Apple7 wrote
"Being 'born' is NEVER equated as being 'created'.
Any lexicon on the planet will tell you this, and overturn your attempting to blend the two..."
BEGET - CREATE
“Begotten” and “created” are
English words carefully chosen by Bible translators to convey the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original manuscripts as closely as possible. So first we should determine what the words “created” and “begotten” actually mean
in English. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1963 ed. that I have at home says:
“
create ... 1: to bring into existence...3 :
cause, make” - p. 195.
And
beget ... begot ... begotten ... 1 : to procreate as the father : sire 2 :
cause” - p. 77.
These two words can share the identical meaning of “cause to be.” That is, we may say the mother has created a child or (more often) someone has begotten something that he built or produced somehow.
The
Hebrew word
yalad means “to bear, bring forth, beget” but it also can be used (as the equivalent English word also can) for “cause to be.”
Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, #3205, p. 349: (
Yalad, '
beget') ".... Used of God,
to create."
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (
BAGD):
Gennao "
1. beget - a. lit.
become the father of ....
3. fig.
bring forth, produce, cause" - pp. 154,155.
For example, when God says he “begot”/”fathered” (
yalad) the nation of Israel (Deut. 32:6, 18), he clearly means that he caused it to be or created it as a nation. There is no implication that it was somehow begotten out of the very substance of his body. In like manner God calls the nation of Israel his son, his firstborn because it was the very first nation created by him and for him (cf. Ex. 4:22). Again, anything Jehovah creates may be said to be “begotten” by him and is his “offspring.”
“Is this the way you treat Jehovah? O foolish people, is not God your
Father? Has he not
created you?” - Deut. 32:6, Living Bible.
“You forsook the creator who
begot [yalad] you and cared nothing for God who brought you to birth.” - Deut. 32:18, NEB.
In Ps. 90:2 we also see yalad used in the sense of created: “Before the mountains were
born [yalad] or you brought forth the earth” - NIV, AT, JB, NJB, NAB (1991), NASB; “begotten” - NAB (1970); “were given birth” - MLB. Or, “Before the mountains were
created, before the earth was formed.” - Living Bible, cf. TEV. So, the Hebrew word most often translated “begotten, brought forth” may also be understood (as in English) to mean created or produced.
The very title of God (“Father”) used as “source of all things” shows this common meaning throughout both testaments. God is the
Father of all. What does this mean? He is the Father of the Universe, the Father of all creation, and even the Father of the Angels. (They truly are called “sons of God” and they were in existence before the earth was created - Job 38:4, 7, cf. Living Bible and NIVSB f.n.) They are spirit persons. Should we assume then that the angels were “begotten” from God in the sense that they have existed eternally and are actually composed of his very own spirit substance, etc.? After all, it doesn’t actually say that they were “created.” But we know they were created because their Father created/“begot” everything: He is the “Father of all” including the spirit persons in heaven. - Eph. 4:6; Heb. 1:7; 12:9.
Col. 1:15, 18 is an example of this.
"He is the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation. .... He is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything." NASB. Jesus also says in Rev. 1:5 that he is the
firstborn of the dead.
So how is Jesus “the first-born of all creation”? In the same way that the parallel second half (Col. 1:18) of this comparison shows it to be: the very first one produced in that category. That is, just as Christ was the very first one of all the dead to be resurrected (or re-born or re-created) to enjoy eternal life (“firstborn from the dead” - Col. 1:18), so he is also the very first one of all things created (“firstborn of all creation” - Col. 1:15).