In Romans chapter 8, verse 29 we read these words; “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” We have in this text teaching that he, that is Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren.

The firstborn was always the first male child born into a family; this firstborn had and has the responsibility for the whole family. In general terms, if the firstborn perish, the whole family could perish. If this male is the firstborn, he is also our elder brother. He cannot be the elder brother without being the firstborn. This firstborn is the head of the house because the Father placed him in this position to take care of the house to see that the house does not perish.

Christ has always been the firstborn because he is the firstborn of God, he is the only begotten Son of God, and he has always been with God, because he is eternal as God the Father is eternal. We are speaking of Christ being the firstborn, the one that is the head of the house, one that is without sin, one that is Holy, undefiled, and separate from sinners. When we read about the Lord telling Moses to tell the children of Israel to kill a lamb, that it was to be without spot and without blemish, a male of the first year and to take it out from the sheep or from the goats. You are to kill it in the evening and take the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper doorposts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. This blood taken from a lamb without spot and without blemish is pointing toward the blood of Jesus Christ. No other blood could be a type of the blood of Christ except the blood taken from the first male lamb of the first year that was without blemish.

It could not be the firstborn of a family that sprang from our father Adam, because we are all polluted in the blood of Adam, we all have spot and blemishes of sin, so the blood had to come from Christ who is the firstborn of all creation, the firstborn of the whole elect of God, the one that has always been, the one that has no sin nature about him, one that did not and could not sin because he is God manifested in the flesh. When Christ hung upon the cross and poured out his blood for the remission of sins, this is when this firstborn became our Passover. This is when God looked at us through the blood of his son, the firstborn among many brethren. When he looked at you he could not see sin because the blood of the firstborn covered your sins, due to him becoming sin for us who knew no sin. Therefore God passed over you because Christ the firstborn bore our sins in his own body on the tree. The just suffering for the unjust, redemption had come, the price for sin has been paid in full.

Now back to my text; He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he, that is Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren. Oh! What wonderful grace it is to be able to see Christ as the firstborn, our elder brother, our friend, our Lord, our master, our high priest, our King, and our God. The one who died for me, yet he lives and reigns forevermore? AMEN!