"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1:1-3
These are incredible verses. I know, we use words like incredible and amazing far too often, mostly for mundane things like ice cream and electronic devices and jump shots. But, in this case, we really can’t be guilty of overstatement. There is so much more here than immediately meets the eye.
Jesus was there from the start. We get that, hopefully, even if we can’t really comprehend it fully. We know about the Trinity. Jesus always existed in perfect harmony with the Father and the Spirit. But, what if John is saying more then that? Why is he going out of his way to connect Yeshua (Jesus) with creation? Actually, we usually think of creation as being the work of Yahwah, God the Father. Depending on which translation you’re using, we are told either that all things are made “by” or “through” the Word.
A couple commentaries:
“Πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο. The connection is obvious: the Word was with God in the beginning, but not as an idle, inefficacious existence, who only then for the first time put forth energy when He came into the world. On the contrary, He was the source of all activity and life. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not even one thing made which was made.”
“(not anything] No, not one; not even one: stronger than ‘nothing.’ Every single thing, however great, however small, throughout all the realms of space, came into being through Him. No event takes place without Him,—apart from His presence and power.”
And some parallel verses:
“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” 1 Cor. 8:6
“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.” Colossians 1:16
“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:36
Starting to see a theme here? It’s not just that Jesus was there, as some kind of causal observer at creation, it’s not even just that he assisted in creation, but that everything came about from and through him. It almost is starting to sound as if, Jesus didn’t just create or help create but that creation itself is made from his essence. Of course, I have to tread really carefully here, because someone is going to misunderstand and think either that I mean Jesus was created along with everything else or that I’m some New Age lunatic that thinks creation and Jesus are one and the same. That’s decidedly not what I’m saying. I’m saying “What if?” What if God was not creating ex nihilo, (from nothing) but that God drew the raw material for creation from himself and more specifically from the part of himself that is Yeshua Jesus. So, from his essence comes matter, comes planets and galaxies and rocks and trees and life in all it’s majestic variety.
And I can see someone squirming already, because it still sounds too mystical, too weird. Ok, so let me state my case a bit more. Obviously, creation is not God, creation cannot and does not have the properties of the Trinity, so you can relax. I’m not going New Age on you. But we are told that matter comes from energy and that everything was supposedly once a speck of pure energy. When I try to get a straight answer from Big Bang proponents I get replys like: ” A compressed speck of energy with infinite mass.” And my little brain retorts: ” I’m sorry, did you just seriously use the word “infinite” to describe matter? Are you loony tunes?” If that’s the case, then obviously that matter was magic, or at least had properties that no matter we can observe has now, and we have just stepped into the realm of the theologians and left science far behind.
Let’s just run with this for a moment and then you call me loony tunes if you like. Matter from energy and energy drawn from the essence of Jesus the Christ, placed outside of himself (we really don’t need a place to put it other then outside of God, as no place could be said to exist yet in any sense we can understand. And time didn’t exist yet either.) Energy that God then re-formed into matter, that continued to expand, that spawned seemingly endless galaxies that we can’t find the end of, and he create’s life from this raw material, here on a certain green and blue planet. No, not by some process of billions of years of random evolution, but quite deliberately, rapidly, and with intent. “In the beginning God created the heavens (galaxies galore) and the earth.” (as far as we know, the only place he then went on to create life) Out of what? Not out of nothing, but out of the Word. So, you are a quite literally a word of God spoken into being by the Word, whose life and death and resurrection are recorded in the Word we call the Bible.
A few things that should be obvious: God has no limits. He can give of Himself infineatly and never be any less then he was at the start. I’m also not saying that God is still creating new worlds. Unless someone can prove otherwise, I believe he continues to reshape what already exists, what was there in the beginning, drawn from his own essence.
This brings up all kinds of questions and connotations in my weird little brain. Like: (If this is so) Transubstantiation would be real in one sense at least. The communion bread really would be Christ in essence, because all matter consists of his essence. Remember, matter doesn’t ever go away, God just reforms it. A tree dies, it becomes mulch to grow other trees or firewood and then ashes, that rot and become part of the soil, but they don’t go away, they only become part of a different form of matter. Of course, I’m not saying that the bread is the literal body or Christ, but this makes it more then figurative. There is water somewhere in this world that ran off of Christ’s body at his baptism, but thank God, there has never been a corpse of Christ returning to the soil of this world.
I have all kinds of questions about how sin could be allowed to corrupt matter created from and by God himself, but that would take me on a long rant into mysteries that are never fully answered in the Word. We could talk about atoms and up quarks and down quarks, but we really can’t say scientifically what holds it all together. Fortunately, we were given the answer to that mystery:
(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos] of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [these words in Greek refer to the hierarchical angelic powers]-all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17
The Greek word used in these verse: “sunistemi”, means to be compacted together, “to stand-together,” “to be constituted with.”
Despite thermodynamics, despite death and decay, those alien invaders that sin brought with it, Christ holds everything in the universe together. His essence is the glue of creation.
And let’s not forget that one day creation will be restored to it’s former perfection, where sin and death and disease will no longer corrupt it. Where sin and death will die and matter will once again be pure and holy, and Jesus will once again be all in all and his Spirit will completely indwell every one of your molecules, the parts of your new body. Molecules that were formed once of his essence, of his reaching inside himself for the raw material to then reach out and create you. So, that our knowledge will no longer be limited by our sin nature, and that knowledge of him will flow through us like water, so his Spirit will not only be in us, but fully in all, so that we will truly ,finally, be one with him in the same way that he is one with the Father.
And again, a disclaimer, I’m not a Morman, I’m not saying that we will be little gods, but that every rebellious fiber that now exists within us (oh yes, you have them, whether you admit it or not) will be purged from our whole beings so that we can experience total oneness with the Son and with each other. We can barely grasp that possibility in our current state. But, you can get a taste, just a glimpse of it now and then. Maybe in the face of a friend who dances before God with reckless abandon, not caring what anyone thinks. Maybe in a sunset that isn’t just a reflection of God’s glory, of his artistry, but is composed of matter and colors pulled from his very being. I suppose you could take my musings here and go off the deep end with them. But it seems to me that sometimes Christians are so afraid of mysticism that they miss the very ways that God is reveling himself to them.
These are incredible verses. I know, we use words like incredible and amazing far too often, mostly for mundane things like ice cream and electronic devices and jump shots. But, in this case, we really can’t be guilty of overstatement. There is so much more here than immediately meets the eye.
Jesus was there from the start. We get that, hopefully, even if we can’t really comprehend it fully. We know about the Trinity. Jesus always existed in perfect harmony with the Father and the Spirit. But, what if John is saying more then that? Why is he going out of his way to connect Yeshua (Jesus) with creation? Actually, we usually think of creation as being the work of Yahwah, God the Father. Depending on which translation you’re using, we are told either that all things are made “by” or “through” the Word.
A couple commentaries:
“Πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο. The connection is obvious: the Word was with God in the beginning, but not as an idle, inefficacious existence, who only then for the first time put forth energy when He came into the world. On the contrary, He was the source of all activity and life. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not even one thing made which was made.”
“(not anything] No, not one; not even one: stronger than ‘nothing.’ Every single thing, however great, however small, throughout all the realms of space, came into being through Him. No event takes place without Him,—apart from His presence and power.”
And some parallel verses:
“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” 1 Cor. 8:6
“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.” Colossians 1:16
“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
Romans 11:36
Starting to see a theme here? It’s not just that Jesus was there, as some kind of causal observer at creation, it’s not even just that he assisted in creation, but that everything came about from and through him. It almost is starting to sound as if, Jesus didn’t just create or help create but that creation itself is made from his essence. Of course, I have to tread really carefully here, because someone is going to misunderstand and think either that I mean Jesus was created along with everything else or that I’m some New Age lunatic that thinks creation and Jesus are one and the same. That’s decidedly not what I’m saying. I’m saying “What if?” What if God was not creating ex nihilo, (from nothing) but that God drew the raw material for creation from himself and more specifically from the part of himself that is Yeshua Jesus. So, from his essence comes matter, comes planets and galaxies and rocks and trees and life in all it’s majestic variety.
And I can see someone squirming already, because it still sounds too mystical, too weird. Ok, so let me state my case a bit more. Obviously, creation is not God, creation cannot and does not have the properties of the Trinity, so you can relax. I’m not going New Age on you. But we are told that matter comes from energy and that everything was supposedly once a speck of pure energy. When I try to get a straight answer from Big Bang proponents I get replys like: ” A compressed speck of energy with infinite mass.” And my little brain retorts: ” I’m sorry, did you just seriously use the word “infinite” to describe matter? Are you loony tunes?” If that’s the case, then obviously that matter was magic, or at least had properties that no matter we can observe has now, and we have just stepped into the realm of the theologians and left science far behind.
Let’s just run with this for a moment and then you call me loony tunes if you like. Matter from energy and energy drawn from the essence of Jesus the Christ, placed outside of himself (we really don’t need a place to put it other then outside of God, as no place could be said to exist yet in any sense we can understand. And time didn’t exist yet either.) Energy that God then re-formed into matter, that continued to expand, that spawned seemingly endless galaxies that we can’t find the end of, and he create’s life from this raw material, here on a certain green and blue planet. No, not by some process of billions of years of random evolution, but quite deliberately, rapidly, and with intent. “In the beginning God created the heavens (galaxies galore) and the earth.” (as far as we know, the only place he then went on to create life) Out of what? Not out of nothing, but out of the Word. So, you are a quite literally a word of God spoken into being by the Word, whose life and death and resurrection are recorded in the Word we call the Bible.
A few things that should be obvious: God has no limits. He can give of Himself infineatly and never be any less then he was at the start. I’m also not saying that God is still creating new worlds. Unless someone can prove otherwise, I believe he continues to reshape what already exists, what was there in the beginning, drawn from his own essence.
This brings up all kinds of questions and connotations in my weird little brain. Like: (If this is so) Transubstantiation would be real in one sense at least. The communion bread really would be Christ in essence, because all matter consists of his essence. Remember, matter doesn’t ever go away, God just reforms it. A tree dies, it becomes mulch to grow other trees or firewood and then ashes, that rot and become part of the soil, but they don’t go away, they only become part of a different form of matter. Of course, I’m not saying that the bread is the literal body or Christ, but this makes it more then figurative. There is water somewhere in this world that ran off of Christ’s body at his baptism, but thank God, there has never been a corpse of Christ returning to the soil of this world.
I have all kinds of questions about how sin could be allowed to corrupt matter created from and by God himself, but that would take me on a long rant into mysteries that are never fully answered in the Word. We could talk about atoms and up quarks and down quarks, but we really can’t say scientifically what holds it all together. Fortunately, we were given the answer to that mystery:
(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first-born [prototokos] of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities [these words in Greek refer to the hierarchical angelic powers]-all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:15-17
The Greek word used in these verse: “sunistemi”, means to be compacted together, “to stand-together,” “to be constituted with.”
Despite thermodynamics, despite death and decay, those alien invaders that sin brought with it, Christ holds everything in the universe together. His essence is the glue of creation.
And let’s not forget that one day creation will be restored to it’s former perfection, where sin and death and disease will no longer corrupt it. Where sin and death will die and matter will once again be pure and holy, and Jesus will once again be all in all and his Spirit will completely indwell every one of your molecules, the parts of your new body. Molecules that were formed once of his essence, of his reaching inside himself for the raw material to then reach out and create you. So, that our knowledge will no longer be limited by our sin nature, and that knowledge of him will flow through us like water, so his Spirit will not only be in us, but fully in all, so that we will truly ,finally, be one with him in the same way that he is one with the Father.
And again, a disclaimer, I’m not a Morman, I’m not saying that we will be little gods, but that every rebellious fiber that now exists within us (oh yes, you have them, whether you admit it or not) will be purged from our whole beings so that we can experience total oneness with the Son and with each other. We can barely grasp that possibility in our current state. But, you can get a taste, just a glimpse of it now and then. Maybe in the face of a friend who dances before God with reckless abandon, not caring what anyone thinks. Maybe in a sunset that isn’t just a reflection of God’s glory, of his artistry, but is composed of matter and colors pulled from his very being. I suppose you could take my musings here and go off the deep end with them. But it seems to me that sometimes Christians are so afraid of mysticism that they miss the very ways that God is reveling himself to them.
