1:16

by means of him all other things were created: God used “his beloved Son” (Col 1:13) in creating the things “in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible.” This would include the millions of other spirit sons in Jehovah God’s heavenly family, as well as the physical universe. (Ge 1:1; Da 7:9, 10; Joh 1:3; Re 5:11) Jesus was Jehovah’s firstborn Son and the only one created directly by God. (Heb 1:6; see study notes on Joh 1:14 and Col 1:15.) Logically, it was to this firstborn Son that Jehovah said: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.”​—Ge 1:26.

all other things: A literal rendering of the Greek text would be “all things.” (Compare Kingdom Interlinear.) However, such a rendering could give the impression that Jesus was not created but was the Creator himself. And that idea would not agree with the rest of the Bible, including the preceding verse, which calls Jesus “the firstborn of all creation.” (Col 1:15; compare Re 3:14, where Jesus is called “the beginning of the creation by God.”) Also, the Greek word for “all” can in some contexts have the meaning “all other,” as for example at Lu 13:2 (“all other”); Lu 21:29 (“all the other”); Php 2:21 (“all the others”). This agrees with Paul’s inspired teaching found at 1Co 15:27: “God ‘subjected all things under his [Christ’s] feet.’ But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that this does not include the One who subjected all things to him.” So both the Bible’s teachings as a whole and the probable meaning of the Greek word used here support the rendering “all other things.”​—Compare study note on Php 2:9.

thrones or lordships or governments or authorities: Here Paul refers to positions of authority within Jehovah’s administrative arrangement. Such positions exist among God’s human servants and, as indicated here, also among his perfect spirit creatures. (Ezr 10:15-17; Isa 6:2; 1Co 6:3; Eph 3:10; Heb 13:17; Jude 8, 9) These positions were not simply permitted by Jehovah; rather, they were created by God. He is the Source of these arrangements, and his Son was the active agent in setting them up. The positions of authority mentioned in this verse were “created through him [Jesus] and for him,” and therefore they cannot refer to human governments.

created through him and for him: Although God’s firstborn Son, Jesus, is here said to have been involved in the creation of all things, the Scriptures do not call him the Creator. The preceding verse says that he is “the firstborn of all creation,” and at Re 3:14, he is called “the beginning of the creation by God.” After his own creation, Jesus, personified as “wisdom” in Proverbs chapter 8, became Jehovah’s “master worker.” (Pr 8:1, 22, 30) Jesus’ involvement with creation is described at Pr 8:22-31, which says that Jehovah’s master worker “rejoiced over [God’s] habitable earth, and . . . was especially fond of the sons of men [or, “mankind”].” It is in this sense that Col 1:16 says: “All other things have been created through him and for him.”