At the earliest epoch when a beginning could be, - a period so remote that to finite minds it is essentially eternity, - appeared the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1.
In Rev.3:14, he calls himself by a title which the translators have rendered "the beginning of the creation of God," and which some hold to mean that the work of creation was begun, not by, but with him, thus degrading him to the level of a created being;
---whereas, the meaning of the word would suggest rather the idea of "headship," and present him, not as the "beginning," but as the beginner, of the creation of God; and the demands of harmony with other scriptures hold us imperatively to this construction.
---No work of creation was accomplished till after Christ became an active agent upon the scene; for all this work was wrought through him. John says: "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made."
Paul to the Hebrews corroborates the words of John. He says that God hath appointed His Son "heir of all things:" that He is "the express image of his person," the "brightness of His glory," and that by him "He made the world." Heb.1:2,3.
But to the Colossians he bears a still more definite testimony. In chapter 1:15-17, he says of Christ: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Uriah Smith
