The idea has strong parallels in Paul. Jesus is the “firstborn” of many divinized “sons of God” who are to follow, as we have seen in Paul’s core message (Romans 8:29). When converts are baptized they undergo an initiation of immersion in water that is likened to one’s death, burial, and resurrection viewed as a rebirth (Romans 6:5-11; John 3:5). As “firstborn from the dead” Christ has the “keys of Death and Hades [i.e., the lower world].”
