Jesus Designed and Made All That the Father Willed and Spoke

What Did Jesus Do?

All things were made through him,
and without him was not anything made that was made.
John 1:3

There are those who conceive, who desire, who dream, who give expression to vision. And then there are those who take others’ conceptions, desires, dreams, and visions, and then craft, design, and make them a reality. God the Father is one who, by the infinite creativity and wisdom of his mind and the unceasing love in his heart, expresses his conception, his desire, his dream for all that has existed, exists now, or ever will exist. Everything that was, is, or ever will be, results from the Father willing and saying, “Let there…” And, as I intimated above, there has always been another who has taken the Father’s concepts, desires, and dreams, and crafted, designed, and made them, well, “be.” The Bible makes it quite clear that it is the Son, Jesus, who designs and makes all that the Father willed and spoke, all that the Father wills and speaks, and all that the Father ever, well, will ever will and speak. For the Son, Jesus, is the Word, and the Word “was God” from the beginning (John 1:1).

Think about what happened in the beginning, when the Son, the Word, was with God, the Father (John 1:2). In the midst of utter, pervasive darkness, the Father said “Let there be light.” Light? What was light? All was darkness (Genesis 1:2). Yet, in an instant, “there was light.” How? The only possible explanation is that the Son, Jesus, heard what the Father willed and spoke, and so perfectly understood the heart and mind of the Father, that he crafted light. And the Father, upon seeing the light, immediately pronounced what the Son had made, “good” (Genesis 1:4). I won’t take the time here to review all of the first chapter of Genesis, but encourage you to do so at your leisure, picturing, if you can, the relationship between the Father and his conception and desire for what should be, and the Son and his crafting and making of all that is (John 1:3).

Then, later today, certainly by tomorrow, I hope you may have some time to head outdoors and look around. Gaze at some distant mountains, walk along a babbling stream, listen to the twittering of some birds, contemplate the stars in the night sky, knowing that each one of them was made by the Son precisely according to the Father’s conception. All exists, mountain, stream, bird song, star, in and through the Son exactly as the Father desires. If you will, conceiving and dreaming, crafting and making, is God’s family business. If there was a sign hung above the universe, which contains all that is, it would say: The Cosmos—Father, Son, AND Holy Spirit, Proprietors. Though I have not yet made mention of him, I must add that the Holy Spirit is, intimately and essentially, a part of God’s desiring and designing, of the Father’s conceiving and the Son’s making, of all things.

Two points I want to make about the creative work of the Trinity. One is that, it came about, in the fullness of time, according to his own desire, that the Father said, “Let there be ______” (fill in the blank with your name), even as, sometime in June of 1952, he said, “Let there be Jim,” and, in March, 1953 I, well, was. For, if nothing has ever been made except what the Son has made in response to the will of the Father, then you and I exist very much according to the desire and design of God, we are his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). And, while in and of ourselves none of us may claim to be “good,” the truth is that, by the desiring of the Father, the redeeming of the Son, and the imparting of the Holy Spirit, we are, “very good.”

The second point is that, having been “created in Christ Jesus,” we should understand ourselves, as daughters and sons, to be part of God’s family business. Even as Jesus, the Son, designed and made all that the Father willed and spoke, so we are to walk in and do the good works which God conceived, dreamed, and prepared beforehand, for us (Again, Ephesians 2:10). As Jesus, the Father’s Son, did, so we, the Father’s daughters and sons in and through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit, are to do. Asking “What did Jesus do?" is no mere exercise in rhetoric, but rather the only way for us to know and do the Father’s will according to his Word.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4