Messiah as Creator, or the Means of Creator?

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Originally from: Joe

Shalom,
This posting of some of my thoughts is within the
Oneness discussion I've been having. Here are some
thoughts I had today which blessed me....
There are a group of verses which have been used by
trinitarian theology to assume the eternal existence
of the Son of God as distinct from God. These verses
link the Messiah with the act of creation, and since
the Creator precedes creation logically, then
trinitarians count this as support for the view that
the Son of God is a seperate person from the Father,
from eternity past.
Examples....
Hebrews 1:2–3
"Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom
also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of
his glory, and the express image of his person..."
Colossians 1:15–17
"Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
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. "

Trinitarian Christianity interprets these verses to
label the Son of God as "the Creator." Yet, I was
thinking today that none of these verses state that He
"made all things" but that God made all things "by
Him" or "through Him." I might be going out on a limb,
but I feel confident to say that no verse uses the
language "he created" but rather they all word it as
the Son being the means by which all things were
created.
This is a big difference. If the verses did state that
the Son "made all things" then we would have to posit
that the Son of God pre-existed the world as a
distinct person from His Father.
I was also re-reading Proverbs 8. And then I was
pouring over John 1's Logos passage and also Gen. 1,
and I had a sense that this was all one needed to
understand the relationship of the Son to the Father,
and all the other Messiahology issues as it pertains
to the whole oneness vs. trinitarianism discussion.
And it gets to the question: To answer the question of
the Godhead before us, do we need greekish
philosophical thought and categories, or is all the
interpretive material we need available to us in the
Tanakh already. I am convinced today that it is the
latter...all we need is already there. As the church
grew beyond it's Jewish roots and connection to Israel
and the Tanakh, it grasped at everything BUT the
Tanakh to understand the Godhead/Messiah.
In Proverbs 8, I believe the Holy Spirit gave us a the
background for understanding the nature of the Son of
God and His relationship to God. As already discussed
in previous posts, the NT is crystal clear that the
Son of God is none other than a manifestation of the
Father in flesh, ie, the fullness of the Godhead in
bodily form. Jesus is YHWH in the flesh.
So, who, what and where was Jesus, or the Son, prior
to the incarnation? Oneness positions hold that prior
to the incarnation, YHWH not manifested as of yet in
any human flesh, existed only as an Infinite Spirit.
It is this God that later indwelt the distinct human
nature as the Son. So, the Son did not pre-exist the
incarnation AS a distinction from the Father.
Yet verses like we quoted in Hebrews and Colossians
state unequivocally that God created BY means of the
Son. How can this be, if there was no Son until the
incarnation?
I believe the answer is in Proverbs 8, John 1 and Gen
1. The Spirit of God had the writer of Proverbs 8
personify Wisdom as that which God possessed as the
means to craft the world. This does not mean literally
that there was a divine person named Wisdom alongside
of God. Wisdom is synonomous with the
mind/thought/plan of God. It is conceptually related
to Word (Logos).
Proverbs 8 basically states that God used the means of
His own infinite and glorious mind/thought/plan to
bring into being this stunning world we live in. This
"Wisdom" calls us to listen to "her" and follow her
instructions, in view of the excellency of what was
produced via the use of her by God.
I believe that when the Paul and the author of Hebrews
state that all things were created "by" the Son, the
understanding of this is that which is found in
Proverbs 8. In essence, the NT authors are stating the
same thing: God used the means of His own
Mind/Thought(Wisdom) – which would later be incarnated
in human nature as the Son – to create all things.
Using the Proverbs 8/Wisdom background, we can see the
consistency of the NT writers with the language and
terminology of the Tanakh. John 1 and it's teaching of
the Logos is saying exactly the same thing. In the
beginning was the Word/Logos (the greek audience with
their nifty Logos concept in their own philosophy
would be able to grasp what John was saying), which
was not in the beginning a seperate person from God,
BUT WAS THE MIND OR THOUGHT OF GOD, WHICH IS TO SAY
THAT IT WAS GOD HIMSELF! And all things were created
"by" the Logos, or "by" Wisdom if you will.
Perhaps later Christology, as it got more and more
seperated from the Tanakh and from the Jewish roots,
began to be more informed by pagan philosophical
conceptualizations, which brought in new readings of
the Creator verses like Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1.
In Colossians, Paul writes "For by him were all things created"
A trinitarian "Targum" on this might read something like –
"Jesus pre-existed prior to His incarnation as the eternal Son who was used by His Father to create all things."
A oneness "Targum" on this, based on the thoughts mentioned earlier, might read as the following –
"Messiah, being the very Mind/Thought/Wisdom/Logos/Nous of God, was prior to His birth, what God used to create all things (Of course! God used His own wisdom, and His wisdom ALONE to create). Before the incarnation, the Son was not brought forth, but nonetheless there is essential continuity between the person of the Son and the Wisdom of God."