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In Romans 8:29, Paul says
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."
What is Paul talking about when he refers to being a firstborn among brothers and sisters; does he mean brothers and sisters in the church or is it metaphorical and what significance does this carry?
Two different Greek Church Fathers - Gregory of Nyssa (335-394) and Gregory of Nazianzus (320-390) - offer two slightly different but not incompatible interpretations of what is meant by firstborn among many brethren (πρωτοτοκον εν πολλοις αδελφοις).
Gregory of Nyssa explains πρωτοτοκον εν πολλοις αδελφοις as referring to Christ's Baptism:
Assuredly this is plain, that because we are by birth flesh and blood, as the Scripture saith, He Who for our sakes was born among us and was partaker of flesh and blood [Hebrews 1:14], purposing to change us from corruption to incorruption by the birth from above, the birth by water and the Spirit, Himself led the way in this birth, drawing down upon the water, by His own baptism, the Holy Spirit; so that in all things He became the first-born of those who are spiritually born again, and gave the name of brethren to those who partook in a birth like to His own by water and the Spirit.
Gregory of Nazianzus explains the phrase as relating to three different births: the natural birth, Baptism, and the Resurrection.
The Word recognizes three Births for us; namely, the natural birth, that of Baptism, and that of the Resurrection. Of these the first is by night, and is servile, and involves passion; but the second is by day, and is destructive of passion, cutting off all the veil [i.e. ancestral sin] that is derived from birth, and leading on to the higher life; and the third is more terrible and shorter, bringing together in a moment all mankind, to stand before its Creator, and to give an account of its service and conversation here; whether it has followed the flesh, or whether it has mounted up with the spirit, and worshipped the grace of its new creation. My Lord Jesus Christ has showed that He honoured all these births in His own Person; the first, by that first and quickening Inbreathing; [Genesis 2:7] the second by His Incarnation and the Baptism wherewith He Himself was baptized; and the third by the Resurrection of which He was the Firstfruits; condescending, as He became the Firstborn [Romans 8:29] among many brethren, so also to become the Firstborn from the dead. [Colossians 1:18]
Note that Gregory of Nyssa here is referring to the Holy Spirit coming down upon the water - not upon Christ. It has been suggested that Christ received the Holy Spirit at Baptism, but this would be considered heresy by Nicene-Constantinopolitan Christians (i.e. those who accept the Creed of Nicene-Constantinople), since it would imply that Christ's Divinity was somehow incomplete at some point while He was Incarnate. The purpose of Christ's Baptism, according to the Church Fathers at least, was to make the Trinity manifest and not to somehow complete it. Christ's Baptism sanctified the water, it was not the water that sanctified Christ.
Tokos is, twice, a matter of usury in the Greek scripture. Usury is the return on an investment, in financial terms, just as firstfruits is the return on an investment in agricultural terms. Seed in the ground is invested; the first token that the investment is successful is the firstfruit.
Trapezia are also involved in this - the table across which the transactions are made. Jesus and Judas shared a trapezia when Judas traded Jesus for thirty of silver - an investment gone wildly wrong, for all eternity. Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is the first token that God's investment in Creation shall be a successful venture. All that is for God must pass through death, out of the Old Creation and in to the New.
Prototokos - the First Token.
Nigel
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Rom 8:29
Specifically, what is 'firstborn' here in this context?
He has been exalted at the right hand of God, and has received the promise of the holy spirit from the Father... Acts 2:33
Jesus is the first to be born of the new, eternal, spirit life that God designed for all to have. We see this also in the passage -
God... predestined (those) to be conformed to the image of his Son.
Without Christ as Saviour, there could be no life after this age. He, having destroyed the power of sin and death (Rom 5 explains this in great detail), is the firstborn of a new age where God is the only God and all evil is banished or destroyed. Finally, all creation can be what God intended all along in and through Jesus the firstborn.
for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through him 1 Cor 8:6
God never intended His human creation to stop with the mess Adam initiated. He intended all to have opportunity to realise true life through the one to come, His son and saviour, Jesus. All things, as Paul expresses, are destined to have their ultimate existence, of a true spiritual nature, in Jesus.
The saints of old including Abraham and David etc are waiting (while dead) for their change with the saints of this age, for they too are given life only through Jesus the Christ. Affirming that Jesus truly is the firstborn of even these from ages ago. Heb 11:39-40
No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. John 3:13
As the firstborn, Jesus has led the way for all humans to follow his transformation to eternal life. This has nothing to do with other resurrections like Lazarus etc, for they did not awake into a new spirit life.
