Having come into Manhood, the Son of God was found as Man in station “a little lower than the angels”, and men have taken the occasion of the down-stooping of the Lord to deny His Godhead glory; but the Holy Spirit has been jealous to safeguard in the pages of inspiration the fulness and eternity of deity that belongs to the Son, even as the Father will cause every knee in the universe to bow to Him in the coming day, at the mention of the Name of Jesus. It is well known to students of Scripture that among the many statements in the different books of the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New, that refer to the Godhead glory of the Son, there are various references to Him as the creator.
In Psalm 102:25, Jehovah says to Him who is on His way to the cross, “Of old hast Thou laid the foundations of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands.” It is the same blessed Person who is called by Isaiah, “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The Father of eternity, the Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6); and to whom are spoken these wonderful words in Psalm 45:6, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” The first and last of these prophetic utterances are recalled by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews in chapter 1.
“All things were made by Him”
John the evangelist opens his Gospel with a glorious presentation of the Person of the Son. He views Him, by the Spirit of God, as the Eternal Word, the One who is the perfect expression in eternity as in time of all God’s thoughts and will. The Word is “in the beginning,” existing in His being and Person before anything in the universe existed, that is anything that came from the creative hand or word of God. Yet was He distinct in His Person from the Father and the Holy Spirit, for “The Word was with God.” And lest any should imagine that anything less than the fulness of Godhead was His, it is added, “And the Word was God.” The distinctness of His Person is not something that belongs to time, but to eternity, for “He was in the beginning with God.”
In spite of this unique safeguarding of the Godhead glory of the Son, which thrills the heart of every true believer, enemies of God and of His word have endeavoured to deny the supreme glory of the blessed Son of God. The Spirit of God then writes of the creatorial glory of the Son, saying, “All things were made by Him.” this surely is the most comprehensive presentation of creation, including all that is given in every other statement regarding creation; and not content with this positive statement, as if to safeguard its absolute nature, it is added, “and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
In Genesis 1:1, details of the wide creation are not given. There we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis was written to give God’s people a knowledge of His dealings with men, not to teach them the details of the wonderful universe that is around us, or what lies beyond the ken of man. He tells us that the creation is His, and faith lays hold on what He has said. The forming of the earth for man’s habitation He gives in detail, in sober, dignified, and simple words; not for the scientific mind, but for the hearts of those who delight in Him and His word. In telling us of His making of the sun and the moon, there is the incidental information “He made the stars also.”
All recorded in Genesis 1, John tells us, was made by Him who “became flesh,” the holy Son of God. There are no details in Genesis 1 of the stars, which “differ from one another” in glory (1 Cor. 15:41), and which have such a large place in the studies of men, and which caused David to write, “When I consider Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained: What is man, that Thou art mindful of him” (Psalm 8:3-4).
Nor does Genesis 1 tell us of the creation of angels, “which excel in strength,” and which are higher in rank and station than men. Scripture does tell us of angels, God Himself saying to Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?…when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4–7). The angelic hosts, the mighty cherubim, the seraphim beneath God’s throne, the principalities and powers of heaven, all the great beings that are normally invisible to men, came into being by “The Word,” for “all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”
In John 1, following the wonderful presentation of the Godhead glory of the Son are the words, “In Him was life” (verse 4). Life existed inherently in the Son, and we are taught in Acts 3:15 that Christ is “the author,” or “originator” of life. All things, animate or inanimate, come from Him in whom life is, the holy Son of God. Yet, in John 1, the statement “In Him was life” is not followed by what we might have expected, that all life proceeded from Him, though it is involved in what had been already stated, but rather by, “and the life was the light of men.”
Is not the presentation of the creatorial glory of the Son in John 1 given to us that we might apprehend something of the glory of the One who, throughout this Gospel, is the expression of the eternal life that was with the Father? How often is the word “life” on the lips of the Son, the life that belonged to heaven, and which He had come to reveal, and which could only be communicated to men through the appropriation of His death. The One who had brought the creation into being had come to work that a new creation might be brought into existence, and that those who had part in the new creation might have the life, the eternal life, that He manifested here below.
“By Him were all things created”
The creatorial glory of the Lord Jesus, in Colossians 1, is found among a cluster of His glories, and they are brought before us as the glories of “The Son of the Father’s love” (verse 13). So that the creatorial glory of Jesus, in this Scripture as in others, attests to the eternal Sonship of our adorable Lord and Saviour. It is the Son who creates, and the Son who redeems and reconciles.
Still, it would seem that the introduction of this special accumulation of glories is to bring out the greatness of Him who is the Head of the body, the assembly. There was the danger of the saints at Colosse being affected by philosophy and Judaism, and of thereby being deprived of what God had for them in their glorious, heavenly Head, so the Holy Spirit brings out the glories of the Head, their living Head, and the Head of every principality and authority, and that they were “complete in Him,” not needing anything from any other source than Christ. Indeed, to seek help from any other source was to deprive themselves of what was in Christ for them, and so damaging to them.
These words, “For by Him were all things created,” can be taken in their simple meaning to include everything in the vast universe. But there is a special object in view in speaking of the Son as creator, so that a special part of His creation is then spoken of, “things…that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him” (verse 16).
Stepping into the creation, the Son must have the chief place, so He is “The Firstborn of all the creation.” He is not a creature, but the Creator, yet perfect Man in the creation, and visible to all men, and to angels, in the form He had taken in becoming Man. Every sphere of government and rule in the vast creation owed its existence to Him, yet when He entered the creation as a Man, it was not to exercise authority as a ruler upon earth. The time would come when all the kingdoms of the world would become “the kingdom of the Lord and of His Christ,” but it was not yet the time for this, nor is it yet, while He sits upon His Father’s throne in heaven.
Here, it is not exactly the created beings that are before the mind of the Spirit of God, but the spheres in which they exercise their authority and sway. Many of these spheres are in alienation from God, all the kingdoms of this world are ruled by men for men, but the day is coming quickly when all shall be ruled by Christ for the glory of God and the blessing of men. Of the heavenly spheres of principalities and authorities, many have been long alienated from the God who created them, under Christ, when, as Son of Man, and Head over all things, He will restore all for God’s eternal pleasure.
The incarnation was necessary for the reconciliation of all things, but the Son also had to die to make “peace by the blood of His cross.” Already, all who trust the Son are reconciled to God; and we wait for the day when there shall not be a single sphere of rule in heaven or earth but what answers to God’s will and pleasure. While waiting for that blessed day, how good it is for saints to know that their Lord and Head is the One “by whom were all things created,” and that “all things were created through Him, and for Him.”
“By Whom also He made the worlds”
There is a double presentation of the creatorial glory of Jesus in Hebrews 1. In verse 2, the Son is the creator of the worlds, and in verse 10, as Lord He lays the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of His hands. As in Colossians 1, the creatorial glory of the Son is found here amidst a cluster of His glories. He is the established Heir of all things, the brightness of God’s glory, the expression of what He is in His nature. It is by His own power that the Son upholds all things, yea, by the word of His own power; and He was able Himself to make purification for sins, and having done so was great enough, in His own rights to sit on the throne of God.
All the great orbs of heaven, whether seen individually, each with its own glory, or seen in the constellations that men have named, or in the great masses in, to man, the far distant universe, have been made by Him in whom God has spoken to men. It was by the Son, and as Son, that God made them all; and they are upheld by His word, directed in their appointed course, each and all obeying the voice and word of Him that has come, in grace, to speak to men.
Coming nearer to us, the Son who created the vast worlds that populate the starry heavens, is also the Lord, the Jehovah of Israel, who made the earth for man’s habitation, and the heavens in which is the air that he breathes to sustain the life that God has given him. He is God’s Son, as presented in prophecy in Psalm 2, and in type in Solomon, of whom Jehovah said, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a son.” But He is also Jehovah their God, who is called THE SAME, in Psalm 102, the One who, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth, as given to the Hebrews in Genesis 1.
To the Hebrews, the creator is God’s Son, the Same Jehovah who spoke to their fathers in earlier days, and who is now bringing to them in His own Person, the great salvation of which He spoke while on earth. To the church, the Creator is the Head of the body, the One in whom they have everything, so as to make them entirely independent of the philosophy and religion of the world, or any other imagined source of supply on earth or heaven; and to the world, the Creator has come as the light of life, to manifest eternal life, and has died as Son of Man, so that all who eat His flesh and drink His blood might have eternal life.
R. 14.11.66