Interesting Questions-24

"By Him all things were created"

Letter to the Editor:
GOD'S MESSAGE, July 2008, p.4

IT   IS COMMON knowledge  in  religious  parlance that one of the essential  characteristics of being God is being the Creator of all things. No less than the Bible itself proves that Jesus Christ created the world and we can read that in Colossians 1:16. So how can you reconcile your teaching that Christ is not God and the fact that He created all things?

Albert Fugard
King Williams Town, South Africa

Editor's reply:

Colossians 1 :16 states, thus:

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." (New King James Versiom)

Perhaps,   what   makes  you   think that   the verse teaches that "Christ created the world"  is the part which states "by Him all things were created."   Notice   nevertheless   that   just before that statement, the Bible states,   "He  (Christ)   is the firstborn   over  all  creation"    (Col.  1:15, Ibid.)—which clearly indicates that Christ is one of those which were created  and therefore not Himself the Creator.

The Bible unequivocally informs us who the one and only Creator is.  Isaiah 44:24 records thus:

"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,  And He who formed  you from the womb: "I am the Lord, who makes all things, Who stretches out the heavens all alone, Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself". (Ibid.)

The "Lord" and "Redeemer" who made everything "all alone" and "by Himself was further identified by the prophet Isaiah:

"Doubtless You are our Father ...You, 0 Lord^ are our Father; Our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name" (Isa. 63:16, Ibid.)

Hence, as the prophet Malachi  rhetorically asks, "Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created   us?"    (Malachi 2:10, Ibid.)  Clearly therefore, the one God who "created the world" as taught by the Bible is not Christ, but His Father who is the only true God (John 17:1, 3).

So, why then does Colossians  1:16 state that by Him (Christ) all things were created"?  That very verse itself provides the answer—the last part of it explains,  "All things were created through Him (Christ)." Remember that one of the meanings of the term "by" is the word "through," and thus the two are synonyms (Microsoft Encarta 2006 Dictionary Tools). But then again, in what sense "were all things created through Christ"?  The explanation is again found in that very same verse which continues, "AI! things were created through Him and for Him." That all things were created for Jesus is further explained by Apostle Raul who himself wrote Colossians 1:16. He pronounced:

"God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan  he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head. All things are done according to God's plan and decision . . . . .  based on what he had decided from the very beginning" (Eph. 1:9-l 1, Today's English Version)

Notice that "from the very  beginning" it had been the "secret  plan" of  Cod that  when  the time is right "He will "bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earthy with Christ as head."  It is in this sense thus that God created everything for Jesus.

It is clear therefore that all things, were created "by Christ" not in the sense that He is Himself the Creator, but in the sense that all were created by the Father through and for Him (Christ). Hence, in other translations of the Bible such as the Today's English Version , Colossians 1:16 is rendered in this manner:

"For through him God created everything in heaven and on earth. . . ., God created the whole universe through him and for him." (emphasis ours)

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