Saturday, May 12, 2012

THE THIRD PROOF: Christ Is God With Respect to Him Being the Creator

Section IV
 
Without controversy, God is the Creator, and the story of creation commences with the statement: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1: 1). The first chapter of Genesis explains how God created all things. In the Book of Isaiah, God says: "I am the Lord, who makes all things, who stretches out heavens all alone, who spreads abroad the earth by Myself" (Is. 44:24), and: "I, the Lord, do all these things" (Is. 45:7).
However, there are other verses in the Holy Bible that refer to Christ the Lord as the Creator:
(1) (John 1:3): St John the Evangelist says about the Lord Jesus Christ: "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." Here the Evangelist does not only mention that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator, but also that none of creation was made without Him. He also says: "He was in the world and the world was made through Him" (John 1: 10).
(2) (Heb. 1:2): St. Paul the Apostle says: "He made the worlds."              
(3) (Col. 1: 16): St. Paul also says: "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." 
(4) (1 Cor.8:6): The Apostle also says: "... through whom are all things and through whom we live."
The Holy Bible mentions miracles performed by the Lord Jesus Christ which prove that He is the Creator:
(1) The miracle of feeding the five thousand men from five loaves and two fish (Luke 9:10-17). In this miracle, the Lord created matter which had not existed with which He fed the thousands. What adds to the power of this miracle is the fact that all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets full of the leftover fragments were taken up. From where did all the leftover fragments come? It was matter newly created by the Lord Jesus Christ. This great miracle is mentioned by the four Evangelists.
(2) The miracle of feeding the four thousand men from seven loaves and a few little fish (Matt. 15:32-38). The disciples took up seven large baskets full of the fragments that were left over. Here also the Lord created new matter which had not existed, and the ability to create is attributed to God alone.
(3) The miracle of changing water into wine in Cana of Galilee (John 2). This miracle is also an act of creation because water consists of oxygen and hydrogen only, so from where did the alcohol and the other constituents of wine come? The Lord Jesus Christ created all these elements in this miracle.
The power of this miracle is that it happened by Christ's mere inner will, without Him doing any action or blessing or even giving an order to the water to change into wine. He only said: "'Fill the waterpots with water'. And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, 'Draw some out now' " (John 2:7,8). Thus the water changed to wine merely by His will. He willed to create the substance of wine and it was created, even without a command.
(4) Granting sight to the man born blind (John 9). Here the Lord Jesus Christ created eyes which had not existed before and created them out of mud, as He had created the first man. Mud, which if put on seeing eyes causes blindness, was put by the Lord into the sockets of the blind man, and two eyes were created. What adds to the power of this miracle is that the Lord ordered the man to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Normally, washing mud dissolves it, but in this miracle, when the man washed with water, the mud was reinforced in his sockets as eyes and the water tied them with blood vessels,
muscle and tissue. And the man born blind said to the Jews: "Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind" (John 9:32). Here we are faced with an important theological question: How can Christ be the Creator if creation is attributed to God alone?
The Lord Jesus Christ was creating with the power of His Divinity, being the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, that is, the Reason of God. Who then created all things? Was it the Lord Jesus Christ or God the Father? God the Father created the whole universe by the Son; by His Reason; by His Knowledge; by His Word, that is, by the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Apostle says: "... through whom also He made the worlds" (Heb. 1:2), that is, by His Reason, by His Wisdom.


Source: Divinity of Christ by H.H. Pope Shenouda III
.....To be continued in the next section....

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