..."through him all things were made"...
Reflecting on our next line in the Creed, “through Him all things were made”, it is interesting to me that it is Jesus that we are talking about. We don’t always think of Jesus as Creator, usually we ascribe that name to the God “person” of the Trinity. But Jesus certainly was a part of the act of creating. This is confirmed for us in the opening line of the Gospel of John -
“In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him;
And without him nothing came to be” (John 1:1-3).
“The Word” was present at the beginning of the world and created everything in the world. Jesus is this Word that the writer of the Gospel of John is referencing. Thus, we know that Jesus created with God.
That opening line to the Gospel of John begins in a very similar way to the first creation story in the Book of Genesis; both books start with this phrase, “in the beginning”. This signifies the connection between the two books. Given this connection, it seems relevant to return to the first creation story to see what additional insights it can provide to us in consideration of our created-ness in Christ.
In the first creation story, we get a very specific division of days where God performs a distinct creative act on each day. There is a rhythm to this creation story, a pattern, repetition in phrasing. This is a reference to the ordered-ness of God. God brings order to the chaos that existed. Then, at the end of each day, the author wrote that , “God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, etc).This changed only slightly when humanity was created, last and in the image and likeness of God. Instead, we were told that “God looked at everything he had made and found it very good”. This part of the creation formula is incredibly important as we consider what it means for us.
Reading the opening verses to the Gospel of John with the first creation story in the Book of Genesis, we are informed that in our creation through Christ, we are made, not just “good”, but “very good”. This has implications for us as for how we are meant to treat the world and others, surely, but even more important, it has implications for how we are meant to treat ourselves. God saw that our creation, in God’s own image and likeness, was very good. How can we be more “good” to ourselves, to our bodies, minds, and spirits? How can we practice self-care and self-love each and every day? How can we fit that into our incredibly busy lives?
Through Jesus, all things were made good. How are you living your life in response to that?