“The Creator Word”
(10 19 14) John 1:3
Last week we looked at John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with (the) God, and the Word was God.”
I. “In the beginning was the Word,” Jesus’ Eternality (Structurally and grammatically, this is what God’s Word states clearly: Jesus already continually existed before time.)
II. “And the Word was with (the) God,” Jesus’ Person (Teaches that Jesus, the WORD, was in continuous intimate relationship with (THE) God the Father. No room for any other translation.)
III. “And the Word was God.” Jesus’ Deity (Again, we saw how the words written ABOUT THE WORD, teach us that Jesus WAS and IS God.)
John 1:2: “He (Jesus, the Word) was in the beginning with God.” The Word, this One and no other”: BOTH God and the WORD, JESUS, belong to eternity. “In the beginning He was with God; afterwards, in time, He came to be with man.” (Expositor's Greek Testament - Nicoll) It is important TO understand Jesus’ glorious position BEFORE ALL TIME if you will EVER understand the grace that will follow as revealed through THE WORD in the Gospel of John. John tells us this; That Jesus, “The Word, this One, THIS WORD, and no other” existed with God, and so BOTH God and the WORD, the Lord Jesus, together belong to eternity. (Col. 2:9: “For in Him (Jesus) all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”
Today we look at John 1:3: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him NOTHING came into being that has come into being.” John uses a unique technique in literature in order to make a huge statement: He states a positive proclamation first: “All things came into being through Him” (the WORD); he then immediately restates the proclamation negatively in order to achieve emphasis: “And apart from Him NOTHING came into being that has come into being.” John 1:1 answered the question, “Who is THE WORD?” The person of Jesus, who was eternally with God the Father. The second and third Verses answer the questions, “How did the world (all created things) come into being and how did I come into being?”
“All (things) through Him became…”
Jesus was not sitting idly by until He made His appearance in the flesh; Jesus was the very CAUSE and SOURCE of all life and activity. We looked at the Person of the Lord Jesus, His Deity, His Eternality and here we see the Creativity of Jesus: “All things came into being through Him”, or all things THROUGH HIM came into being. The translation might best be offered this way: “All (things) through Him became…”
“All things” (in the Greek, “panta”) includes every individual thing: each, every, any, all, every one, every single thing came into being through the WORD, through Jesus. The tense of the verb implies that it could read: ALL THINGS THROUGH HIM came into being totally and as a single event, in the ACTION OF CREATION. The verb denotes action as having simply occurred and the FACT of this action is what is emphasized, rather than a passage of time in action. This is what happened: The event of Creation occurred in past time in its totality as a single event. (egeneto) That IS the truth stated in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Psalm 33:6-9 also tells us: “6 By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth (the ruwach: wind, breath, mind, spirit, of His Mouth) all their host. 7 He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. 9 For He spoke,(amar) and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
“Amar” is what God did in Genesis 1: Listen: Verse 3: “Then God spoke (‘amar’),"Let there be light;” and there was light.” Verses 6-7: Then God said (amar), "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above * the expanse; and it was so.” Verse 9: Then God said (Spoke, amar), "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.”
Verse 11:“Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation:” AND IT DID. Verse 14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and it was so.” VERSE 20 Then God said (amar) (I’ll paraphrase), LET there be every kind of fish, foul and creeping thing… and it happened. Verses 26-27 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Colossians 1:16-17, written by the apostle Paul, tells us the relation of the Father with the CREATIVE WORD, Jesus: “For by Him (look at the context; He is speaking of Jesus! Jesus is the CAUSE of what?) all things (the “all things” here is “ta panta”, which means ALL THINGS AS TOTALITY) were created,(at a point in time, same tense as in John 1) both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
In our text, the words “through Him” tell us that The Word was THE Father’s, THE God’s AGENT or instrument in creation. It is NOT saying that Jesus was in any way LESS than God: Jesus was present AS God at creation and THE WORD was the CAUSE and the very POWER OF Creation. (The) God created “all things” through Him, “The Word”, and BY HIM all things were created. Paul said this in Romans 11: 36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
“And without Him became NOT ONE (thing) which became.”
John 1:3: “All things came into being through Him, (at the event of Creation) and apart from Him NOTHING came into being (same verb tense) that has come into being.”(The perfect indicative tense denotes a past event as having occurred with the results of that occurrence continuing through the present.) This second part of the verse could be rendered:
“And without Him became not even one (thing) which became or has become.” And what was created by THE WORD?” In the beginning EVERYTHING that was created was Good. “Every “individual thing” owes its existence to THE Word. It is The Exclusivity of the CREATIVE Word. Hebrews 1:2 affirms this: “in these last days (God) has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” (The) God and the Word are eternal: They are the eternal; matter is not eternal because it has been created BY the eternal. God had no beginning. God the Father created the World and everything in it through the CREATIVE WORD, the Son, Jesus. (Rev. 3:14 refers to Jesus this way: “The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God.”) Jesus is the Pre-existent Christ who puts the world into being, and everything in the world.
If you see a leaf blowing down the street, you know that the leaf is NOT blowing along because it decided to do so. You know that wind causes the leaf to move. Wind demonstrates a power greater than that of the leaf. In a similar way, we should recognize that a power greater than the wind has to exist. Nature exists because a power greater than itself exists. Romans 1:20 says; “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they (the CREATURES) are without excuse.” Jesus exercised His creative power so that we would know and recognize the power and existence of God in the Created.
Another powerful proclamation in Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared (have been formed) by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”
The creative activity BY the Word of God is still evident today. Look around you and see that the world that was Created is also being Held by the Word of His Mouth. As a matter of fact, YOU are a result of “that which has become” by the Masterful Creative Word of God. Creation STILL reveals the phenomenal Attributes of God the Father and the Creative Power of Jesus’ as the Father’s Power/Agent in Creation.
We STILL have the seasons of the year. The earth still exists. The Sun still shines. The stars and moon shine. We still experience morning, noon and night. Life still comes into the world. Plants still grow because “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) And it will continue until He commands the created to do otherwise.
2 Peter 3:4-7 “For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." 5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of (same word used in Col 1:17 for “HOLD TOGETHER” water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
The WORD which created also has the power to destroy that which He created, and ONE Day will destroy all the ungodly, when HE SAYS SO!
“The World is due to God Himself acting through His Word”…and This World belongs to God because He accomplished it through THE Word: and we exist FOR Him and through Him. STOP, Look, Listen and Learn: 1 Corinthians 8:6 “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, FROM WHOM are all things and we exist FOR HIM; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, BY WHOM are all things, and we exist THROUGH HIM.” Here Paul makes the distinction that the Father is the source of all things and the Son is the actual Creator. This answered the question in Greek philosophy as well as today to ascertain by whom, of what, and for what purpose was the world made.
God spoke in the beginning of time, and He spoke the Worlds into being. He created. When God speaks through the Son, He saves, and how powerfully He does so.
In a world filled with threats of Ebola, ISIS, school shootings, natural disasters, the fear of loss of freedoms, and pastors being silenced, the Creative Word steps into our world in order to SAVE. Faith IS “believing without seeing”, but faith is not entirely divorced from evidence.
God provides the evidence we need in the deity and creativity of the Lord Jesus Christ so that you and I might believe know that the God who has the power to CREATE, also has the Power to Save, to Redeem, to RECREATE and Renew. God utilized the Power of the Son, the Lord Jesus to create the world and everything in it, and then the Son came into the very World He created in order to become the Savior to those who would receive Him. The fact that Jesus is God, and that He CREATES and GIVES LIFE should cause us to KNOW GOD better: Jesus comes in the power of The Creation event; He comes with the power of God’s written WORD; He comes INCARNATE, in the flesh to die for sinners; To know this Jesus is to know God: There is no saving knowledge of God apart from knowing Him.
Jesus said in Luke 10:22: "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him."
Last Week:
I. “In the beginning was the Word,” Jesus’ Eternality
II. “And the Word was with (the) God,” Jesus’ Personality
III. “And the Word was God.” Jesus’ Deity
IV. “He was in (the) beginning with God. “The Word, this one and no other, already existed in the beginning and was ALWAYS continually in intimate relationship with God, and so BOTH God and the WORD belong to eternity.” BOTH God and the WORD belong to eternity.
John 1:3
ðάíôá äé’ áὐôïῦ ἐãέíåôï, êáὶ ÷ùñὶò áὐôïῦ ἐãέíåôï
All(things) through Him became, and without Him became
Panta di-A auTOS egeneto ki chor IS auTOS egeneto
ïὐäὲ ἕí ὃ ãέãïíåí.
not one(thing) which became.
ouDE hen ha gegonen.
I. “All (things) through Him became…”: Colossians 1:16-17, Rom 11:36
How did the world (the created) come into being?
A. The Creation occurred in past time in its totality as a single event. (egeneto)
B. “The Word” was (the) God’s instrument at creation. (Gen. 1:1, John 1:3)
(The) God created “all things” through “The Word”.
II. “And without Him became NOT ONE (thing) which became.”
How did I come into being?
A. Every “individual thing” owes its existence to the Word.
B. His creative activity is still Evident.
C. “The World is due to God Himself acting through His Word”…
This World belongs to God.
Luke 10:22: "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him."
