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the word "maker" in the O.T. that refers to man, namely in Isa. 22: 11; all the
references in Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Hosea and the rest of Isaiah, speak of God
as "The Maker". Job found assurance in the fact that God had a desire unto the work of
His hands (Job 14: 15) and man's dominion consisted in his suzerainty over the works of
His own hands (Psa. 8: 3).
Psa. 102: 25, which speaks of the heavens as the work of God's hands, is quoted in
Heb. 1: 10 as of Christ. The word creation brings with it something of the Majesty of the
Divine fiat "He spake and it was done", "Let there be light, and there was light", but
when the Apostle said "we are His workmanship", His handiwork, there is something
homely, something lovely about that shaping, moulding, handling of material, as the
Great Potter forms out of bare clay a thing of extraordinary beauty. Because of this, the
Greeks used the word poiema and poietes of a "poem" and a "poet", for a poem, even
though the child of inspiration, is nevertheless something upon which much love and
labour must be spent.
It is reported that Tennyson revised his poem Maud a thousand times, and the reader
will remember the comment of one lover of Shakespeare, when told that Shakespeare
never blotted a line, "Would God he had blotted a thousand!" It is a wonderful thought
that the Church of the One Body can be looked upon as God's Poem. Poiema is used in
one other passage, namely that of Rom. 1: 20 "things that are made" where the Apostle
says:
"The invisible things of Him from (since) the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made."
What the works of His hand in creation are to the world, making manifest His eternal
power and Godhead, so the work of His hands is the church; it manifests the invisible
characteristics of the God of all grace. We are a new creation, and indeed, creation
immediately follows the making of Eph. 2: 10.
"Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that we should
walk in them."
Ktizo "to create" occur seven times in the Prison Epistles, thus:
"Created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Eph. 2: 10).
"For to make in Himself of the twain one new man" (Eph. 2: 15).
"Hid in God, Who created all things by Jesus Christ" (Eph. 3: 9).
"The new man . . . . . created in righteousness" (Eph. 4: 24).
"By Him were all things created" (Col. 1: 16).
"All things were created by Him, and for Him" (Col. 1: 16).
"The new man . . . . . the image of Him that created him" (Col. 3: 10).
These references fall into the following pattern: