Quasar,
I have also read much of the post you directed me to, and I take issue with it as well.
For one, I think your interpretation of Colossians 1.15 is flawed. Allow me to explain.
When Paul speaks of Christ as the “Firstborn,” he is not depicting Christ as the first-created of God’s creations. Of course, “Firstborn,” as it is used throughout the Old Testament is often used in reference to the preeminence of an individual, and is clearly seen in the highly Messianic Psalm, in which David (who here is a typification of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ), the youngest amongst the sons of Jesse (1 Sam 16.11-13), is described and appointed as God’s “firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89.27). It is Christ, as the Son of God, who is the “Firstborn” in the sense that He is the “heir” of all things, for everything that belongs to the Father also belongs to the Son (John 16.15, 17.10). As the “firstborn” is the heir to all of his father’s estate, so too is Christ the heir of all the Heavenly Father’s estate, namely, all of creation (Col 1.15, Heb 1.2, Psalm 2.7-8).
We could discuss partitive genitives (“one of the students of the class”), or genitives of subordination (“King over Israel”) and its correlative analogous genitive (“King of Israel”), but because it is possible to understand this phrase as a partitive genitive in light of Orthodoxy (in light of the incarnation, the man Christ is most supreme, the most preeminent of all creation), I would instead like to direct attention to the preposition found in v. 16, ὅτι (“He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, because…”), because our understanding of the subsequent things that Paul has to say is key to understanding what he meant by referring to Christ as “Firstborn of all creation.” The reason for Christ being called the “Firstborn of all creation” is “because all things were made in Him… through Him… and for Him.” This statement of course makes little or no sense if the phrase “Firstborn of all creation” is meant to mean that Christ is the first of God's creations. How is it that Christ is the first-created of all creation, because all things were created in, through, and for Him?
Of course, as most of us probably know, the Watchtower has a way around this by the simple addition of the word "other" into v. 16. They argue, that because the word “all,” does not always mean “all without exception” that this somehow justifies the insertion of “other” into the text. In their attempt to be consistent, they have added “other” in a number of places throughout Colossians 1 (v. 16 [x2]; v. 17[x2]; v. 20[x1]) with exception to v. 18, and the one place it would counteract their theological motive, Colossians 1.15 (“the Firstborn of all creation”). Thus, in attempt to be consistent, they have actually become inconsistent in their application. Working through the remainder of the Book of Colossians also reveals this inconsistency.
In regards to the Witnesses, it seems strange that here at Colossians 1, Paul would suggest that it is “in,” and “through” Christ “all other things” came into existence, and turn right around in 1 Corinthians 8.6, and speak of “all things”within the created order as having their existence through Christ, particularly in light of the Father being the one “from whom are all things.” Of course, should one infer from 1 Corinthians 8.6 that through Christ “all other things” came into existence, then to remain consistent in application, they must also infer, that it is “from” the Father “whom are all other things.”
Moreover, when the expression τὰ πάντα ("all things") is used in the context of the created order, it , as Richard Bauckham has suggested (God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology, 32), “belongs to the standard rhetoric of Jewish monotheism, in which it constantly refers, quite naturally, to the whole of the created reality from which God is absolutely distinguished as its Creator, and Ruler,” i.e., Romans 11.36; 1 Cor 8.6; Ephesians 3.9; Heb 2.10; Gen 1.31; Neh 9.6; Eccl 3.11, 11.5; Job 8.3; Jer 10.16; 3 Macc 2.3; Wisdom 1.14, 9.1; Sirach 18.1, 23.20. Paul’s emphasis in the Christ-hymn upon the powers, the angelic agencies is circumstantial – it reflects Paul’s deliberate purpose and use of τὰ πάντα (v. 16).
Christ’s creation of “all things” serves as the sole basis of Him being “Firstborn of all creation.” If I were to say, “He is president of the United States, because he received the most votes,” the ground clause “because he received the most votes” modifies the predicate nominative “president” (giving the grounds for it) but does not contribute anything to the subordinate prepositional phrase “of the United States.” In fact, you could remove the subordinate prepositional phrase without issue, which again seems to indicate that there isn’t a link between it and the ground clause.
Whatever we take “Firstborn of all creation” to mean (and there are divergent views within Orthodoxy), it must be on the basis of Christ existing before, and creating all things as indicated in the ground clause, “because in Him all things in heaven and on earth were created.” This is elsewhere expressed throughout the NT, where the authority of the Creator over creation derives from the very act of creation itself (Revelation 4.11, Hebrews 2.8).
