What does it mean that all things were made through Him (John 1:3)?

Next comes the attributing of creation to the Word. This must be the work of God, if anything was; and here again the words are precision itself — "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Other words far less nervous are used elsewhere: unbelief might cavil and construe them into forming or fashioning. Here the Holy Ghost employs the most explicit language, that all things began to be, or received being, through the Word, to the exclusion of one single thing that ever did receive being apart from Him; language which leaves the fullest room for Uncreate Beings, as we have already seen, subsisting eternally and distinctly, yet equally God. Thus the statement is positive that the Word is the source of all things which have received being (γενόμενα); that there is no creature which did not thus derive its being from Him. There cannot, therefore, be a more rigid, absolute shutting out of any creature from origination, save by the Word.

It is true that in other parts of Scripture we hear God, as such, spoken of as Creator. We hear of His making the worlds by the Son. But there is and can be no contradiction in Scripture. The truth is, that whatever was made was made according to the Father's sovereign will; but the Son, the Word of God, was the person who put forth the power, and never without the energy of the Holy Ghost, I may add, as the Bible carefully teaches us. Now this is of immense importance for that which the Holy Ghost has in view in the gospel of John, because the object is to attest the nature and light of God in the person of the Christ; and therefore we have here not merely what the Lord Jesus was as born of a woman, born under the law, which has its appropriate place in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but what He was and is as God. On the other hand, the gospel of Mark omits every thing of the kind. A genealogy such as Matthew's and Luke's, we have seen, would be totally out of place there; and the reason is manifest. The subject of Mark is the testimony of Jesus as having taken, though a Son, the place of a servant in the earth. Now, in a servant, no matter from what noble lineage he comes, there is no genealogy requisite. What is wanted in a servant is, that the work should be done well, no matter about the genealogy. Thus, even if it were the Son of God Himself, so perfectly did He condescend to the condition of a servant, and so mindful was the Spirit of it, that, accordingly, the genealogy which was demanded in Matthew, which is of such signal beauty and value in Luke, is necessarily excluded from the gospel of Mark. For higher reasons it could have no place in John. In Mark it is because of the lowly place of subjection which the Lord was pleased to take; it is excluded from John, on the contrary, because there He is presented as being above all genealogy. He is the source of other people's genealogy — yea, of the genesis of all things. We may say therefore boldly, that in the gospel of John such a descent could not be inserted in consistency with its character. If it admit any genealogy, it must be what is set forth in the preface of John — the very verses which are occupying us — which exhibit the divine nature and eternal personality of His being. He was the Word, and He was God; and, if we may anticipate, let us add, the Son, the only begotten Son of the Father. This, if any thing, is His genealogy here. The ground is evident; because everywhere in John He is God. No doubt the Word became flesh, as we may see more of presently, even in this inspired introduction; and we have the reality of His becoming man insisted on. Still, manhood was a place that He entered. Godhead was the glory that He possessed from everlasting — His own eternal nature of being. It was not conferred upon Him. There is not, nor can be, any such thing as a derived subordinate Godhead; though men may be said to be gods, as commissioned of God, and representing Him in government. He was God before creation began, before all time. He was God independently of any circumstances. Thus, as we have seen, for the Word the apostle John claims eternal existence, distinct personality, and divine nature; and withal asserts the eternal distinctness of that person. (Verses 1, 2)

Such is the Word Godward (πρὸς τὸν Θεόν). We are next told of Him in relation to the creature. (Verses 3-5) In the earlier verses it was exclusively His being. In verse 3 He acts, He creates, He causes all things to come into existence; and apart from Him not one thing came into existence which is existent (γέγονεν). Nothing more comprehensive, nothing more exclusive.

The next verse (4) predicts of Him that which is yet more momentous: not creative power, as in verse 3, but life. "In him was life." Blessed truth for those who know the spread of death over this lower scene of creation! and the rather as the Spirit adds, that "the life was the light of men." Angels were not its sphere, nor was it restricted to a chosen nation: "the life was the light of men." Life was not in man, even unfallen; at best, the first man, Adam, became a living soul when instinct with the breath of God. Nor is it ever said, even of a saint, that in him is or was life, though life he has; but he has it only in the Son. In Him, the Word, was life, and the life was the light of men. Such was its relationship.

The language is most precise; He was in the beginning with God, not egeneto (‘became’ eds.), […] in the sense of coming into being or caused to be, but ‘hn’, He “was" in His own absolute being. All things ‘egeneto’, "came into being" through Him. He was the Creator so completely that St. John adds, "and without him not one thing came into being which is come into being." On the other hand, when the incarnation is stated in verse 14, the language is, The Word was made flesh, not ‘En’ but ‘egeneto’

Now we are given to see in the Word the actual Creator. "All things came into being through Him"; and again the apostle is emphatic as to this: not even a single thing must be excepted, that ever came into being.

By Him also were all things created. There are things which had a beginning; they all had their origin from Him: "All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." Precise, positive, and absolute distinction between all that has been made and Jesus. If anything has been made, it is not the Word; for all that has been made was made by that Word.

But there is another thing, besides the supreme act of creating all things (an act that characterises the Word) — there is that which was in Him. All creation was made by Him; but it does not exist in Him. But in Him was life. In this He was in relation with an especial part of creation — a part which was the object of the thoughts and intentions of God. This "life was the light of men," revealed itself as a testimony to the divine nature, in immediate connection with them, as it did not with respect to any others at all. But, in fact, this light shone in the midst of that which was in its own nature contrary to it, and evil beyond any natural image, for where light comes, darkness is no longer: but here the light came, and the darkness had no perception of it — remained darkness, which therefore neither comprehended nor received it. These are the relations of the Word with creation and with man, seen abstractedly in His nature. The Spirit pursues this subject, giving us details, historically, of the latter part.

The Word. — And first he presents the Lord as "the Word." Thus designated in this Gospel without any adjunct, we read in John's First Epistle (1 John 1:1) that He is "the Word of life"; and in the Revelation (19:13), that His name is called "the Word of God." By "the Word" we understand that He — for He is a Person — expresses the Divine Being, as our words or acts give expression to our minds. For He is not only "the Word" by virtue of that which He has said, He is also "the Word" in consideration of that which He has done. By His acts in creating He expressed the power and mind of the invisible God. What the Divine Being willed, as regards created things, their form, their arrangement, their number, and their growth too, where there is life, whether animal or vegetable — all proceeded from Him who is "the Word." "By Him," we read, "were all things created in the heavens and upon the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him" (Col. 1:16). Again we read, "By whom also He [i.e. God] made the worlds" (Heb. 1:2). These are testimonies of the Holy Ghost recorded in the New Testament. In the Old Testament Jehovah speaks to Him in the same strain (Ps. 102:25), as we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews (1:10): "Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the works of Thine hands." So we have our Evangelist declaring, in words of a later date than any we have just quoted, "All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that has been made" (John 1:3, R.V.).*

Ponder this fact; for here we have the explanation of the heavens declaring the glory of God, and of the fact that God has been made known to some extent in creation, as is indicated in Romans 1:19-20. The Word created all things and hence in creation there is a true expression, as far as it goes, of God Himself and of His mind. We give expression to our thoughts in words; and the import of this great name, WORD, is that He who bears it is the expression of all that God is; and, as verses 1 and 2 show, He Himself essentially IS all that He expresses. Creation, as it sprang into being through the Word, was not a meaningless jumble but a declaration of the power and wisdom of God.

"All things were made by Him". He was the originator, the designer and the maker of the vast universe and every creature within it, "for without Him was not anything made that was made". How wonderfully these simple yet great statements clear the air for us. We have no need to waste our time and weary our brains in the vain search for some missing link to establish some groundless hypothesis that those who would banish the Creator from His creation have put forth, we begin with the truth that the Word has made all things, that He upholds all things, and will eventually make all things serve His glory. How wonderful must be that wisdom that planned the infinite variety that even we can see in creation, and how great the power that has bound every part of it together and holds it all together in a harmonious universe.

It is very evident, therefore, that Hebrew — poor a language as it may be in some respects — is exquisitely precise in these very particulars. No doubt the reason is obvious. It was God's pleasure to reveal His mind as to the outward creation in the Hebrew tongue. And what makes it the more striking is, that Greek — which is such a finely expressive language in most other respects — seems to fail not a little in this. They had no words at all competent to express these shades of meaning. They were driven to other ways of putting the idea. There is always a possibility in every tongue of expressing thought; but this may, in some cases, require a circuitous method. In John 1:3 we have creation alluded to. In the first verse we read: "In the beginning was the Word" — clearly this ascends, as often noticed, before Genesis 1:1. In the one beginning God acted; in the other the Word was, the uncreated expresser of God, before His power was put forth to call anything or one into being — the Word that was with God, and that was God. "The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him." There is a beautiful exactness in the Greek expression, that is not found in the English. Egeneto is not adequately answered either by the Hebrew or the English "made." Properly speaking, it does not mean anything of the sort, but "caused to be." The Word gave to all things existence. This seems to be the best Greek method of expressing creation, if it can be expressed in that tongue by one word. "All things were brought into being by him; they began" — or, rather, "were caused to be" — "by him." Such is the force of the term. But this does not at all match the admirable excellence of the Hebrew tongue, where we have God's own absolute act referred to. Such is the essence of the word "create" and consequently it is invariably attributed to God. We never read of any created being of whom it is predicated, unless in a figure or evident accommodation. It could not be applied to the act of a creature. Not that it always means created out of nothing. It is the word for this, but not for this only. Hence it is applied to the fifth day's work — the first production of animal life for the Adamic world (verse 21), and still more emphatically to the latest task of the sixth day, when God gave being to the chief of this lower creation (verse 27). We ought always to gather the value of a word from its usage; to the use that Scripture makes of it we may wisely, and must implicitly, bow.

The thought of God from all eternity was to make Himself known. God is love, so He must have objects on which to bestow His love, and this love comes to such as you and me, and the saints of all time. We read, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” The Seventh Day Adventists teach that the Lord Jesus Christ was a wonderful creation of God, endued with such powers that He could create everything else, and that He was given this authority, but that He Himself was created by God. This verse brands this teaching as false. He is the absolute Creator. It is interesting to find that creation in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is attributed to the Father, in Job 26:13 that it is attributed to the Spirit, but here and in Colossians, and elsewhere it is attributed to the Son. Why should it be so particularly attributed to the Son? Because the Son, is the Word, who gives expression to God’s mind in creation.

All the activities of God are by His Word. As to creation, “He spake, and it was done” (Ps. 33:9); “The worlds were framed by the Word of God” (Heb. 11:3); and, “Upholding all things by the Word of His power” (Heb. 1:3). By that Word, the creation subsists, and without it, it would have no existence. Hence He who is the living Word is ever said to be the Creator, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3, 10; Col. 1:16-17).