Meditations on the Glory of Christ: He is the Agent of Creation

In Hebrews 1:2-4, the author makes seven claims about Jesus that when taken together greatly exalt his glory. The second claim the author makes is that the Father created the world through Jesus. The simple word “through” implies that the Father is ultimately responsible for creation but that he created all things by means of the Son. As the Apostle John said in John 1:3, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

So we see that the Father is the visionary, the architect, the provider, the supervisor, and the one who is ultimately responsible for the finished product of creation, while the Son is the implementer, the builder, the one through whom all things actually come into being. For example, the Father envisioned a galaxy and laid out its seemingly endless specifications, and the Son actually formed the galaxy. The Father pictured so many varieties of trees, and the Son actually fashioned each tree. This means that when we behold creation we are literally beholding the vision of the Father and the handiwork of the Son. The designs of the Father and the fingerprints of the Son are in some profound sense upon everything.

For those of you who love to work in your yards and gardens, as you feel the grass beneath your feet and the dirt slip between your fingers, as you observe seeds or shoots turn into plants and trees, as you observe those plants and trees produce food that nourishes your bodies, learn to say to yourselves, “I am literally beholding the designs of the Father and the fingerprints of the Son in all these things.”

O Beloved, the relationship between the author’s first two claims about Jesus, when seen in relation to one another, highlight a great and worship-evoking mystery to which the writer of Hebrews returns again. Namely, the Father has given as an inheritance to the Son all that he created through the Son. Jesus has acquired that which he himself created!

As Paul writes in Colossians 1:16, “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 [he is the Creator] and for him [ he is the heir].” Or as Jesus himself declared in Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha [the Creator] and the Omega [the heir], the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” This is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that all God’s promises are “yes” and “amen” in Christ: he is both the source and the rightful heir of those promises and thus they find their fulfillment in him.

Beloved, this is no theoretical claim: all things were created through Jesus! Think about how great he must be in light of this truth. Indeed, Jesus is highly exalted and he alone is worthy of our praise, our allegiance, our souls, our lives, our all!