You mean, apart from you and your one-man "church"? There are a several Arian groups whose writings I follow, Biblical Unitarians, Church of God, Christadelphians and several YouTubers / Bloggers, and some non-mainstream Messianic Jews, etc.
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat 225 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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slimboyfat
Ah, okay, they are not Arians, because they don't believe Jesus lived in heaven before coming to earth.
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slimboyfat
The only no JW Arian writer I've come across (apart from former JWs such as Greg Stafford and Rolf Furuli) is Danny Andre Dixon. I'd be interested to know if there are others.
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aqwsed12345
One of the most controversial verses in the Arian-Nicene debate about the nature of Christ is Colossians 1:15, where Paul calls Jesus “the Firstborn of all creation” (prototokos pases ktiseos). A common argument from those who reject Christ’s deity is that this verse means Jesus was the first created being, based on the assumption that prototokos "always" (?) denotes a temporal or biological priority. However, an examination of how the early Church, particularly apostolic disciples like Polycarp, understood and used this term provides invaluable insight into how prototokos was meant to be understood by those closest to the apostolic tradition.
Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, was not just a second-century Christian; he was a disciple of the Apostle John himself and a key transmitter of the apostolic faith. His connection to the apostolic age gives his writings and reported sayings immense theological weight. In his Epistle to the Philippians (7:1), he writes:
“Whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan.”
The Greek phrase is striking: houtos prototokos estin tou Satana. Polycarp uses the exact word prototokos, “firstborn,” not in a biological sense, but in a moral and symbolic one. The heretic is not literally Satan’s first biological offspring; rather, he is called the “firstborn of Satan” because he is the foremost in error, the most prominent in rebellion, the exemplar of heresy.
This usage proves that prototokos in early Christian literature, even among the closest apostolic successors, had a clearly metaphorical and hierarchical meaning. To be “firstborn” could mean preeminent, representative, foremost—not merely the first to be created. When Paul calls Christ the prototokos of all creation in Colossians 1:15, he is not placing Christ within the category of creation, but above it. The following verses reinforce this interpretation: all things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17). Far from being part of creation, Christ is its source, its sustainer, and its goal.
Polycarp’s use of the term prototokos in reference to a heretic as the “firstborn of Satan” makes it clear that the word denotes rank or representative identity rather than temporal order. Just as the heretic is the leading figure in evil, so Christ is the supreme figure over creation. Moreover, Polycarp’s rebuke of Marcion as the “firstborn of Satan,” recorded by Irenaeus in Against Heresies 3.3.4, demonstrates the polemical and theological use of prototokos to convey primacy in a qualitative, not merely chronological, sense.
This understanding of prototokos aligns with the consistent witness of the early Church Fathers and the context of Colossians itself. The term is used again in Colossians 1:18 to describe Christ as the “firstborn from the dead,” clearly indicating preeminence in resurrection and glory rather than mere sequence. The context is not biological generation, but cosmic lordship. Paul’s intention is to magnify Christ as sovereign Lord, the visible image of the invisible God, not to place Him among the created beings. And this is exactly how Polycarp, a man instructed directly by the Apostle John, used the same term in his own writings and teachings.
In conclusion, the use of prototokos by Polycarp offers strong lexical and theological evidence that the term in Colossians 1:15 denotes preeminence, not creation. It reinforces the traditional, Trinitarian understanding of the passage: that Christ is supreme over all creation because He is its source, its sustainer, and its Lord. To read this verse as teaching Christ’s creation is not only a misreading of Paul’s intent but a contradiction of the very way the apostolic Church interpreted and applied the language of “firstborn.”
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Anony Mous
@slimboyfat: Universalist Unitarians and LDS are examples of belief systems similar enough to Arians as are various offshoots of the Millerite theology. Although early Millerism held to trinitarianism, its offshoots such as some SDA churches down the line (Ellen White’s cult) as the Bible Students (Barbour and CT Russell’s cult), JW (Rutherford’s cult distinct from the various extant Bible Student movements after CT Russell died) did reject the trinity and Jesus divinity in some form.
JWs held/hold that Jesus was not Jesus but Michael before he came to the earth, so you could say that they too didn’t believe in Jesus being in heaven in his Messianic role. LDS also believes Jesus was in heaven before he came to earth if that’s a (rather arbitrary) definition you want to make of Arianism.
What is rather telling that in each of the cases mentioned above (whether or not you consider them Arian) is that to justify the non-divinity of Christ they each had to modify significant passages and interpretations of the what I would call “catholic” (small C) Bible.
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slimboyfat
It’s not whether I consider them Arian. It’s the fact that they don’t hold to Arian theology and don’t consider themselves Arian. Unitarian Universalists are not Arian at all, not even close. Neither are Christadelphians, Biblical Unitarians, or others aqwsed listed.
Perhaps the closest you mentioned is the Mormons. I don’t know if they describe themselves as Arian though. Obviously JWs also reject the label Arian but they do agree with Arius on some crucial features including Jesus’ being God’s first creation. This will apply to some of the tiny Russellite groups too I imagine.
But what I was interested in is the non JW authors aqwsed alluded to who argue for an Arian position. The only one I know is Danny Andre Dixon. I’d be interested to find out about others.
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slimboyfat
And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel. Philo of Alexandria, On The Confusion of Tongues, 146.
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aqwsed12345
“And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel.”
— Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues, §146 (English from C.D. Yonge translation)This passage has been misinterpreted to argue that the Logos is a created angel or the first created being—the very claim of Arians and modern Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, Philo is not describing a created being but rather a divine manifestation of God's activity, functioning as an intermediary—not a literal creature. In §145, he says:
“The Word is the eldest-born image of God.”
“πρωτότοκος εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος”Here “πρωτότοκος” (firstborn) is used metaphorically, in the Hellenistic Jewish Platonic tradition, not in a biological or ontological sense of creation. Philo often personifies Logos (λόγος) as God’s instrument in creation, not as a created being. For Philo, the Logos is:
- God’s rational principle,
- His image,
- The instrument through which the visible world was fashioned.
Compare §148:
“For the Word is the eldest-born image of God.”
This echoes Wisdom 7:25–26 and Proverbs 8, where Wisdom is God’s agent but not a creature. The firstborn language is figurative: the Logos is the chief, the archetype, not the first in a sequence of created beings. Yes, Philo calls the Logos:
“the eldest of his angels, the archangel of many names…”
Greek: “πρεσβύτατος τῶν ἀγγέλων… ἀρχάγγελος πολλῶν ὀνομάτων”But Philo is not saying the Logos is one of the angels. Rather, in Hellenistic thought, “angel” could denote a messenger, and Philo uses angelic language metaphorically to describe divine intermediaries. The Logos is above angels and serves as their archetype:
- He is the Word through whom God speaks.
- He is the Image of God.
- He is the archangel in the sense of being the highest manifestation of God’s revelation—not a being created alongside angels.
As David Winston (in Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria) rightly notes, Philo's Logos is “an ontological bridge between the ineffable God and the material world” – not a created creature. In De Somniis II, §242, Philo says:
“For the Father of the universe has caused him [the Logos] to spring up as the eldest son, whom he (God) calls his firstborn…”
This does not make the Logos a creature. It mirrors Hebrews 1:3, where the Son is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature.” And in Legum Allegoriae III.96:
“To his Logos, God says: ‘Behold, I give you as a covenant to the nation, as a light to the Gentiles.’”
Again, the Logos functions as God's agent, but not as a created subordinate.
The genitive in “πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως” (Col 1:15) is not partitive, as Arian exegesis claims. It is a genitive of subordination, as even D.B. Wallace notes in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 103–104. Paul means “the Firstborn over all creation,” not “the firstborn among created things.” That parallels Psalm 89:27 (LXX): “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” The term denotes rank and authority, not origin.
To sum up, Philo’s use of “firstborn” and “archangel” language is Platonic, metaphorical, and theological, not ontological in the Arian sense. The Logos is:
- Not created/made/came into being,
- Not subordinate by nature,
- Not one among angels, but the supreme manifestation of God’s wisdom and power.
Therefore, to quote Philo to support Arianism is a category mistake—it confuses figurative philosophical language for literal ontological claims.
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slimboyfat
This passage has been misinterpreted to argue that … [it means what it says]
I’m detecting a pattern here.
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peacefulpete
However, Philo is not describing a created being but rather a divine manifestation of God's activity, functioning as an intermediary—not a literal creature.
Obviously the two are not mutually exclusive. Why can a divine manifestation not be a literal creature? That is a central tenet of Christianity, is it not? What is more, we know of at least one other example of a human being identifying as the Logos, Simon Magus. If the church Fathers are to believed Simon was believed to be the Logos and also claimed the Logos had taken human form throughout history.
Clearly many Christians had no difficulty bridging the Logos concept with literal beings. If Philo himself (or his Alexandrian school) did is much debated. He certainly seems to be open to the idea of the Great Angel or other manifestations of the Logos having been literal.