Is Jesus Christ the Creator of all things?

07-04-2025 - Posted by Geert-Jan
Originally posted on June 10, 2023 - by Andre Piet

All of Scripture testifies from beginning to end that God is the Creator of heaven and earth (Acts 17:24). He alone created all things.

He stretcheth out the heavens BY HIMSELF…
Job 9:8

… I am YAHWEH, doing all things; stretching out the heavens BY MYSELF, spreading out the earth — who [is] with Me?
Isaiah 44:24

Creator – by the word

Scripture likewise leaves no doubt that God created all things by His word. In Genesis 1 it resounds as a refrain: “And God said… and it was so.” Or as Psalm 33 expresses it:

By the word of YAHWEH the heavens have been made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host (…)
For He hath said, and it is, He hath commanded, and it standeth.
Psalm 33:6,9

The word is the means by which God created. God is the Creator, and OUT of His mouth and THROUGH His word He called all things into being.

In the beginning was the word

These simple statements form the basis of the famous prologue of John 1. Below is a (fairly) literal translation of the opening verses.

1 In [the] beginning was the word (Gr. LOGOS),
and the word was toward God,
and God was the word.
2 This was in beginning toward God.
3 All things became through the same,
and without the same not even one thing became
that has become.

John is clearly referring here to Genesis 1, the chapter that likewise begins with the words “in [the] beginning…”. The word sounded from the beginning, and the word pointed to God as the One who spoke. The God of Genesis 1 is not seen (cf. John 1:18 “No one hath ever seen God…”) but heard. “God was the word.” All things became through the word, without a single exception.

Note that the word WAS, while all things BECAME. The LOGOS is not a creation but the expression of God through which He created all things.

Not an independent person

There is no reason whatsoever to see the LOGOS in John 1:1–3 as an independent person who, together with God, brought creation into being. Apart from any theology, “the word” (the LOGOS) in this passage is nothing other than the verbal expression of God through which all things came into existence.

the word became flesh

But is the LOGOS in John 1 then not a person? Certainly… and John 1 also testifies from when that was:

And the word (LOGOS) became flesh,
and did tabernacle among us,
and we beheld his glory,
a glory as of an only begotten of [the] Father…
John 1:14

When God sent His word to Mary and she received the announcement that she would conceive, from that moment the word became flesh. Literally: by God’s word Mary was impregnated. Without the involvement of a man. Note that the glory of “the word become flesh” is defined as the glory “of an only begotten of [the] Father.” The word became flesh because the Most High begat His Son in Mary. As the angel said to Mary:

… Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of the Most High shall overshadow thee;
therefore also the holy thing that is begotten shall be called Son of God.
Luke 1:35

Preexistence

God’s Son had a preexistence because He is the word/LOGOS that became flesh. The same word that once brought forth all things became man in the womb of Mary. Hence John the Baptist, immediately after the prologue of John 1:14, testifies of this word become flesh:

This was He of whom I said: He who after me is coming, hath come before me, because He was before me.
John 1:15

John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:36), yet he testifies of his cousin: “He was before me.” How so? As “the LOGOS who became flesh”! It is in this sense that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was ‘pre-existent’, in other words, had a preexistence.

Anachronism

One might object that it is an anachronism to say Jesus Christ or the Son already existed before His birth, because He was not yet called Jesus Christ or the Son at that time. Indeed, He received the name Jesus only at His circumcision (Luke 2:21). And it is on account of His begetting that He is called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). But this manner of speaking is not a stylistic error, rather it is a common figure of speech. For example, I can say: my wife was born in 1966. No one will then argue that she was not yet my wife in 1966. Scripture sometimes takes this figure of speech quite far. Thus we read that Levi (“so to speak”) paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham, even though Levi was born more than two hundred and fifty years later (Hebrews 7:9,10). And in Revelation 13:8 we read that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.

OUT of God the Father, THROUGH the word

It is not as Son or as Jesus that He had a preexistence, but as Word/LOGOS. “Through Him” as the word become flesh all things came into being. Not only John 1 testifies of this, but Paul also alludes to this truth multiple times in his letters. Paul likewise does not present Jesus Christ as the Creator, but as the means through whom all things came into existence.

Yet to us [there is] one God, the Father, OUT OF whom [are] all things, and we to Him;
and one Lord, Jesus Christ, THROUGH whom [are] all things, and we through Him.
1 Corinthians 8:6

… in Him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, the visible and the invisible (…) all things have been created THROUGH Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and the all things in Him have consisted…
Colossians 1:16

God is the Creator of all things. How? Through His word! And that word became flesh two thousand years ago. He is the (word become flesh) through whom all things came to be!

Delen: