Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 1:3
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
3. by him ] Rather, through Him. The universe was created by the Father through the agency of the Son. Comp. 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16 (where see Lightfoot’s note); Rom 11:36; Heb 11:10. That no inferiority is necessarily implied by ‘through,’ as if the Son were a mere instrument, is shewn by 1Co 1:9, where the same construction is used of the Father, ‘ through Whom ye were called, &c.’ Note the climax in what follows; the sphere contracts as the blessing enlarges: existence for everything; life for the vegetable and animal world; light for men.
without him, &c.] Better, apart from Him, &c. Comp. Joh 15:5. Antithetic parallelism; emphatic repetition by contradicting the opposite: frequent in Hebrew: one of the many instances of the Hebrew cast of S. John’s style. Comp. Joh 1:20, Joh 10:28; 1Jn 1:5; 1Jn 2:4; 1Jn 2:27-28; Psa 89:30-31; Psa 89:48, &c., &c.
not anything ] No, not one; not even one: stronger than ‘nothing.’ Every single thing, however great, however small, throughout all the realms of space, came into being through Him. No event takes place without Him, apart from His presence and power. Mat 10:29; Luk 12:6.
that was made ] Better, that hath been made. The aorist refers to the fact of creation; the perfect to the permanent result of that fact. Contrast ‘was made’ and ‘hath been made’ here with ‘was’ in Joh 1:1-2. ‘Was made’ denotes the springing into life of what was once non-existent; ‘was’ denotes the perpetual pre-existence of the Word.
Some both ancient and modern writers would give the last part of Joh 1:3 to Joh 1:4, thus: That which hath been made in Him was life; i.e. those who were born again by union with Him felt His influence as life within them. It is very difficult to decide between the two punctuations. Tatian ( Orat. ad Graecos, xix.) has ‘All things [were] by Him and without Him hath been made not even one thing.’ See on Joh 1:5.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
All things – The universe. The expression cannot be limited to any part of the universe. It appropriately expresses everything which exists – all the vast masses of material worlds, and all the animals and things, great or small, that compose those worlds. See Rev 4:11; Heb 1:2; Col 1:16.
Were made – The original word is from the verb to be, and signifies were by him; but it expresses the idea of creation here. It does not alter the sense whether it is said were by him, or were created by him. The word is often used in the sense of creating, or forming from nothing. See Jam 3:9; and Gen 2:4; Isa 48:7; in the Septuagint.
By him – In this place it is affirmed that creation was effected by the Word, or the Son of God. In Gen 1:1, it is said that the Being who created the heavens and the earth was God. In Psa 102:25-28, this work is ascribed to Yahweh. The Word, or the Son of God, is therefore appropriately called God. The work of creation is uniformly ascribed in the Scriptures to the Second Person of the Trinity. See Col 1:16; Heb 1:2, Heb 1:10. By this is meant, evidently, that he was the agent, or the efficient cause, by which the universe was made. There is no higher proof of omnipotence than the work of creation; and, hence, God often appeals to that work to prove that he is the true God, in opposition to idols. See Isa 40:18-28; Jer 10:3-16; Psa 24:2; Psa 39:11; Pro 3:19. It is absurd to say that God can invest a creature with omnipotence. If He can make a creature omnipotent, He can make him omniscient, and can in the same way make him omnipresent, and infinitely wise and good; that is, He can invest a creature with all His own attributes, or make another being like Himself, or, which is the same thing, there could be two Gods, or as many Gods as He should choose to make. But this is absurd! The Being, therefore, that created all things must be divine; and, since this work is ascribed to Jesus Christ, and as it is uniformly in the Scriptures declared to be the work of God, Jesus Christ is therefore equal with the Father.
Without him – Without his agency; his notice; the exertion of his power. Compare Mat 10:29. This is a strong way of speaking, designed to confirm, beyond the possibility of doubt, what he had just said. He says, therefore, in general, that all things were made by Christ. In this part of the verse he shuts out all doubt, and affirms that there was no exception; that there was not a single thing, however minute or unimportant, which was not made by him. In this way, he confirms what he said in the first verse. Christ was not merely called God, but he did the works of God, and therefore the name is used in its proper sense as implying supreme divinity. To this same test Jesus himself appealed as proving that he was divine. Joh 10:37, if I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. Joh 5:17, my Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Joh 1:3
All things were made by Him
The Christian doctrine of creation
I.
THE PURIFICATION OF THE HEATHEN DOCTRINE: obviating the eternity of matter.
II. THE DEEPENING OF THE JEWISH DOCTRINE of the Shekinah: clearly pronouncing the personal life of love in God as it enters into the world.
III. THE GLORIFICATION OF THE SOUND DOCTRINE of scientific investigation: man the final cause of things; the God Man the final cause of man.
IV. THE VERDICT OF THE SPIRIT respecting the derivation of the world from a non-spiritual source: materialism. (Lange.)
The Christian features in all things
I. The CREATURELY instinct of dependence, as an impulse towards the upholding Word.
II. The NATURAL, SELF-UNFOLDING instinct, as the impulse towards freedom (Rom 8:1-39.).
III. The COSMICAL, WORLD-FORMING instinct, as an impulse towards unity.
IV. The SPIRITUAL instinct, as the impulse to rise in the service of the Spirit. (Lange.)
Christ the Creator
I. As He is the efficient cause of all.
II. As He is the pattern by which all were made.
III. As all things are created by the Godhead, and the Word was God. (Cornelius a Lapide.)
The universal creatorship of Christ
I. ASSOCIATES HIS NAME WITH ALL EXISTENCE, PAST AND PRESENT.
1. It furnishes the key to the dark problems of nature and providence.
2. It gives to science and Christianity a common foundation.
(1) Science reveals the eternal power and Godhead of the Word.
(2) Christianity the means of mercy to fallen man through the Word.
(3) Each a compartment of one great fabric reared to the glory of God. Science the outer court: admire and adore. Christianity the holy place: kneel, pray, praise (Heb 4:16).
II. AFFORDS TO FAITH THE GREATEST ASSURANCE AND ENCOURAGEMENT. His every word of grace is strong, etc.
III. INSPIRES THE HUMBLEST WITH CONFIDENCE. Christ cares for the humblest of His creatures (Psa 104:27; Mat 7:11).
IV. IRRADIATES THE FUTURE WITH A GLORIOUS HOPE (Rev 21:1; Rev 21:5). (Van Doren.)
The relation of Christ to the created universe
All things are
I. IN Him. All archetypal forms and sources of creative life eternally reside in Him.
II. BY Him. He is the one Producer and Sustainer of all created existence.
III. FOR Him. He is the end of created things. Living for Him the explanation and law of every creature. (Van Doren.)
The creative power of the Word
See 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2. Observe
1. God revealed Himself through His Son before the Incarnation.
2. To be a Creator the Word had to be God.
3. Matter is not eternal: the universe has an intelligent personality back of it, as architect, builder, and sustainer.
4. The stars are a manifestation of Christ, as well as the Bible: we see Him in natural as in revealed religion.
5. The Being who made all things is worthy of being trusted with the absolute work of making and sustaining our characters. (A. H. Moment.)
The universe a revelation of Christ
The creation of a single atom would have been a revelation of Him: how much more is this great universe! A man is always greater than his work; no architect, for example, ever put his whole self into the noblest building he designed; even so the Word is greater than the universe which He has called into being. Still, so far as it goes, it reveals Him to us. To the eye of childhood this world into which we are born is beautiful and strange, and marvellous past expression. Not less so to the intelligent and thoughtful manhood. If the romance is gone, as the summer dew from the grass at noon, the real wonder only becomes more overwhelming. (J. Culross, D. D.)
God in nature
To the infidel, Natures voices are but a Babel din. Trees rustle, and brooks babble, and winds blow; but there is no meaning in their sound. To the Christian, all speak of God; and if it were not for the dimness of the natural eye, he might see His host of angels at their ministry. The tree stretches out its arm, laden with fruit, like the arm of God. The morning sprinkles him with dew, as with holy water; and he is sung to sleep at evening with songs like the lullaby of earthly parents to their children. (H. W. Beecher.)
Divine designs open to us in creation
When I was in the galleries of Oxford, I saw many of the designs of Raphael and Michael Angelo. I looked upon them with reverence, and took up such of them as I was permitted to touch as one would take up a love token. It seemed to me these sketches brought me nearer the great masters than their finished pictures could have done, because therein I saw the minds processes as they were first born. They were the first salient points of the inspiration. Could I have brought them home with me, how rich I should have been! how envied for their possession! Now, there are open and free to us, every day of our lives, the designs of a greater than Raphael or Michael Angelo. God, of whom the noblest master is but a feeble imitator, is sketching and painting every hour the most wondrous pictures–not hoarded in any gallery, but spread in light and shadow round the whole earth, and glowing for us in the overhanging skies. (H. W. Beecher.)
The Creator must be Divine
To create, to call something out of nothing–be it a dying spark or a blazing sun, a dewdrop cradled in a lilys bosom, or the vast ocean in the hollow of Gods hand, mole-hill or mountain, the dancing motes of a sunbeam or the rolling planets of a system, a burning seraph or a feeble glow-worm, one of the ephemera that takes wing in the morning and is dead at night, or one of the angels that sang when our Lord was born; whatever be the thing created, the power to create is Gods, the act of creation His; and therefore, since Paul says that Jesus Christ created all things, he cannot mean to depose our Lord from the throne of Divinity, and lower Gods only begotten Son to the level of a created being. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Creation the work of God
Creation is the work of God: without Him was not anything made that was made. He only can create. The architect can rear a cathedral, the sculptor can cut forms of symmetry and grace from marble, the painter can depict life on his canvas, the machinist can construct engines that shall serve the nations; but not one of them can create. They work with materials already in existence. They bring existing things into new combinations; this is all. God alone can create. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The greatness of the universe a testimony to the greatness of Christ
1. We look around us upon the infinite variety of productions which the earth brings forth–their use, their goodness, their beauty; we sweep the eye of imagination over ocean and continent, hill and plain, lake and stream, corn-land and forest, sahara and paradise; we mark the changes produced by day and night, and the succession of the seasons; we listen to the music of nature–the boom of ocean dashing on the shore, the wind in the forest, the tinkling of the hidden moorland rill; we think of the countless tribes of living and sentient beings that inhabit earth along with us; we think of man with his marvellous endowments; we think of the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places; we listen to all that science can tell us of the subtle agencies that pervade creation and the laws which bind all beings together.
2. Then, standing on earth as on a promontory, we look upwards and outwards. Beneath the nether sky, with its cloud and scenery, and its sunrise and sunset hues of beauty, there are illimitable realms of space, studded with worlds moving harmoniously in close ravelled maze. These heavens were vast and glorious to the eye of the Chaldean gazer thousands of years ago; how have their vastness and glory grown to us since then! The globe which is our dwelling-place is one of the smallest planets wheeling round one of the lesser suns. It is conceivable that only our own little world might have hung solitary in immensity; but the space swept by the telescope teems with solar systems compared with which ours is insignificant. In the Milky Way alone are millions of suns, the nearest of which requires years to dart its light to us, though light travels two hundred thousand miles during the single vibration of a pendulum. In the presence of that immensity, our globe is but as a grain of sand on the seashore.
3. Leaving the realms of space, with the help of geology, let us look back on the realms of time. Since our world became the theatre of life, ages on ages have run their course, for the duration of which we have absolutely no measure. The universe in its vastness, wonder, and divine beauty, and in all the evolutions through which it has passed during countless ages, lay first of all in His mind–if one may say so–as the grand cathedral was in the brain of the architect ere its foundation-stone was laid; it took all that we see, and all that science discloses, and all that mystery still hides, to express
His creative idea. How great, then, must the Maker be! How wise, good, glorious! (J. Culross, D. D.)
Christs creative knowledge
A quaint countryman, telling of his thorough knowledge of the people of his vicinity, said boastfully, I know all these people as well as if Id made em. That statement of his covered a great deal of ground, whether it were true or were only a suggestion of a truth. No man can understand a complicated piece of mechanism like the man who made it. And there was never so complicated a piece of mechanism on earth as the average man or woman. At the best, every man or woman is a bundle of contradictions; and the closest human friend is puzzled at times over some new phase of those contradictions in his friend. Only He who made that puzzle can know its parts in all their relations and in all their workings. What a comfort in the thought that our Friend of friends knows us as well as if He made us; knows us because He did make us–for all things were made by Him. (H. C. Trumbull, D. D.)
Christs presence in His creation
He is not a Master who, like a carpenter or builder, when he has prepared a house or ship, leaves the house for its owner to dwell in, or commits the ship to the mariners that they may traverse the sea in it, and he himself goes whither he may. No; God the Father has begun and finished all things by His Word, and preserves it also continually by the same, and remains with His work until He wills that it shall no longer exist (Joh 5:13). As we were made by Him without our assistance, so also we cannot be preserved of ourselves. Thus here, were all to understand that all things created are preserved, in being otherwise they would not long remain created. (Luther.)
The confidence inspired by Christs creatorship
If without Christ nothing was made, then nothing made by Him can do any injury to His kingdom. Fear loves to make exceptions; it allows all else to be innocuous; only that one thing which is directly in view appears to threaten danger. This is met with the assurance that all things, without exception, were made by the Word; therefore every fear is unreasonable to Him who has the Word on His side. If to be made, and to be made by Him, are the same thing, there can be no enemy that is to be feared, either in heaven or in earth. (Hengstenberg.)
What was not, and what was made by Christ
Many, wrongly understanding without Him was nothing made, are wont to fancy that nothing is something. Sin, indeed, was not made by Him; and it is plain that sin is nothing, and men become nothing when they sin. An idol also was not made by the Word, and an idol is nothing. Therefore these things were not made by the Word; but whatever was made in a natural manner, whatever belongs to the creature, from an angel even unto a worm. What more excellent than an angel among created things? What lower than a worm? But an angel is fit for heaven, the worm for earth. He who created also arranged. If He had placed the worm in heaven, thou mightest have found fault; and if He had willed that angels should spring from decaying flesh, thou mightest have found fault. And yet God almost does this, and He is not to be found fault with. For all men born of the flesh, what are they but worms? And of these worms God makes angels. (Augustine.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. All things were made by him] That is, by this Logos. In Ge 1:1, GOD is said to have created all things: in this verse, Christ is said to have created all things: the same unerring Spirit spoke in Moses and in the evangelists: therefore Christ and the Father are ONE. To say that Christ made all things by a delegated power from God is absurd; because the thing is impossible. Creation means causing that to exist that had no previous being: this is evidently a work which can be effected only by omnipotence. Now, God cannot delegate his omnipotence to another: were this possible, he to whom this omnipotence was delegated would, in consequence, become GOD; and he from whom it was delegated would cease to be such: for it is impossible that there should be two omnipotent beings.
On these important passages I find that many eminently learned men differ from me: it seems they cannot be of my opinion, and I feel I cannot be of theirs. May He, who is the Light and the Truth, guide them and me into all truth!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
All things were made by him: the Divine nature and eternal existence of the Lord Christ, is evident from his efficiency in the creation of the world: what the evangelist here calleth all things, the apostle to the Hebrews, Heb 1:2, calleth the worlds; and St. Paul, Col 1:16, calleth, all things that are in heaven and earth, visible and invisible; Moses calls, the heaven and the earth, Gen 1:1. These were all made by the Word; not as an instrumental cause, but as a principal efficient cause; for though it be true, that the preposition is sometimes used to signify an instrumental cause; yet it is as true, that it is often used to signify the principal efficient cause; as Joh 6:57; Act 3:16; Rom 5:5; 11:36; Eph 4:6, and in many other texts: it here only denotes the order of the working of the holy Trinity.
Without him was not any thing made that was made; nothing that was made, neither the heavens nor the earth, neither things visible nor invisible, were made without him. There is nothing more ordinary in holy writ, than after the laying down a universal proposition, (where no synecdoche is used), to add also a universal negative for the confirmation of it: so Rom 3:12, There is none that doeth good; then is added, no, not one; Lam 2:2, and in many other texts. The term without him, doth not exclude the efficiency either of the First, or Third Person in the Trinity, in the creation of all things; the Father created the world by the Son, his Word; and the creation of the world is attributed to the Spirit, Gen 1:1; Job 33:4; Psa 33:6.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. All things, c.all thingsabsolutely (as is evident from Joh 1:101Co 8:6; Col 1:16;Col 1:17; but put beyond questionby what follows).
without Him was not anythingnot one thing.
madebrought intobeing.
that was madeThis is adenial of the eternity and non-creation of matter,which was held by the whole thinking world outside of Judaism andChristianity: or rather, its proper creation was never somuch as dreamt of save by the children of revealed religion.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
All things were made by him,…. Which is a proof at once of all that is said before; as that he was in the beginning; and that he was with God the Father in the beginning; and that he was God; otherwise all things could not have been made by him, had either of these been untrue: which is to be understood, not of the new creation; for this would be a restraining “all” things to a “few” persons only; nor is it any where said, that all things are new made, but made; and it is false, that all were converted, that have been converted, by the ministry of Christ, as man: all men are not renewed, regenerated, nor reformed; and the greater part of those that were renewed, were renewed before Christ existed, as man; and therefore could not be renewed by him, as such: though indeed, could this sense be established, it would not answer the end for which it is coined; namely, to destroy the proof of Christ’s deity, and of his existence before his incarnation; for in all ages, from the beginning of the world, some have been renewed; and the new creation is a work of God, and of almighty power, equally with the old; for who can create spiritual light, infuse a principle of spiritual life, take away the heart of stone, and give an heart of flesh, or produce faith, but God? Regeneration is denied to be of man, and is always ascribed to God; nor would Christ’s being the author of the new creation, be any contradiction to his being the author of the old creation, which is intended here: by “all things”, are meant the heaven, and all its created inhabitants, the airy, starry, and third heavens, and the earth, and all therein, the sea, and every thing that is in that; and the word, or Son of God, is the efficient cause of all these, not a bare instrument of the formation of them; for the preposition by does not always denote an instrument, but sometimes an efficient, as in 1Co 1:9 and so here, though not to the exclusion of the Father, and of the Spirit:
and without him was not any thing made that was made: in which may be observed the conjunct operation of the word, or Son, with the Father, and Spirit, in creation; and the extent of his concern in it to every thing that is made; for without him there was not one single thing in the whole compass of the creation made; and the limitation of it to things that are made; and so excludes the uncreated being, Father, Son, and Spirit; and sin also, which is not a principle made by God, and which has no efficient, but a deficient cause. So the Jews ascribe the creation of all things to the word. The Targumists attribute the creation of man, in particular, to the word of God: it is said in Ge 1:27. “God created man in his own image”: the Jerusalem Targum of it is,
“and the word of the Lord created man in his likeness.”
And Ge 3:22 “and the Lord God said, behold the man is become as one of us”, the same Targum paraphrases thus;
“and the word of the Lord God said, behold the man whom I have created, is the only one in the world.”
Also in the same writings, the creation of all things in general is ascribed to the word: the passage in De 33:27 “the eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”, is paraphrased by Onkelos,
“the eternal God is an habitation, by whose word the world was made.”
In Isa 48:13 it is said, “mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth”. The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah on it is,
“yea, by my word I have founded the earth:”
which agrees with what is said in Heb 11:3, and the same says Philo the Jew, who not only calls him the archetype, and exemplar of the world, but the power that made it: he often ascribes the creation of the heavens, and the earth unto him, and likewise the creation of man after whose image, he says, he was made t. The Ethiopic version adds, at the end of this verse, “and also that which is made is for himself”.
t De Mundi Opificio, p. 4, 5, 31, 32. De Alleg. l. 1. p. 44. De Sacrificiis Abel & Cain, p. 131. De Profugis, p. 464. & de Monarch. p. 823.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
All things (). The philosophical phrase was (the all things) as we have it in 1Cor 8:6; Rom 11:36; Col 1:16. In verse 10 John uses (the orderly universe) for the whole.
Were made (egeneto). Second aorist middle indicative of , the constative aorist covering the creative activity looked at as one event in contrast with the continuous existence of in verses John 1:1; John 1:2. All things “came into being.” Creation is thus presented as a becoming () in contrast with being ().
By him (‘ ). By means of him as the intermediate agent in the work of creation. The Logos is John’s explanation of the creation of the universe. The author of Hebrews (Heb 1:2) names God’s Son as the one “through whom he made the ages.” Paul pointedly asserts that “the all things were created in him” (Christ) and “the all things stand created through him and unto him” (Col 1:16). Hence it is not a peculiar doctrine that John here enunciates. In 1Co 8:6, Paul distinguishes between the Father as the primary source ( ) of the all things and the Son as the intermediate agent as here (‘ ).
Without him ( ). Old adverbial preposition with the ablative as in Php 2:14, “apart from.” John adds the negative statement for completion, another note of his style as in John 1:20; 1John 1:5. Thus John excludes two heresies (Bernard) that matter is eternal and that angels or aeons had a share in creation.
Not anything ( ). “Not even one thing.” Bernard thinks the entire Prologue is a hymn and divides it into strophes. That is by no means certain. It is doubtful also whether the relative clause “that hath been made” ( ) is a part of this sentence or begins a new one as Westcott and Hort print it. The verb is second perfect active indicative of . Westcott observes that the ancient scholars before Chrysostom all began a new sentence with . The early uncials had no punctuation.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
All things [] . Regarded severally. The reference is to the infinite detail of creation, rather than to creation as a whole, which is expressed by ta panta, the all (Col 1:16). For this reason John avoids the word kosmov, the world, which denotes the world as a great system. Hence Bengel, quoted by Meyer, is wrong in referring to kosmw (the world) of ver. 10 as a parallel.
Were made [] . Literally, came into being, or became. Expressing the passage from nothingness into being, and the unfolding of a divine order. Compare. vv. 14, 17. Three words are used in the New Testament to express the act of creation : ktizein, to create (Rev 4:11.; Rev 10:6; Col 1:16); poiein, to make (Rev 14:7; Mr 10:6), both of which refer to the Creator; and gignesqai, to become, which refers to that which is created. In Mr 10:6, both words occur. “From the beginning of the creation [] God made” [] . So in Eph 2:10 : “We are His workmanship [] , created [] in Christ Jesus.” Here the distinction is between the absolute being expressed by hn (see on ver. 1), and the coming into being of creation [] . The same contrast occurs in vv. 6, 9. “A man sent from God came into being” [] ; “the true Light was” [] .
“The main conception of creation which is present in the writings of St. John is expressed by the first notice which he makes of it : All things came into being through the Word. This statement sets aside the notions of eternal matter and of inherent evil in matter. ‘There was when’ the world ‘was not’ (Joh 17:5, 24); and, by implication, all things as made were good. The agency of the Word, ‘who was God, ‘ again excludes both the idea of a Creator essentially inferior to God, and the idea of an abstract Monotheism in which there is no living relation between the creature and the Creator; for as all things come into being ‘through’ the Word, so they are supported ‘in’ Him (Joh 1:3; compare Col 1:16 sq.; Heb 1:3). And yet more, the use of the term ejgeneto, came into being, as distinguished from ejktisqh, were created, suggests the thought that creation is to be regarded (according to our apprehension) as a manifestation of a divine law of love. Thus creation (all things came into being through Him) answers to the Incarnation (the Word became flesh). All the unfolding and infolding of finite being to the last issue lies in the fulfillment of His will who is love” (Westcott, on 1Jo 2:17).
By Him [ ] . Literally, through him. The preposition dia is generally used to denote the working of God through some secondary agency, as dia tou profhtou, through the prophet (Mt 1:22, on which see note). 11 It is the preposition by which the relation of Christ to creation is usually expressed (see 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2), though it is occasionally used of the Father (Heb 2:10; Rom 11:36, and Gal 1:1, where it is used of both). Hence, as Godet remarks, it “does not lower the Word to the rank of a simple instrument,” but merely implies a different relation to creation on the part of the Father and the Son.
Without [] . Literally, apart from. Compare Joh 14:5.
Was not anything made that was made [ ] . Many authorities place the period after en, and join oJ genonen with what follows, rendering, “without Him was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in Him.” 12 Made [] , as before, came into being.
Not anything [ ] . Literally, not even one thing. Compare on panta (all things) at the beginning of this verse.
That was made [ ] . Rev., more correctly, that hath been made, observing the force of the perfect tense as distinguished from the aorist [] . The latter tense points back to the work of creation considered as a definite act or series of acts in the beginning of time. The perfect tense indicates the continuance of things created; so that the full idea is, that which hath been made and exists. The combination of a positive and negative clause (compare ver. 20) is characteristic of John’s style, as also of James’. See note on “wanting nothing,” Jas 1:4.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
HIS PRE-INCARNATION WORK, v. 3-5
1) “All things were made by him,” (panta de’ autou egeneto) “All things became (came to be) through him,” through Him as the instrumental, personal agency of creation, who spoke all things into existence, by the word of His power in colleague of affinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Gen 1:1-3; 1Co 8:6; Rev 3:14.
2) “And without him,” (kai choris autou) “And apart from (or isolated and independent of him)” as the second person of the Godhead, Mat 28:19-20; 2Co 13:14; Act 17:24-31; Heb 11:3. Negatively John asserts that nothing arbitrarily evolved into existence or being.
3) “Was not anything made that was made. (egeneto oude hen ho gegonen) “Not one thing became which has come to be,” or come to exist, atheists, skeptics, gnostics, agnostics, and infidels in ignorance, to the contrary, not withstanding, “let God be true, but every man a liar,” who in ignorance attempts to contradict Him and it, Rom 3:3-4; Psa 119:160; Eph 3:9; Eph 4:18; Heb 1:3.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3. All things were made by him. Having affirmed that the Speech is God, and having asserted his eternal essence, he now proves his Divinity from his works. And this is the practical knowledge, to which we ought to be chiefly accustomed; for the mere name of God attributed to Christ will affect us little, if our faith do not feel it to be such by experience. In reference to the Son of God, he makes an assertion which strictly and properly applies to his person. Sometimes, indeed, Paul simply declares that all things are by God, (Rom 11:36) but whenever the Son is compared with the Father, he is usually distinguished by this mark. Accordingly, the ordinary mode of expression is here employed, that the Father made all things by the Son, and that all things are by God through the Son. Now the design of the Evangelist is, as I have already said, to show that no sooner was the world created than the Speech of God came forth into external operation; for having formerly been incomprehensible in his essence, he then became publicly known by the effect of his power. There are some, indeed, even among philosophers, who make God to be the Master-builder of the world in such a manner as to ascribe to him intelligence in framing this work. So far they are in the right, for they agree with Scripture; but as they immediately fly off into frivolous speculations, there is no reason why we should eagerly desire to have their testimonies; but, on the contrary, we ought to be satisfied with this inspired declaration, well knowing that it conveys far more than our mind is able to comprehend.
And without him was not any thing made that was made. Though there is a variety of readings in this passage, yet for my own part, I have no hesitation in taking it continuously thus: not any thing was made that was made; and in this almost all the Greek manuscripts, or at least those of them which are most approved, are found to agree; besides, the sense requires it. Those who separate the words, which was made, from the preceding clause, so as to connect them with the following one, bring out a forced sense: what was made was in him life; that is, lived, or was sustained in life. (13) But they will never show that this mode of expression is, in any instance, applied to creatures. Augustine, who is excessively addicted to the philosophy of Plato, is carried along, according to custom, to the doctrine of ideas; that before God made the world, he had the form of the whole building conceived in his mind; and so the life of those things which did not yet exist was in Christ, because the creation of the world was appointed in him. But how widely different this is From the intention of the Evangelist we shall immediately see.
I now return to the former clause. This is not a faulty redundancy, ( περιττολογία) as it appears to be; for as Satan endeavors, by every possible method, to take any thing from Christ, the Evangelist intended to declare expressly, that of those things which have been made there is no exception whatever.
(13) The difference of readings lies wholly in the punctuation, and the dispute is, whether the words ὃ γέγονεν shall form the conclusion of the Third, or the commencement of the Fourth verse. Calvin expresses his concurrence with the majority of manuscripts, which connect the words in question with the Third verse thus Καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν ὃ γέγονεν, and without him was not any thing made, (or, more literally, as well as more emphatically,) and without him was not one thing made which was made. Other manuscripts, certainly of no great authority, connect them with the Fourth verse: Καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν Ο γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ᾖν And without him was not one thing made What was made was in him life. The preference given by our Author rests on grounds which can scarcely be questioned. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) From the person of the Word we are guided to think of His creative work. The first chapter of Genesis is still present to the mind, but a fuller meaning can now be given to its words. All things came into existence by means of the pre-existent Word, and of all the things that now exist none came into being apart from Him.
All things.The words express in the grandeur of an unthinkable array of units what is expressed in totality by the world in Joh. 1:10. The completion of the thought by the negative statement of the opposite brings sharply before us the infinitely little in contrast with the infinitely great. Of all these units not one is by its vastness beyond, or by its insignificance beneath His creative will. For the relation of the Word to the Father in the work of creation, comp. Note on Col. 1:15-16.
For the form of this verse, which is technically known as antithetic parallelism, comp. Joh. 5:20; Joh. 5:23; Joh. 8:23; Joh. 10:27-28; 1Jn. 2:4; 1Jn. 2:27, et al. It is found not unfrequently in other parts of the New Testament, but it is a characteristic of St. Johns Hebrew style. Its occurrence in the poetry of the Old Testament, e.g., in the Psalms (Psa. 89:30-31, et al.) will be familiar to all.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3-5. Our Evangelist traces in beautiful climax the ascending stages of the creative work of the Logos; namely, as producing existence, life, consciousness, natural, moral, and spiritual.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
3. All things were made by him Rather, all things became, or came into existence, by him. The sublime opposite of nothingness.
Without anything All that from nothing rose, rose not without him. There may be things in their own nature strictly eternal and uncreated, such as space and number; such as the antithesis of right and wrong. Such things the Logos made not; but made all things which were made in accordance with these eternal natures.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘All things were made by (or through) Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.’
Note the continual twofold repetition. ‘In the beginning was the Word — the Word was in the beginning with God’, followed by ‘All things were made by (or through) Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.’ The repetition in the two statements in both cases stresses the importance of the subject matter. Here what is being emphasised was His total control in creation, firstly positively and then negatively. These words link the Word spoken of in John directly with the creation of all things, and therefore with the creative Word of Genesis 1. They indicate that that was John’s intention. In Genesis 1 creation took place through the powerful command of God, and the Word is thus powerfully linked with God’s creative power (‘by the word of the Lord the heavens were made’ – Psa 33:6). So, by equating Jesus with the Word, John is directly linking Jesus with God’s act of creating. He is saying that when, for example, God said, by His word, ‘Let there be light’, and light resulted, it was through Jesus Christ Himself that He was acting. God’s Word went forth in creating. In other words Jesus Christ, Who had now walked this earth as a man, is portrayed as being Himself the Creator of all things by His divine power, the Creator of light and the Creator of all that is, to such an extent that nothing that was made was made without Him.
We should note here the significance of this for our doctrine of God. In Gen 1:2 we have God’s Word going forth, a very part of Himself, and God’s Spirit ready to bring about His will. The triune God is in action.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 1:3. All things were made by him; Although the word make is capable of an extensive sense, yet, as in other passages Jesus is said to have created all things, Col 1:16 we cannot doubt that St. John uses the word in the sense of creation, a meaning which it often has in the Jewish scriptures. It is true, this and the other passages which speak of Christ’s making all things, are by some explained of his erecting the Christian dispensation. But let it be observed here, once for all, that if the Socinian explication of the texts, which attribute to the Lord Jesus the names, perfections, and actions of the true God, be admitted, it will be impossible to clear the evangelists from the imputation of having laid in man’s way a most violent temptation to idolatry: for it is well known that, as in all ages men have been exceedingly prone to worship false gods, so it was the prevailing vice of the Gentile world when the New Testament was written: that the grossest corruption of morals has ever flowed from this poisonous spring, Rom 1:24; Rom 1:32 and that to destroy idolatry, and bring mankind to the spiritual worship of the true God, was the great end proposed by God in all the revelations which he made of himself to men. This being the case, is it to be imagined, that either Christ himself, who brought the last and best revelation of the divine will, or his apostles, who committed that revelation to writing, would on any occasion have used such expressions, as in their plainand obvious meaning could not fail to lead the believers in that revelation to ascribe to Christ the names, perfections, and actions of the true God, and to pay him divine worship as the true God; while in reality they meant no more than that he was miraculously formed, was commissioned to deliver a new religion to the world, was endowed with the power of miracles, and, in consideration of his exemplary death, was raised from the grave, and had divine honours conferred upon him? Instead of reforming the world, this was to have laid in their way such a temptation to idolatry as they could not well resist; nor has the effect been any other than what was to be expected: for the generality, even of nominal Christians, moved by these expressions, have all along considered Christ as God, and honoured him accordingly, as the God who made all things, and without whom was not any thing made that was made: “not so much as any single thing ( ) having existence, whether among the noblest or meanest of God’s works, was made without him.” But, if all things were madeby him, he cannot be himself of the number of the things that were made: he is superior therefore to every created being. Besides, it should be remembered, that in the Old Testament the creation of the heavens and the earth is often mentioned as the prerogative of the true God, whereby he is distinguished from the heathen idols. The design of the evangelist in establishing so particularlyand distinctly the dignity, but especially the divinity of Christ, was, first, to give due weight to the fundamental doctrine of his atonement, and, secondly, to raise in mankind the profoundest veneration for his instructions: and without doubt he who is the Word of God, the interpreter of the divine counsels, and who is himself God, ought to be heard with the deepest attention, and obeyed with the most implicit submission. It is this circumstance,that the Son of God, who is God, came down from heaven to earth, and in person instituted the Christian religion,which gives it a dignity beyond any thing that can be imagined by men. It would be the work of a treatise rather than of a note, to represent the Jewish doctrine of the creation of all things by the divine Logos, to which, rather than to the Platonic, there may be some reference here.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 1:3 . ] “grande verbum, quo mundus , i.e. universitas rerum factarum denotatur, Joh 1:10 ,” Bengel. Comp. Gen 1 ; Col 1:16 ; Heb 1:2 . Quite opposed to the context is the view of the Socinians: “the moral creation is meant.” Comp. rather Philo, de Cherub . I. 162, where the appears as the (comp. 1Co 8:6 ) ( ). The further speculations of Philo concerning the relation of the to the creation, which however are not to be imputed to John, see in Hoelemann, l.c. p. 36 ff. John might have written (with the article), as in 1Co 8:6 and Col 1:16 , but he was not obliged to do so. Comp. Col 1:17 , Joh 3:35 . For his thought is “ all ” (unlimited), whereas would express “the whole of what actually exists.”
, . . .] an emphatic parallelismus antitheticus , often occurring in the classics (Dissen, ad Dem, de Cor . p. 228; Maetzner, ad Antiph . p. 157), in the N. T. throughout, and especially in John (Joh 1:20 ; Joh 10:28 ; 1Jn 2:4 ; 1Jn 2:27 , al .). We are not to suppose that by this negative reference John meant to exclude (so Lcke, Olshausen, De Wette, Frommann, Maier, Baeumlein) the doctrine of a having an extra-temporal existence (Philo, l.c. ), because and describe that which exists only since the creation , as having come into existence, and therefore would not be included in the conception. John neither held nor desired to oppose the idea of the ; the antithesis has no polemical design not even of an anti-gnostic kind to point out that the Logos is raised above the series of Aeons (Tholuck); for though the world of spirits is certainly included in the and the , it is not specially designated (comp. Col 1:16 ). How the Valentinians had already referred it to the Aeons , see in Iren. Haer . i. 8. 5; Hilgenfeld, d. Ev. u. d. Briefe Joh . p. 32 ff.
] ne unum quidem, i.e. prorsus nihil , more strongly emphatic than . Comp. 1Co 6:5 ; see Stallbaum, ad Plat. Sympos . p. 214 D; Khner, ad Xen. Mem . i. 6. 2. As to the thing itself, comp. Philo, II. p. 225: .
] Perfect: what has come into being, and now is . Comp. , Col 1:16 . This belongs to the emphatic fulness of the statement (Bornemann, Schol. in Luc . p. xxxvii.), and connects itself with what precedes . The very ancient connection of it with what follows (C. D. L. Verss., Clem. Al., Origen, and other Greeks, Heracleon, Ptolemaeus, Philos. Orig . v. 8, Latin Fathers, also Augustine, Wetst., Lachm., Weisse), by putting the comma after either . or (so already the Valentinians), [76] is to be rejected, although it would harmonize with John’s manner of carrying forward the members of his sentences, whereby “ex proximo membro sumitur gradus sequentis” (Erasmus); but in other respects it would only be Johannean if the comma were placed after . (so also Lachm.). The ground of rejection lies not in the ambiguity of , which cannot surprise us in John, but in this, that the perfect , as implying continuance, would have logically required instead of after ; to not but would have been appropriate, so that the sense would have been: “what came into existence had in Him its ground or source of life.”
[76] “ Whatever originated in Him (self) is life .” The latter is said to be the Zo, which with the Logos formed one Syzygy. Hilgenfeld regards this view as correct, in connection with the assumption of the later Gnostic origin of the Gospel. But the construction is false as regards the words , because neither nor stands in the passage; and false also as regards the thought , because, according to vv. 1 3, a principle of life cannot have first originated in the Logos, but must have existed from the very beginning. Even Bunsen ( Hypol . II. 291, 357) erroneously preferred the punctuation of the Alexandrines and Gnostics.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Ver. 3. All things were made by him ] So he was not idle with the Father (though he were his darling, sporting always before him, Pro 8:30 ), but by him, as by a principal efficient and co-agent with the Father and the Holy Ghost, all things were made; as some shadow and obscure representation of his wisdom, power, goodness, &c., seen in the creature, as the sun is seen in water, or as letters refracted in a pair of spectacles are beheld by a dim eye. We can see but God’s back parts, and live; we need see no more, that we may live, Exo 33:23 .
And without him was nothing made ] This is added for the more certainty: it being usual with the Hebrews, thus by negation to confirm what they have before affirmed, where they would assure that the thing is so indeed; as Psa 92:15 ; Joh 7:18 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3. ] = (1Co 8:6 ; Col 1:16 ), = , Joh 1:10 . This parallelism of itself refutes the Socinian interpretation of , ‘all Christian graces and virtues,’ ‘the whole moral world.’ But the history of the term forbids such an explanation entirely. For Philo (i. 162) says ( ) , , , , , : see also Col 1:16 , and Heb 1:2 . Olshausen observes, that we never read in Scripture that ‘Christ made the world;’ but ‘the Father made the world the Son,’ or ‘the world was made the Father, and the Son:’ because the Son never works of Himself , but always as the revelation of the Father; His work is the Father’s will , and the Father has no Will, except the Son, who is all His will ( ). The Christian Fathers rightly therefore rejected the semi-Arian formula, ‘The Son was begotten by an act of the Father’s will;’ for He is that Will Himself .
. . ] This addition is not merely a Hebraistic parallelism, but a distinct denial of the eternity and uncreatedness of matter as held by the Gnostics. They set matter , as a separate existence, over against God, and made it the origin of evil: but John excludes any such notion. Nothing was made without Him (the ); all matter, and implicitly evil itself, in the deep and inscrutable purposes of creation (for it ), .
The punctuation at the end of the verse is uncertain, if we regard solely manuscript authority, but rests on the sense of the passage, which is rendered weak, and inconsistent with analogy, by placing the period after : weak , because in that case we must render ‘That which was made by Him was life (i.e. having life), and that life was the light of men;’ but how was that life, i.e. that living creation which was made by Him, the light of men? inconsistent with grammatical analogy , for John never uses for ‘to be made by.’ [But Cyr-Alex [5] , who adopts this punctuation, renders the passage thus: ‘that which was made, therein was life.’] Besides which, John’s usage of beginning a sentence with and a demonstrative pron. should have its weight: cf. ch. Joh 13:35 ; Joh 15:8 ; Joh 16:26 : 1Jn 2:3-5 ; 1Jn 3 :(8), 10, 16, 19, 24; Joh 4:2 alli [6] . fr. Compare also , 1Jn 2:4 , , ib. 1Jn 3:5 . I have determined therefore for the ordinary punctuation. It is said to have been first adopted owing to an abuse of the passage by the Macedonian heretics, who maintained that if the exclusion was complete , the Holy Spirit can also not have been without His creating power, i.e. was created by Him. But this would be refuted without including , for the Holy Spirit , not .
[5] Alex. Cyril, Bp. of Alexandria, 412 444
[6] alli = some cursive mss.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 1:3 . . The connection is obvious: the Word was with God in the beginning, but not as an idle, inefficacious existence, who only then for the first time put forth energy when He came into the world. On the contrary, He was the source of all activity and life. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not even one thing made which was made.”
The double sentence, positive and negative, is characteristic of John and lends emphasis to the statement. , “grande verbum quo mundus, i.e. , universitas rerum factarum denotatur” (Bengel). The more accurate expression for “all things” taken as a whole and not severally is (Col 1:16 ) or ; and, as the negative clause of this verse indicates, created things are here looked at in their variety and multiplicity. Cf. Marcus Aurelius, iv. 23, , , , , . . The Word was the Agent in creation. But it is to be observed that the same preposition is used of God in the same connection in Rom 11:36 , ; and in Col 1:16 the same writer uses the same prepositions not of the Father but of the Son when he says: . In 1Co 8:6 Paul distinguishes between the Father as the primal source of all things and the Son as the actual Creator. (In Greek philosophy the problem was to ascertain by whom, of what, and in view of what the world was made; , , . And Lcke quotes a significant sentence from Philo ( De Cherub. , 35): ( ) , , )
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
All things. Referring to the infinite detail of creation. ‘
were made = came into being. Not the same word as in Joh 1:1.
by = through. Greek. dia. App-104. Joh 1:1. As in Rom 11:36. Col 1:16. Heb 1:2.
and without, &c. Note the Figure of speech Pleonasm. App-6.
without = apart from.
was = came into being. Not the same word as in Joh 1:1.
not any thing = not even one thing. Greek oude, compound of ou. App-105.
was made = hath come into being.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3.] = (1Co 8:6; Col 1:16), = , Joh 1:10. This parallelism of itself refutes the Socinian interpretation of , all Christian graces and virtues, the whole moral world. But the history of the term forbids such an explanation entirely. For Philo (i. 162) says ( ) , , , , , : see also Col 1:16, and Heb 1:2. Olshausen observes, that we never read in Scripture that Christ made the world; but the Father made the world the Son, or the world was made the Father, and the Son: because the Son never works of Himself, but always as the revelation of the Father; His work is the Fathers will, and the Father has no Will, except the Son, who is all His will ( ). The Christian Fathers rightly therefore rejected the semi-Arian formula, The Son was begotten by an act of the Fathers will; for He is that Will Himself.
. .] This addition is not merely a Hebraistic parallelism, but a distinct denial of the eternity and uncreatedness of matter as held by the Gnostics. They set matter, as a separate existence, over against God, and made it the origin of evil:-but John excludes any such notion. Nothing was made without Him (the ); all matter, and implicitly evil itself, in the deep and inscrutable purposes of creation (for it ), .
The punctuation at the end of the verse is uncertain, if we regard solely manuscript authority, but rests on the sense of the passage, which is rendered weak, and inconsistent with analogy, by placing the period after :-weak, because in that case we must render That which was made by Him was life (i.e. having life), and that life was the light of men; but how was that life, i.e. that living creation which was made by Him, the light of men?-inconsistent with grammatical analogy, for John never uses for to be made by. [But Cyr-Alex[5], who adopts this punctuation, renders the passage thus: that which was made, therein was life.] Besides which, Johns usage of beginning a sentence with and a demonstrative pron. should have its weight: cf. ch. Joh 13:35; Joh 15:8; Joh 16:26 : 1Jn 2:3-5; 1 John 3 :(8), 10, 16, 19, 24; Joh 4:2 alli[6]. fr. Compare also , 1Jn 2:4,- , ib. 1Jn 3:5. I have determined therefore for the ordinary punctuation. It is said to have been first adopted owing to an abuse of the passage by the Macedonian heretics, who maintained that if the exclusion was complete, the Holy Spirit can also not have been without His creating power, i.e. was created by Him. But this would be refuted without including , for the Holy Spirit , not .
[5] Alex. Cyril, Bp. of Alexandria, 412-444
[6] alli = some cursive mss.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 1:3. , all things) A large word, by which the world, i.e. the whole totality of things created is denoted, Joh 1:10. All things, which are outside of God, were made; and all things which were made, were made by the Logos. Now at last the Theologian is come from the Being [Esse] of the Word to the Being made [Fieri] of all things. In verses 1, 2, is described [His] state before the world was made; in Joh 1:3, in the making of the world; in Joh 1:4, in the time of mans innocency; in Joh 1:5, in the time of mans degeneracy.- , by Him) In opposition to without Him.-, were made) That in some measure is earlier than the , founding of all things, and evidently implies, as an inference, the making of all things out of nothing. Thus the all things sounds as if it were something earlier than the , the world, wholly completed, and especially mankind; to which John comes down in the 9th and 10th verses.- , and without) This sentence expresses something more than that immediately preceding. The Subject is, Not even one thing: The Predicate is, without Him was made, which was made. And the , which, is evidently used similarly to the , 1Co 15:10, By the grace of God I am what I am.- , not even one thing) However superlatively excellent.- , which was made) after its kind: Gen 1:11; Gen 1:21; Gen 1:24. The Preterite [is in existence] implies something more absolute than the Aorist [was brought into existence], though in Latin both are expressed by factum est. Those fancies, which Artemonius, p. 333, 402, etc., invents according to his own theories, have been refuted, together with the theories themselves.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 1:3
Joh 1:3
All things were made through him;-The Word was the creative agency of the Godhead.
and without him was not anything made that hath been made.-[Without the intervention or help of any other person or being, he created all things. This language is sweeping and unevadable. The logos was the active agent in the whole broad work of creation.] Jesus was the active representative of the Godhead in the work of creation. Heb 1:1-2 : God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. Joh 1:10 : He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Col 1:16 : In him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
am 1, bc 4004, Joh 1:10, Joh 5:17-19, Gen 1:1, Gen 1:26, Psa 33:6, Psa 102:25, Isa 45:12, Isa 45:18, Eph 3:9, Col 1:16, Col 1:17, Heb 1:2, Heb 1:3, Heb 1:10-12, Heb 3:3, Heb 3:4, Rev 4:11
Reciprocal: Gen 4:16 – went 2Ch 2:16 – as much as thou shalt need Psa 95:6 – our Psa 146:6 – made heaven Pro 3:19 – Lord Isa 37:16 – thou hast Isa 44:24 – by myself Jer 10:12 – hath made Jer 20:9 – I will 1Co 8:6 – and we by 2Th 1:7 – his mighty angels Heb 11:3 – faith 1Pe 1:23 – born
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
3
The pronoun him means the Word of verse 1, and whom we know as the Son in the New Testament. All things were made by Him. That accounts for the plural pronoun “us” in Gen 1:26; Gen 3:22; Gen 11:7. In all of the domain of creation, providence and redemption, God the Father and God the Son, worked together in perfect unison although they are separate personalities.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 1:3. All things came into being through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into being. Such a combination of two clauses, the first positive, the second negative (see note on Joh 1:20), is characteristic of Johns style. The two together assert the truth contained in them with a universality and force not otherwise attainable. This truth is, that all thingsnot all as a whole, but all things in the individuality which precedes their combination into a wholecame into being through this Word, who is God. The preposition through is that by which the relation of the Second Person of the Trinity to creation is usually expressed (1Co 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2); as, indeed, this is the conception which belongs to the doctrine of the Logos, the Divine Word. Occasionally, however, the same language is used of the Father: see Heb 1:10, and comp. Rom 11:36.
Joh 1:3-4. That which hath come into being was life in him. We are led by various considerations to take this view of the passage rather than that which is presented in the Authorised Version. The Greek admits of either punctuation (and rendering), but the absence of the article before the word life suggests that it is here a predicate, not the subject of the sentence. By almost all (if not all) the Greek Fathers of the first three centuries the words were thus understood; and we may reasonably, in such a case as this, attach great importance to the conclusions attained by that linguistic tact which is often most sure where it is least able to assign distinct reasons for its verdict. Further, this division of the words corresponds best with the rhythmical mode in which the earlier sentences of the Prologue are connected with one another. It is characteristic of them to make the voice dwell mainly, in each line of the rhythm, upon a word taken from the preceding line; and this characteristic is not preserved in the case before us unless we adhere to the ancient construction. We have seen what the Word is in Himself; we are now to see Him in His relation to His creatures.
Created being was life in Him. He was life, life absolutely, and therefore the life that can communicate itself,the infinitely productive life, from whom alone came to every creature, as He called it into being, the measure of life that it possesses. In Him was the fountain of all life; and every form of life, known or unknown, was only a drop of water from the stream which, gathered up in Him before, flowed forth at His creative word to people the universe of being with the endlessly multiplied and diversified existences that play their part in it. It is not of the life of man only that John speaks, still less is it only of that spiritual and eternal life which constitutes mans true being. If the word life is often used in this more limited sense in the Gospel, it is because other kinds and developments of life pass out of view in the presence of that life on which the writer especially loves to dwell. The word itself has no such limitation of meaning, and when used, as here, without anything to suggest limitation, it must be taken in its most comprehensive sense. It was in the Word, then, that all things that have life lived; the very physical world, if we can say of its movements that they are life, the vegetable world, the world of the lower animals, the world of men and angels, up to the highest angel that is before the throne. Ere yet they came into being, their life was in the Word who, as God, was life, and from the Word they received it when their actual being began. The lesson is the same as that of Col 1:16-17, In Him were all things created, and in Him all things subsist; or, still more, of Rev 4:11, Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy pleasure they were (not are, as in the Authorised Version), and they were created.
And the life was the light of men. From the wide thought of all created existences, the Evangelist passes in these words to the last and greatest of the works of God, man, whose creation is recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. All creatures had life in the Word; but this life was to man something more than it could be to others, because he had been created after a fashion, and placed in a sphere, peculiar to himself amidst the different orders of animated being. God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Gen 1:26). Man was thus capable of receiving God, and of knowing that he had received Him; he had a sphere and a capacity belonging to none of the lower creatures spoken of in the great record of creation; his nature was fitted to be the conscious abode, not of the human only, but of the divine. Hence the Word could be in him as in no other creature. But the Word is God (Joh 1:1), and God is light (1Jn 1:5). Thus the Word is light (comp. Joh 1:7); and as man was essentially fitted to receive the Word, that Word giving life to all found in him a fitness for the highest and fullest life,for light, therefore, in its highest and fullest sense; and the life was the light of men.
The idea of human nature thus set forth in these words is peculiarly remarkable, and worthy of our observation, not only as a complete answer to those who bring a charge of Manichan dualism against the Fourth Gospel, but also to enable us to comprehend its teaching as to human responsibility in the presence of Jesus. The life, it is said, was the light of men not of a class, not of some, but of all the members of the human family as such. Mans true nature, it is said, is divine; divine in this respect also, as distinguished from the divine in all creation, that man is capable of recognising, acknowledging, seeing the divine in himself. The life becomes light in him, and it does not become so in lower creatures. Mans true life is the life of the Word; it was so originally, and he knew it to be so. If, therefore, he listens to the tempter and yields to sin (whose existence is admitted simply as a fact, no attempt being made to account for it), man corrupts his true nature, and is responsible for doing so. But his fall cannot destroy his nature, which still testifies to what his first condition was, to what his normal condition is, to what he ought to be. Man, therefore, only fulfils his original nature by again receiving that Word who is to offer Himself to him as the Word become flesh. But if mans receiving of the Word be thus the fulfilling of his nature, it is his duty to receive Him; and this duty is impressed upon him by his nature, not by mere external authority. Hence the constant appeal of Jesus in this Gospel, not to external evidence only, but to that remaining life of the Word within us, which ought to receive the Word completely, and to hasten to the Light (comp. Joh 1:9).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, The argument which St. John uses to prove Christ to be God; it is taken from the work of creation. He that made all things, is truly and really God; but Christ made all things, and nothing was made without him; therefore is Christ truly and really God.
Here observe, 1. An affirmation of as large and vast an extent as the whole world. All things were made by him; not this or that particular being, but all created beings received their existence and being from Christ.
Observe, 2. That to prevent the least imagination of any thing’s having another author than Christ, here is the most positive and particular negation that can be: that without him was not any thing made that was made; not without him as an instrument, but without him as an agent, Christ being a co-worker with the Father and the Spirit in the work of creation. He was an Author of the creation, not an instrument in creating.
Learn thence, that Christ, as God, being the Creator and Maker of all things himself, is excluded from being a creature, or any thing that was made.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 1:3. All things were made by him All creatures, whether in heaven or on earth, the whole universe, and every being contained therein, animate or inanimate, intelligent or unintelligent. The Father spoke every thing into being by him, his Eternal Word. Thus, Psa 33:6, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, &c. This, however, is not the only reason why the Son of God is termed the Word. He is not only called so, because God at first created and still governs all things by him; but because, as men discover their minds to one another by the intervention of words, speech, or discourse, so God, by his Son, discovers his gracious designs to men in the fullest and clearest manner. All the various manifestations which he makes of himself, whether in the works of creation, providence, or redemption, all the revelations he has been pleased to give of his will, have been, and still are, conveyed to us through him, and therefore he is, by way of eminence, fitly styled here, the Word, and Rev 19:13, the Word of God. Macknight. Thus also Bishop Horne: (Sermons, vol. 1. pp. 199, 200:) Should it be asked, why this person is styled the Word? the proper answer seems to be, that as a thought, or conception of the understanding, is brought forth and communicated in speech or discourse, so is the divine will made known by the WORD, who is the offspring and emanation of the eternal mind, an emanation pure and undivided, like that of light, which is the proper issue of the sun, and yet coeval with its parent orb; since the sun cannot be supposed, by the most exact and philosophical imagination, to exist a moment without emitting light; and were the one eternal, the other, though strictly and properly produced by it, would be as strictly and properly co-eternal with it. So true is the assertion of the Nicene fathers; so apt the instance subjoined for its illustration, God of God, light of light: in apostolical language, , The brightness of his Fathers glory, and the express image of his person. And whether we consider our Lord under the idea of the WORD, or that of LIGHT, it will lead us to the same conclusion respecting his office. For, as no man can discover the mind of another, but by the word which proceedeth from him; as no man can see the sun, but by the light which itself emitteth, even so, No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him! It may not be improper to observe further here, that the term , Word, was in use among the ancient philosophers, who sometimes speak of a person under that appellation as the Maker of the universe. So Tertullian informs the Gentiles: Apud vestros quoque sapientes , id est, Sermonem atque Rationem, constat artificem videri universitatis. It appears that among your wise men, the , that is, the Word and Reason, was considered as the Former of the universe. And Eusebius, in the eleventh book of his Evangelical Preparation, cites a passage from Amelius, a celebrated admirer and imitator of Plato, in which he speaks of the as being eternal, and the Maker of all things. This, he says, was the opinion of Heraclitus, and then introduces the beginning of the gospel of St. John; concerning whom it seems he was wont to complain, that he had transferred into his book the sentiments of his master Plato. But it is not likely that our evangelist either borrowed from, or intended to copy after Plato. And since not only Plato, but Pythagoras and Zeno likewise, conversed with the Jews, it is not at all wonderful that we meet with something about a , or DIVINE WORD, in their writings. Nor, after all, might the philosopher and the apostle use the same term in the same acceptation. It is customary with the writers of the New Testament to express themselves as much as may be in the language of the Old, to which, therefore, we must have recourse for an explanation of their meaning, as the penmen of both, under the direction of one Spirit, used their terms in the same sense. Now, upon looking into the Old Testament, we find, that the Word of Jehovah is frequently and evidently the style of a person who is said to come, to be revealed, or manifested, and the like, as in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, The word of Jehovah came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, &c. Behold, the Word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, and he brought him forth abroad. Thus again, (1 Samuel 3.,) Jehovah revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh, by the Word of Jehovah. The same person is, at other times, characterized by the title, the Name of Jehovah, , as in Isa 30:27, Behold, the Name of Jehovah cometh from far, burning with his anger, &c. With regard to the nature of the person thus denominated, whoever shall duly consider the attributes, powers, and actions ascribed to him, will see reason to think of him, not as a created intelligence, but a person of the divine essence, possessed of all its incommunicable properties. And it may be noticed, that the Targums, or Chaldee paraphrasts, continually substitute the Word of Jehovah for Jehovah, ascribing divine characters to the person so named. And the ancient Grecizing Jews speak in the same style. Thus, in that excellent apocryphal book of Wisdom, (ix. 1,) O God, who hast made all things, , by thy Word; and again in the passage which so wonderfully describes the horrors of that night, never to be forgotten by an Israelite, wherein the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain: While all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, thine Almighty WORD () leaped down from heaven, out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war, into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thy unfeigned commandment, as a sharp sword; and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heaven, but stood upon the earth, Joh 18:14. Hornes Discourses, disc. 7. vol. 1. pp. 194-197. And without him was not any thing made , not so much as any single thing having existence, whether among the nobler or the meaner works of God, was made without him. See the same truth attested and enlarged upon by Paul, Col 1:16. Now, if all things were made by him, he cannot be himself of the number of the things that were made. He is superior, therefore, to every created being. Besides, it should be remembered, that in the Old Testament, the creation of the heavens and the earth is often mentioned as the prerogative of the true God, whereby he is distinguished from the heathen idols. The design of the evangelist in establishing so particularly and distinctly the dignity, but especially the divinity of Christ, was to raise in mankind the most profound veneration for him, and for all his instructions and actions. And, without doubt, he who is the Word of God, the interpreter of the divine counsels, and who is himself God, ought to be heard with the deepest attention, and obeyed with the most implicit submission.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
[See also the “General Considerations on the Prologue” in the comments of Joh 1:18.]
Vv. 3. All things were made through Him, and not one of the things which exist was made without Him.
The work of creation was the first act of the divine revelation ad extra. The preposition , through, does not lower the Logos to the rank of a mere instrument. For this preposition is often applied to God Himself (Rom 11:36; Gal 1:1; Heb 2:10). Nevertheless it has as its object to reserve the place of God beside and above the Logos. This same relation is explained and more completely developed by Paul, 1Co 8:6 : We have but one God, the Fatherfrom whom () are all things, and we are for him (); and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through () whom are all things, and we are through him. So, then, no being has come into existence without having passed through the intelligence and will of the Logos. But, also, the Logos derives everything from the Father, and refers everything to the Father. This is what is at once indicated by , through, which leaves room for with relation to the Father.
The word , all things, differs from all the things, in that the second phrase can designate a particular totality which must be determined according to the context (comp. 2Co 5:18), while the first indicates the most unlimited universality.The term , to become, forms a contrast with , to be, in Joh 1:1-2; it indicates the passage from nothing to existence, as opposed to eternal existence; comp. the same contrast, Joh 8:58 : Before Abraham became, I am.
The second proposition repeats in a negative form the idea which is affirmatively stated in the first. This mode of expression is frequently found in John, especially in the first Epistle; it is intended to exclude any exception. The reading , nothing, instead of , not even one thing, is not sufficiently supported. It is, undoubtedly, connected with the explanation which places a period immediately after this word (see on Joh 1:4).
Some modern writers, Lucke, Olshausen, de Wette, Baumlein, suppose that by this expression: Not even one thing, John meant to set aside the Platonic idea of eternal matter (). But eternal matter would not be a , one thing; it would be the foundation of everything. It is no less arbitrary to claim, as has been claimed, that in this passage the apostle aims to make the world proceed from an eternally pre-existing matter. Where in the text is the slightest trace of such an idea to be found? Far from holding that a blind principle, such as matter, co-operated in the existence of the universe, John means to say, on the contrary, that every existence comes from that intelligent and free being whom he has for this reason designated by the name Word. There is not an insect, not a blade of grass, which does not bear the trace of this divine intervention, the seal of this wisdom.The foundation of the universe, as Lange says, is luminous. It is the Word!
We have, in the translation, joined the last words of the Greek phrase: (which exists) to Joh 1:3, and not, as many interpreters, to Joh 1:4 (see on that verse). These words seem, it is true, to mak a useless repetition in connection with the verb (became). This apparent repetition has been explained by a redundancy peculiar to the style of John. But it must not be forgotten that the Greek perfect is, in reality, a present, and that the sense of ‘ is consequently, not: nothing of what has come to be, has come to be without Him; but nothing of what subsists, of what now is (), came to be () without Him. There is here, therefore, neither redundance nor tautology. The apostle here has nothing to do with theological speculation; his aim is practical. He has in view the redemptive work (Joh 1:14); he wishes to make it understood that He who is become our Saviour is nothing less than the divine and personal being who was associated with God in the work of creation. But the Word has not been the organ of God simply for bringing all beings from nothing into existence; it is He, also, who, when the world is once created, remains the principle of its conservation, and of its ulterior development, both physical and moral.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
1:3 {2} All {f} things were made by him; and {g} without him {h} was not any thing made that was made.
(2) The Son of God declares that his everlasting Godhead is the same as the Father’s, both by the creating of all things, and also by preserving them, and especially by the excellent gifts of reason and understanding with which he has beautified man above all other creatures.
(f) Paul expounds on this in Col 1:15-16 .
(g) That is, as the Father did work, so did the Son work with him: for the Son was a fellow worker with him.
(h) Of all those things which were made, nothing was made without him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
John next explicitly declared what was implicit in the Old Testament use of the word "word." Jesus was God’s agent in creating everything that has come into existence (cf. 1Co 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; Rev 3:14). It was the second person of the Trinity who created the universe and all it contains. However, John described the Word as God’s agent. The Word did not act independently from the Father. Thus John presented Jesus as under God the Father’s authority but over every created thing in authority. Jesus’ work of revealing God began with Creation because all creation reveals God (Psa 19:1-6; Rom 1:19-20).
John characteristically stated a proposition positively (part "a" of this verse) and then immediately repeated it negatively for emphasis and clarification (part "b" of this verse).