“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ” -Colossians 1:15-18 NIV

  “In the early church there was much discussion, particularly with Jewish Christians, about the first word in the Hebrew Bible- “in the beginning.” Jews had long seen in this word a reference to “Israel,” God’s firstborn. Paul’s hymn suggest that early Christians followed this line of thinking, only making the obvious shift from “Israel” to “Jesus” as the reference of the first word. Such “homiletical” interpretations of the OT are not uncommon in the NT and Judaism. They are not meant to prove a point but to illustrate and elaborate a theme. According to Paul’s hymn, Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (cf. Ge 1:26), the “firstborn over all creation.” The notion of Jesus as the “firstborn” in Ge 1:1 probably stems from the fact that the Hebrew word for “beginning” can also be translated “firstborn,” as it was frequently understood by Jews. Moreover, when Paul’s hymn says that “by him all things were created,” it shows an awareness that the Hebrew preposition “in” in Ge 1:1 (“in the beginning”) can also be rendered as “by”; hence, Ge 1:1 can be read as: “By the firstborn, God created the heavens and the earth.”” (Sailhamer, John. (1994). NIV Compact Bible Commentary. P. 552-553. Zondervan.)