The context does not permit? This is typical Protestant gibberish. If something doesn't fit the a priori conclusion, then it must be changed to fit so as to preserve the artificial inerrency of the Bible.
New editions of Protestant Bibles are very good at "harmonizing" the scriptures to fit the established doctrine. Examples can be found in the Beatitudes, Acts 22, John 3, and numeorus othe rplaces, where such "harmonzing" takes place.
In Col 1:15, the firstborn of all creatures (or creation) implies Christ is not only made, but first to be made. It also implies that he is not divine, which is obvious from the part you left out in your snippet, namely "he is the image [icon] of the invisible God (os estin eikon tou Theou tou aoratou).
So as such, he is both literally and oridnally first among creation. This is a far cry from the Trinitarian co-equal, co-eternal, divine, invisible, uncreated Logos.
Christ is not only depicted as a creature, not God but an image of God, and, being the first among the created, legally the inheritor of all of God's creation. That is much closer to the Jewish concept of the messiah then the Christian divine concept of one.
Arians considered Jesus a lesser God. Judaism considers the anointed one to be a mortal human being most favored by God (and thus first among the creation). So, if anything, Paul was imply speaking as a Jew. No Arianism is to be found here.
And the amplification of verse 15 by verse 16, which you leave out of your analysis, states, For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.. He cannot logically have created ALL things if He Himself were a created thing.
As footnote 44 points out,
If Paul believed Christ was a created being or a being with origins as the Arians suggest, then Paul had available to him the terms prwtovktisto" (first-created) or prwtovplasto" (first-formed). Murray, 44.
In verse 9, which precedes these verses Paul says, "For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form"
The Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker lexicon renders the word "the state of being god, divine character/nature, deity, divinity, used as abstract noun for qeo,j Louw and Nida have, "the nature or state of being God - 'deity, divine nature, divine being.' Thayer's lexicon says, "deity, i.e. the state of being God, Godhead: Col. ii. 9." Thayer is here giving us the words of Grimm. However, he then goes on to provide some important information on his own:
[SYN. qeo,thj, qeio,thj: qeo,thj deity differs from qeio,thj divinity, as essence differs from quality or attribute]
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=1173
So eikon tou Theou tou aoratou must be understood in this context.
If eikon means an "artistic representation" in the strict sense, and a "mental image" in the metaphorical sense, or, as in the sense of a "copy" eikon means a "living image," a "likeness," an "embodiment" and a "manifestation, as the translators/commentators say, then what makes you think that calling Christ the image of God is not simply to say, as F. F. Bruce points out, that in Him the being and nature of God have been perfectly manifested--that in Him the invisible has become visible? And if all this were only to emphasize His Sonship, how does emphasizing His Sonship deny His Deity?
Cordially,