Psalms 89:27
Psalms 89:2727I will indeed appoint him as My firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
JWs cite alongside ("firstborn of all creation") to argue that Jesus is Jehovah's first creation. Because David was called "firstborn" and was not literally the first-born son of Jesse, JWs acknowledge the title carries the sense of pre-eminence — but they maintain that in Jesus' case "firstborn" still implies a point of origin within creation. He is the highest-ranking creature, but a creature nonetheless.
is the interpretive key to "firstborn" language throughout Scripture. God says he will make David "firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth" — yet David was not the first king of Israel (Saul was) and was not even the firstborn son of Jesse. "Firstborn" here means supreme rank, not chronological origin. Athanasius addressed this exact verse in his Contra Arianos, demonstrating that the Greek prototokos ("firstborn") denotes rank and pre-eminence, not sequence of creation. JW Christology — that Jesus is the first and greatest created being — is a revival of fourth-century Arianism that the entire undivided church examined and rejected at Nicaea in AD 325. When calls Jesus "firstborn of all creation," the next verse explains the reason: "for by him all things were created." The "firstborn" holds that rank because he is the creator, not because he was created first.