The instrumental agency of the Word written of by the apostle John (in John chapter 1 ), or of the Lord Jesus Christ written of by the apostle Paul (in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and Colossians chapter 1 ), means things were created by God using the agency or means provided by this Word. Things were created BY God (termed ‘direct agency’), and THROUGH the Word or THROUGH the Lord Jesus Christ (termed ‘instrumental agency’). God foreknew and predetermined the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ’s name was by virtue of the truth that he would overcome sin and achieve fully faithful and true obedience to God unto death. God could use this name in all His creating work. It made it worthwhile that created things would exist. There was a good eventual outcome for all God was making since this Lord Jesus Christ would one day undo the evils of sin and would show the way to make-good on everything. God could bring this name to the attention of angels so they would not abandon their duties to maintain with an oath of duty the things made by God. Jude, brother of Jesus Christ, spoke of this (in his epistle verse 6 ), and apostle Peter alluded to it too (in his second epistle chapter 2 ). Even if angels fell, the remaining angels could be strengthened in their duties and in their oath by the name of this Lord Jesus Christ, that he would live without sin and bring righteousness into the world and end destruction caused by sin by ending sin. Yet long before this fall of angels, God could similarly weave this name into all the creating He did such that nothing was made without this word of this name. God could proclaim in word the future impact and victory of the Christ over sin in the Christ’s own human life and the victory of the Christ over sin in his disciples’ lives and the knock-on effect as salt and light in the whole world forever. This could be a body of preaching and of spirit existence of message about this Christ. It might be that this is what John meant in John’s Gospel (chapter 1 ) by ‘the Word’. The existence of this name had spiritual manifestation in many ways and a kind of form like the form of God. This may have been what Peter meant by the Spirit of the Christ, mentioned in his first epistle (chapter 1 ). Then this started to be manifest in human form too when the Lord Jesus Christ eventually came into the world as a normal natural human, by the overshadowing of the virgin Mary by the presence of God. This might be what Paul meant in his epistle to the Philippians (chapter 2 ) by the Christ being in form of God, equal to God, but allowing himself to be made in the form of a human. All things were made by God through the spiritual rather than human manifestation. It was all made by God but made through this spiritually manifested Lord Jesus Christ, the Word, before he was manifested in the flesh by becoming flesh. (Hence John chapter 1. )
