A few posts ago, I noted that the Jehovah’s Witness translation of the Bible, the New World Translation, alters the english rendering of Colossians 1:16, which states that Christ created “all things.” Contrary to the correct rendering of “panta,” or, “all things” (the Greek uses τὰ πάντα – see note below from the BDAG), the Witnesses proclaim that Christ created “all [other] things,” which fits right in line with their theology where Jesus is Michael the Archangel (or rather, Michael became Jesus, and is now Michael again, which is impossible because the Lord Jesus is contrasted with Michael in Jude: c.f. Jude 1:4 & Jude 1:9…Michael appeals to the Lord in the passage, who is identified as Jesus in verse 4 of Jude), the first created by Jehovah and through Micheal, Jehovah created all other things, indirectly (they will often on this point turn to Proverbs 8 to attempt to substantiate their view, so, click here for a PDF refutation of that argument: notice that Proverbs 8 is talking about Wisdom and her personification, and not Jesus…notice the feminine gender that is always used of Wisdom in the text in poetry text of Proverbs).
Notice how the change in the text makes Jesus a created, temporal being and denies the Triune nature of the God-head. However, if left alone (as it was penned by Paul via the Holy Spirit, who is also fully God), this verse absolutely points to the divine nature of Jesus as the second member of the Trinity, very God of very God, the one who created “panta” all things (c.f. John 1:3, Heb. 1:3).
Well, today I stumbled across an excellent little article from Matt Slick over at CARM, which addresses this topic. I trust that it will prove very helpful and it can be found HERE.
τὰ πάντα. In the abs. sense of the whole of creation all things, the universe (Pla., Ep. 6, 323d τῶν πάντων θεός; hymn to Selene in EAbel, Orphica [1885] 294, 36 εἰς σὲ τὰ πάντα τελευτᾶ [s. 1dβ beg.]; Herm. Wr. 13, 17 τ. κτίσαντα τὰ πάντα; JosAs 8:2 ζωοποιήσας τὰ πάντα; Philo, Spec. Leg. 1, 208, Rer. Div. Her. 36, Somn. 1, 241; Just., A I, 67, 2 τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν πάντων; PGM 1, 212 κύριε τῶν πάντων; 4, 3077) Ro 11:36 (Musaeus: Vorsokr. 2 A 4 [in Diog. L. 1, 3] ἐξ ἑνὸς τὰ πάντα γίνεσθαι καὶ εἰς ταὐτὸν ἀναλύεσθαι. Cp. Norden, Agn. Th. 240–50); 1 Cor 8:6ab; 15:28ab; Eph 3:9; 4:10b; Phil 3:21; Col 1:16ab, 17b (HHegermann, D. Vorstellung vom Schöpfungsmittler etc., TU 82, ’61, 88ff); Hb 1:3; 2:10ab; Rv 4:11; 1 Cl 34:2; PtK 2 (four times)…
abs. = absolute
(Arndt, William ; Danker, Frederick W. ; Bauer, Walter: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000, S. 784)
Applied-Apologetics 