<p>1:2 <em>Has in these last times spoken to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, on account of whom also He structured the ages</em>- The immediate purpose of the exalted language appplied to Jesus in Hebrews was to tackle the devaluing of Him by the Judaist element within the church. Judaism understood the likes of David and Moses to be far higher than Messiah, whoever He was (hence the Lord's argument that David called Messiah his Lord, Lk. 20:44). This has of course led to passages like Heb. 1:2 being misunderstood to believe that Jesus created the earth. It could be argued that the prologue to Hebrews is based upon the prologue to John's Gospel. The same ideas recur- the Word of God from the beginning come to expression in Christ, &quot;all things&quot;, glory, etc. Note the similarity between &quot;apart from him not one thing came into being&quot; (Jn. 1:3) and Heb. 2:8, &quot;not one thing is not left put under him&quot;. Jn. 1:3 stated that &quot;all things&quot; were created by the Word, i.e. the logos / intention which God had of the Messiah. Heb. 1:2 clarifies this (because of misunderstandings in the early church?) to define the &quot;all things&quot; as all the ages of human history. These were framed by God with the Christ in mind. Later in Hebrews we meet the same idea- Heb. 11:3 speaks of how the ages were framed and then goes on to give examples of Old Testament characters who displayed their faith and understanding&nbsp; of the future Messiah.</p><p>It should be noted that the 'ages' which Christ was to be involved in creating refer to &quot;the world to come&quot;- for Heb. 2:5 says that this passage is speaking about &quot;the world to come&quot;. Heb. 9:26 adds indirect support by commenting that Christ died at the end of &quot;the (singular) age&quot;; the ages plural to come are the eternity of God's Kingdom which is made&nbsp; possible through His work. Thus the idea is not that He created the world, but rather that through His work, the ages /to come/ were made possible through Him. And therefore those ages before Him find their meaning in the context of He who was to come and open the way to eternal ages.</p><p>We read of &ldquo;the Son&hellip; by whom Gk. <em>dia</em> He God also made the worlds Gk. <em>aion</em>&rdquo;. '<em>Dia</em>' can mean&nbsp;&lsquo;for whom&nbsp; / for the sake of / on account of'. It doesn&rsquo;t <em>always</em> mean that, as it&rsquo;s a word of wide usage- but it very often does mean &lsquo;on account of&rsquo; and actually frequently it <em>cannot </em>mean &lsquo;by&rsquo;. There are stacks of examples listed in <a href=http://realchrist.info/a11.html>Appendix 11 of<em> The Real Christ</em></a>. <em>&nbsp;</em>Thus in a creation context, we read that all things were created <em>dia</em>, for the sake of, God&rsquo;s pleasure (Rev. 4:11). Significantly, when 2 Pet. 3:5 speaks of how the world was created &ldquo;<em>by</em>&rdquo; the word of God, the word <em>dia</em> isn&rsquo;t used- instead <em>hoti</em>, signifying &lsquo;causation through&rsquo;. This isn&rsquo;t the word used in Heb. 1:2 about the creation of the <em>aion</em> on account of, <em>dia</em>, the Son. Eve was created <em>dia</em> Adam- she wasn&rsquo;t created <em>by</em> Adam, but <em>for the sake of</em> Adam (1 Cor. 11:9). 1 Cor. 8:6 draws a helpful distinction between <em>ek</em> out of whom and <em>dia</em>- all things are <em>ek</em> God, but <em>dia</em>, on account of, Christ (1 Cor. 8:6). The context of Heb. 1:2 features many examples of where <em>dia</em> clearly means &lsquo;for the sake of&rsquo; rather than &lsquo;by&rsquo;. Just a little later we read in Heb. 1:14 of how the Angels are &ldquo;ministering spirits&rdquo; who minister <em>dia</em>, for the sake of, the believers. Because of <em>dia</em> Christ&rsquo;s righteousness, God exalted Him (Heb. 1:9). The Mosaic law was &ldquo;disannulled&rdquo; <em>dia</em> &ldquo;the weakness and unprofitableness thereof&rdquo; (Heb. 7:18). The weakness of the law didn&rsquo;t disannul the law; the law was disannulled by God <em>for the sake of</em> the fact it was so weak. Levi paid tithes <em>dia</em> Abraham (Heb. 7:9), not <em>by</em> Abraham, but <em>for the sake of</em> the fact he was a descendant of Abraham. Jesus was not an Angel <em>dia</em> the suffering of death (Heb. 2:9). Clearly here the word means &lsquo;for the sake of&rsquo; rather than &lsquo;by&rsquo;. Jesus was born a man <em>for the reason that</em> He could die. He was not an Angel who was then made &lsquo;not an Angel&rsquo; <em>by</em> the fact of death. That makes no sense.</p><p>Note that <em>aion </em>AV &quot;worlds&quot; is a plural- if this verse means 'Jesus created the earth', then, did He create multiple, plural 'earths'? That the word means 'the ages' or &lsquo;an age&rsquo; is again clear from seeing how else <em>'aion</em>' is used. In almost every case where the word <em>aion</em> occurs in the New Testament, it doesn&rsquo;t mean &lsquo;the physical planet earth&rsquo;, but rather an age or situation on the earth, rather than the physical planet. In Eph. 2:7 we read of &ldquo;the ages to come&rdquo;- and it is the word <em>aion</em> again. The church will glorify Jesus &ldquo;throughout all generations&rdquo;, and this is paralleled with the phrase &lsquo;the <em>aion</em> of the <em>aions</em>&rsquo; Eph. 3:21- AV &ldquo;world without end&rdquo;; the same parallel occurs in Col. 1:26, &ldquo;hid from <em>aions</em> and from generations&rdquo;. Clearly <em>aion </em>refers to periods of time rather than a physical planet. Just a few verses after Heb. 1:2, we read that the son will reign &lsquo;for the <em>aions</em> and the <em>aions</em>&rsquo;, or in English &ldquo;for ever and ever&rdquo; (Heb. 1:8). Surely the combined message is that the previous ages / <em>aions</em> existed only for the sake of Christ, and He will rule over all future <em>aions</em>. There is the <em>aion</em> to come AV &ldquo;the world to come&rdquo;, Heb. 6:5, and Christ will be a priest &ldquo;for ever&rdquo; Gk. &lsquo;for the <em>aion</em>&rsquo;, Heb. 5:6. The <em>aion</em> to come is the eternity of God&rsquo;s Kingdom. It will be, in somewhat hyperbolic language, an eternity of eternities. Later in Hebrews we read that Jesus made His sacrifice for sin &ldquo;in the end of the world / <em>aion</em>&rdquo; (Heb. 9:26). If an <em>aion</em> ended at the death of Jesus, then clearly the word doesn&rsquo;t refer to the physical planet- but rather to the age which then ended. The Hebrew writer clinches this view of <em>aion</em> in Heb. 11:3, where he prefaces his outline of Bible history from Abel to the restoration from Babylon by saying that the ages / <em>aion </em>are framed by the word of God. Response by faith to God&rsquo;s word, seeing the invisible with the eye of faith, occurred amongst the faithful in every <em>aion</em>. The <em>aion</em> AV &ldquo;worlds&rdquo; were framed by the word of God. Consider other uses of the word <em>aion </em>where clearly it refers to the ages and not to a literal planet (Mk. 4:19; Lk. 1:70; 16:8; Rom. 12:2; 1 Cor. 2:6,8; 3:19; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:10).</p><p>The whole of history, with all its ages, and all that is to come, exists solely for the sake of Christ. He is the One who gives meaning to history. Further, if this verse means 'Jesus created the earth', then OK, question: Genesis and many other passages say <em>God</em> created. If this says Jesus was the actual creator, then is Jesus directly equal to God? Also, if Heb 1:2 is saying that <em>Jesus</em> is the creator of earth, the One through whom God did the job, then, <em>why</em> do we have to wait until Hebrews to know that? There's no indication in Genesis or even in the whole Old Testament nor in the teaching of Jesus that Jesus was the creator of earth on God's behalf. That's my problem with the pre-existence idea- it's nowhere in the Old Testament. So would believers have been held in ignorance of this fact for 4000 years? If so, then, is it so important to covenant relationship with God? I am sure David, Abraham etc. believed that <em>God</em> and <em>not </em>Messiah created the earth. If they'd have been asked: 'Did <em>Messiah</em> create the earth, or God? Does Messiah now exist?', they'd have answered 'No' both times. Surely?</p><p>It is argued by trinitarians that <em>dia</em> + the genitive, as we have in Heb. 1:2, means that the ages were made by the instrumentality of Christ. But <em>dia</em> + genitive doesn't only mean 'by whose instrumentality'. Moulton, <em>The Analytical Greek Lexicon Revised ,</em> p. 90 explains the uses of <em>dia</em> with genitive:<br />&quot;1. With a genitive, through<br />a. Used of place or medium through<br />b. Used of time, during in the course of; through<br />c. Used of immediate agency, causation, instrumentality, by means of, <br />by; of means or manner, through, by, with<br />d. Used of state or condition, in a state of&quot;.</p><p>Meaning (b) appears relevant to Heb. 1:2 because it is <em>dia </em>Christ that the <em>aions</em> (a time reference) were created. This would require us to read in an ellipsis: &quot;Through the (period of the ministry of) the Son, God framed the ages&quot;. Or, &quot;Through(out) the Son, God framed the ages&quot;, i.e. all God's purpose throughout the ages was framed with Christ in mind. Acts 3:18 uses <em>dia</em> + genitive to explain how God had spoken of Christ &quot;by&quot; or throughout the period of all His &quot;holy prophets&quot;.</p>