There’s a story of a young skeptic who told an elderly Christian lady, “I once believed there was a God, but now, since studying philosophy and mathematics, I am convinced that God is but an empty word.”
She responded, “I haven’t studied those subjects, but since you have, can you tell me where an egg comes from?”
“A hen, of course” he answered.
“And where does the hen come from?”
“From an egg.”
Then the lady asked, “Which came first, the hen or the egg?”
“I suppose the hen” the young man said.
“Oh, then a hen must have existed without having come from an egg?”
“Oh no, I should have said the egg was first.”
“Then I suppose you mean that an egg existed that didn’t come from a hen?”
The young man hesitated: “Well, you see, that is, of course, well, the hen was first!”
Then she said, “who made that first hen from which all succeeding eggs and hens have come?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Simply this: I say that whoever created the first hen or egg is He who created the world. You can’t explain the existence even of a hen or an egg without God, and yet you wish me to believe that you can explain the existence of the whole world without Him!”
While that story is very likely fictional, it helps to illustrate the problem faced by anyone who claims that the world and everything in it came into being by purely naturalistic means. At some point you’ve got to have a hen which didn’t come from an egg or an egg that didn’t come from a hen. We may not be able to conclusively answer the question of whether the hen or the egg came first, but we know, based on Scripture, who made it in the beginning. John 1:3 puts it this way: “All things came to be through him, and apart from him not even one thing came to be that has come to be.” John is referring to the one he calls “the Word” in v.1-2 (he later identifies him as Jesus Christ in v.18) and says he has existed eternally face-to-face with God, and also that he is God. According to v.3, Jesus is the Creator of all things.
All Things Were Created
There are many popular theories about how the world came to be. Some begin with a void of nothingness out of which gods and/or goddesses arose and proceeded to create the physical world. Others claim that the universe was formed out of the bloody remains of a god or goddess who was attacked and killed by other deities. Still others claim that the primordial universe was governed by two opposing gods and through their competition the spiritual and physical elements of the universe were created. Of course there are also those who believe that the universe itself is timeless and god-like in its ability to produce matter, energy, life, and consciousness. Each belief presupposes a structure of physical reality that is eternally uncreated.
This is precisely what John 1:3 denies, however, when he says, “All things came into being through Him.” Nothing merely is. Everything we see around us came into being at some point. “All things” doesn’t mean all kinds of things or all categories of things; it doesn’t mean “everything else after the first thing”; it means everything, period. In other words, the universe isn’t eternal, nor is it self-perpetuating. If all things came to be, it is reasonable to wonder by what power or agency this happened. “Who made it?” is an excellent question, and John says it was the eternal Word.
All Things Were Created by Jesus
There’s a kind of symmetry between John’s gospel and Genesis, especially as each describes the origin of all things. “In the beginning was the Word,” echoes Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Moses repeatedly states that God spoke and the world was made. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” (Gen. 1:3), is the first of 8 times that God’s word resulted in the appearance of something which previously did not exist.1 It is not poetic license when the psalmist says, “By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps. 33:6). So when John identifies Jesus as “the Word” and says that all things came into being through him, he is drawing on long-established truths.
But this presents us with another challenge: if all things came to be, and if all things came to be through Jesus, how did Jesus come to be? Does John contradict himself by claiming that the Word is eternal (v.1-2), and yet all things came to be (v.3a)?
All Things That Came to Be Were Created by Jesus
The answer to this question is found in the last part of v.3. John makes a crucial distinction here by noting that the Word is the agent through whom all things came to be that came to be. In other words, the whole of reality can be divided into two categories: things which have come into being and things which never came to be. This is not real vs imaginary but originate vs unoriginate. The Word is the creator of all the things which have come to be; things that never came to be are by definition eternal and do not need to be made. The dedicated materialist claims that the physical universe is eternal and uncreated. This is contradicted both by observational science and by the Bible. All things were made by the Word, and the things he has made are those things which began to exist.
Some will say that only God is eternal, therefore the Word must have come into being at some point. In their minds, Jesus is the first creation. They will even try to suggest that John means to say in v.3, “All other things came into being through him.,” but that is precisely what John does not say. In fact, he leaves no room for that possibility at all by saying that “apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.” If Jesus came to be, then he came to be through himself, which means he would have to exist before he existed. This position is shown to be utter nonsense, and anyone who claims that the Son of God began to exist is refuted. Instead John 1:3 reveals Jesus to be the Creator of all things; himself being uncreated and eternal.
1cf. Genesis 1:6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26
