The Firstborn of All Creation and the hOTI Clause

I maintain that Colossians 1:15 is a partitive genitive which makes Christ the "firstborn" of creation a part of that creation. However, Helyer in "Arius Revisited," JETS Mar. 1998, states that this option is excluded by virtue of the hoti clause of v. 16 and the pro panta of v. 17, which he thinks excludes Christ from the realm of created things.

Does the hoti clause of v. 16 and the pro panta of v. 17 clearly exclude Christ from the realm of created things?

The clause at verse 16 says, hOTI EN AUTWi EKTISQH TA PANTA, which Barclay's NT renders, "For he is the agent by whom all things were created."
The 21st Century NT has "It was he that formed all other things in heaven...all came into existence as a result of him and by means of him."
The reason the above Bibles have a different view of this is because Helyer has ignored the passivity of the verbs involved.
The verb EKTISQH ("were created") is passive, hence the subject and object are reversed from the active voice. The "him" of AUTWi cannot be the subject because it is part of an adverbial phrase headed by the preposition EN ["by means of']. Thus, the TA PANTA ["all things"] was created by an unnamed EN, the PRWTOTOKOS. Who created all things EN ["by means of"] Christ?
In verses 12 and 13 the Father is the subject, and in v. 13, it is the Father who has delivered us. In v. 14, the Father is still the subject while the Son is the intermediate agent identified by the EN clause (EN hWi). Verse 15 concentrates on the indirect agent of v. 14, that the indirect agent is EIKWN ["image"] and PRWTOTOKOS ["firstborn"], and in verse 16, the Son is indirect agent again because of the EN AUTWi ["for he is the agent by whom" Barclay].

The conclusion is that the Father is creator and he creates "EN", or "by means of" the Son. Passive verbs and prepositions are used in those verses also in Hebrews 1:2 and John 1:3, and describe Jesus as an intermediate agent.

The concept of *time* is prominent in Col 1:15 - 18 with temporal words like PRWTOTOKOS ( a temporal word), ARXH (v. 18) and that he is PRO (before) TA PANTA (v.17). It was the Father's purpose (v.18) that the Son be prominent (PRWTEUWN) in all things because of being temporally first, as Paul's use of language shows.

Also ignored is the use of EK, or lack of, in regards to Jesus.

E. Lohse, "A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon", (The Hermeneia Series) p. 50, note 125 says: "It should be noted that EN (in), DIA (through), and EIS (for) are used, but not EK (from). 'From whom are all things' ( EX hOU TA PANTA) is said of God in 1 Corinthians 8:6. He is and remains the creator, but the pre-existent Christ is the mediator of creation."

The Son is never called "creator", but he is what Robertson calls "the intermediate agent" According to Robertson (Grammar p. 820) the source (direct agent) is most commonly expressed by the Greek preposition hUPO ("by"), and sometimes by APO ("from") and EK ("out of"). The intermediate agent is often identified by DIA ("through"). Matthew 1:22 points this out nicely: "All this took place because what was spoken [aorist passive participle] by [ hUPO] the Lord through [DIA] the prophet must be fulfilled [aorist passive subjunctive]." Here "the Lord" is the source and "the prophet" is the intermediate agent. In John 1:3 we read " Through (DIA) him all things were made." In Colossians 1:16 we read: "For by (EN) him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by (DIA) him and for (EIS) him. " Please note that the verbs are passive and note the use of prepositions. In the verse we find the preposition EN ("in," "by means of"). This preposition governs AUTW ("him," in the dative case). Most of the 74 occurrences in the NT of EN AUTWi in the dative case are locative, that is, they refer to something or someone being in some place. Only one of the examples points to a source. In the last part of verse 16 we find the preposition DIA which governs AUTOU in the genitive case. This is the typical marking of an intermediate agent, so this must be the proper way to view the Son in this context. God is the source of the passive verbs which speak about creation, and that the Son is the intermediate agent? In Colossians 1:12 "the Father" is mentioned, and he is active through verse 20. This is seen in verse 19 where God is the implied subject for the verb, and it is particularly evident in verse 20, because here both the source (God) and the intermediate agent (Jesus) are mentioned. It is said that the reconciliation is "through" (DIA) Jesus and "to" (EIS) God. The same thought is expressed in verse 22. The implied source (grammatical subject) of the active verb "reconciled" is "God." The intermediate agent is Jesus, for it is said that reconciliation occurred "by means of" (EN) his fleshly body and "through" (DIA) his death.

Even Robert H Countess, though no friend of the NWT, had the following interesting remarks:

"Even though Liddell-Scott state that the radical sense of DIA is 'through' there can be produced  instances where the genitive appears to be causal and the accusative to signify agency. In general this writer would observe that the so-called causal uses of DIA seem to be inextricably linked  with agency (i.e. 'by' or 'through').
For example, one lexicon cites as causal John 1:3-DI AUTOU EGENETO. [cf. Col. 1:16-TA PANTA DI AUTOU KAI EIS AUTON EKTISTAI.] God apparently worked *through* the Son in creating all things and, therefore, the Son Himself in some sense *caused* or created. Another example given is Acts 3:18- O DE QEOS A PROKATHGGEILEN DIA STOMATOS PANTWN TWN PROFHTWN. Here the mouth of all the prophets is the channel or medium *through which* God announced beforehand the sufferings of Christ. The prophets indeed *caused* the message to be proclaimed but only inasmuch as their mouths had been selected as channels or media for the divine communication." THANK GOD FOR THE GENITIVE, Robert H. Countess, p. 118, JETS, Spring 1969

It is interesting that even Countess has to concede that Christ is the agent of creation, and, as a parallel, uses Acts 3:18, denoting a separate body/being as agent.

All of this works well with Proverbs 8:22-30, where we have the created angel Wisdom/Jesus, helping his creator in the creation of the earth, standing beside him as a "master workman."

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