---
title: Revelation 3:14
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-3-14/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-3-14.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 3:14
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 3:14

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator of God’s creation.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "the beginning of the creation by God"
- NWT (2013 revision): "the beginning of the creation by God"

## JW Usage

Revelation 3:14 is one of the Watchtower's flagship texts for arguing that Jesus is a created being. The NWT's "the beginning of the creation by God" is read as identifying Christ as the first of God's creations — the Logos through whom God then made everything else. Combined with Colossians 1:15 ("the firstborn of all creation"), the verse anchors the JW Christology that Jesus is the highest-ranking creature but not God himself.

## Protestant Usage

The Greek hē archē tēs ktiseōs tou theou is a possessive genitive: "the beginning [or 'ruler', 'origin'] of God's creation." The phrase identifies Christ as the source or sovereign of creation, not as a creature within it. The Greek word archē carries the senses "beginning, origin, ruler, first principle" — Colossians 1:18 uses the same word of Christ as "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might be preeminent." Read together with John 1:3 ("all things came into being through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into being") and Colossians 1:16-17 ("by him all things were created... all things have been created through him and for him"), the verse confirms Christ's role as the one through whom and for whom creation exists, not as the first item inside it.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders the genitive tou theou as "by God" — an instrumental or agency reading — rather than the natural possessive "of God" or "of God's creation." Every major English translation reads "the beginning of God's creation" (ESV) or "the beginning of the creation of God" (NASB, KJV). The genitive case in Greek defaults to possession, not agency; reading it as instrumental requires a preposition the Greek does not have. The choice tilts the verse toward identifying Christ as the first product of God's creating rather than the source of God's creation. The Watchtower's own Kingdom Interlinear glosses tou theou with the literal "of the God" beneath the line — but the smooth column reads "by God." The translation does the doctrinal work the Greek refuses to do.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [When 'Is' Becomes 'Means'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/is-to-means-broader-pattern.md) — The NWT's Pattern of Paraphrasing the Greek Copula [NWT Translation]
- [You Can't Cite a Bible You Say Is Corrupted](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/consistency-corrupt-bible-self-defeat.md) — The Selective-Appeal Inconsistency [Authority]
- [A First-Century Parallel to JW Christology](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/colossian-heresy-jw-parallel.md) — Colossians 1:15-20 — Paul Addressed a Christology Structurally Like the Watchtower's [Deity of Christ]