsdoes not mean “only begotten” as found in the KJV and some other versions. They say the meaning is “one of a kind” or “unique.” While they have no argument about the prefix “monos” as meaning “only,” or “one,” they say the suffix “genes” is derived from the root word “genos” and not from “gennao” as previously thought. They say that whereas “gennao” means to beget, “genos” means  “kind,” “sort,” “class,” so that “monogenes” can only be interpreted as “one of a kind” or “unique.” They say this makes the interpretation of “monogenes” as “only begotten” erroneous.

Good as the argument may seem, the Trinitarian apologists have either deliberately or ignorantly forgotten that “genos” hasa range of meanings including “offspring” which has the same meaning of begotten. Therefore, the argument that monogenes was erroneously interpreted as only begotten is itself an error and should be rejected.

Conclusion

If we accept that YHWH (Yahweh) is the one God and that only Him is self-existent, then we should be honest enough to accept the fact that no other being is self-existent. The implication of this is that all other beings, including our Lord Jesus Christ, were created by God. If, on the other hand, we believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit self-existed like the Father, that belief make us polytheists in our faith. Graciously, the Bible nowhere teaches that Jesus is a self-existed, coequal and coeternal God. Why the Bible calls him God has been explained in my article captioned The Godhood of Jesus Christ Explained.  He is not God the Son; he is the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God.  Neither does the Bible teach us of a third God called God the Holy Spirit. The holy spirit of God, according to the Bible, is the divine power of God which He divinely transmits into the universe through His breath to do His work in His creation. The holy spirit is neither a literal person nor is it God.

Graciously too, Prov. 8:22-31 and Rev. 3:14 have made it clearly known that the only begotten Son of God, who is our Lord and Saviour, was the first of God’s creation. Indeed Trinitarianism is a Greek gift given to Christendom by the fourth century philosophers who speculated about God and His Son and spirit. The Trinity dogma has caused so much havoc to the teachings of the Bible.

The modern scholars who advanced the debate against Christ being the “only begotten” son of God simply want to rubbish the fact that he was begotten by God since that will be an admittance that he derived his life or existence from God. But what do we gain by denying the fact that there is only one God and the one God is the Father (1 Cor. 8:6)? He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Psa. 45:7; John 20:17; Eph. 1:3, 17; Rev. 3:12; etc). Jesus Christ is not coequal with Him (John 14:28). The Bible has also made it known that Jesus was created by the Father in the sense that the Father begot him (Prov. 8:22-31; Rev. 3:14). Refusal to admit these truths about our Lord Jesus Christ in order to conform with the manmade doctrine of the Trinity is not faith at all. It is delusion and unbelief.