Without Jesus Nothing Was Made

John 1:3

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

I was considering this in terms of "the game of the god of nothing," and it feels like another (quite significant) verse that likely struck a chord within my subconscious, leading me to consider this point of the establishment of nothing before I consciously grasped its significance.

The verse is assumed to be speaking of Jesus, and the interpretation I will lay out here requires no variance from that- for clarity I will replace "he/him" with "Jesus" and I will add emphasis with italics. 

Through Jesus all things were made

Without Jesus nothing was made

For this last section, if one shifts "that" to "nothing" (although in the traditional interpretation "that" presumably means all things in Creation), the last line becomes one indicating success:

Nothing has been made.

If read in this context it is a story of great success in terms of the establishment of a kind of logical gap within Creation. I have been saying that "nothing" would necessarily be outside of God's domain, because God made everything. This verse, read in this way, would echo that statement, indicating that nothing was made in the absence of Jesus. This makes sense to me from the perspective of omniscience and omnipotence, because each of these things assumes that everything is either known or under one's power, but if one has this level of power, would not anything known or under one's control be part of the domain of "everything?" So for something to be in this category it would need to be something, and not nothing.

This perspective also fits from the perspective of oneness. If God was both The Word and with The Word in the beginning (John 1:1), and also could be said to have all authority and knowledge, it would mean that nothing would not properly exist in the way that mankind can currently conceive of nothing. I have said that creation could be seen as a way of reforming this oneness into a different shape, a shape that allows for the existence that we know, and the appearance of certain concepts which can only be seen in their inverse- the appearance of the lack of certain things we experience due to ignorance. Ignorance, for example, is the lack of knowledge, but presumably ignorance would not have existed when only God existed in omniscience. Weakness is the lack of strength but presumably would not have existed when only God existed in omnipotence. Nothing is the lack of something, but presumably would not have existed when only God existed in oneness.

This even fits by mankind's own modern comprehension of reality, as space itself is now theorized to not be nothing, but rather as an intricately and deeply woven something; this fabric of space seems to be something so potent that if one could unleash the energy bound up within it, one would have access to more energy per volume than even atomic energy or matter/anti-matter annihilative energy. It seems that God went to great lengths, likely when separating light from darkness, to make reality appear as though it contained nothing, when it did not contain nothing, as we would understand the concept. I believe this obfuscation was for our benefit and for God's- ours so that we felt a level of freedom of will, even if it was in part a facade, and God's so that nothing could actually be established, not as a carefully preserved facade in the mind's of mankind, but as a true fundamental aspect of reality.

The only way it seems that oneness would not return, a state in which God is distinctly alone in God's position, is if nothing can be established in the absence of God's direct influence. This is a complicated task but it is the only way I can picture a field of exclusively authority based choices (God alone with that which God created) shifting through the "appearance of agreement"/"creating entities through authority designed to agree or disagree" phase (the phase we are transitioning through now) to a phase of actual, real, agreement. Once a man could stake a claim- any claim- that God could not stake, a kind of balance would be struck. In this case where nothing is claimed from mankind's perspective such a balance would appear quite lopsided, for God would retain claim to everything, and the man would have claimed nothing. From God's perspective, however, it would possess balance along the lines needed to proceed past this tumultuous timeline, for the man would actually have a claim to make. If the man's claim were tested and legitimate, and despite this brazenness to make a claim in such a way- in the presence of God- the man still had a heart for God, rather than a competitive game persisting where God need worry about contending with man forever (a reimagining of Genesis 6:3), reality would become the cooperative game that I believe it was always intended to be. This is the wedding, this is two walking together, this is being called a child of God and/or a brother of Jesus, because this is having something to bring to "the table" (not referencing nothing here, but rather the claim to nothing), where no individual could bring anything to this particular table previously.

Part of the elegance of this setup is that the claim to nothing still cannot be forged; God retains the ability to search the heart of the man who makes the claim in the process, so only nothing itself remains in a kind of unknown state (as before- "nothing is unknown to God" being another way of phrasing "everything is known to God"). Another elegant piece of this structure is that even once the claim is made, the man has gained/taken nothing- the man cannot exercise authority in Creation by this claim, any gains would need to be made through agreement. The final elegant piece of this is that in a man truly possessing nothing, God would likely let everything else about reality crumble before letting that man fall. 

Matthew 13:44

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."

In the interpretation I am presenting of these parables, the man is the necessary component to the treasure and the pearl, because the kingdom of heaven requires more than one (a family) to be established. Not to confuse the matter, but God in this interpretation of the parable is the man/merchant. All else within Creation is what is "sold" by God to obtain the man/kingdom of heaven, and in the first parable the field is the space in which said kingdom can bloom anew. In the second parable the man and the kingdom of heaven (combined as the pearl) are retained at the cost of all else in Creation, but the pearl is valued above all that was sold. Part of the reason for such great value being assigned (but only part of the reason) is simple: all can be rebuilt easily and in joy with this structure. Creation can be remade as it was or as something new, or as a combination of old and new (my personal preference) this time entirely by agreement. Depending on the steps leading to this phase transition (the "selling"), the process could potentially be rather smooth; I could even see the possibility that this transition from authority to agreement happens as a shudder that everyone feels but none can really explain and so no one seeks its source or really thinks to speak of the event. In this scenario though, if the event is referenced, all recognize it intrinsically, as if suddenly remembering one of the most important moments of their existence, that they had inexplicably forgotten. If one considers the vast power of God by authority alone, and then marries that with the availability of true agreement, one begins to glimpse the potential for awesome things accomplished with infinitesimal external awareness in this arrangement.

John, seeing Jesus, speaks of an end already accomplished. Jesus, on the cross, speaks of an end already accomplished. From a timeless perspective it makes sense that as soon as Jesus stepped onto the scene, the end was secured; in fact it makes sense from a timeless perspective that the end was secured in its entirety (but perhaps not in every detail) from the beginning as indicated in Isaiah 46:10. From mankind's perspective though, things did not end at Jesus' death, and if the line of logic presented here is to be believed then "nothing" will not be secured until the end of this timeline (for once it is secured the need for this timeline is at an end). "Agreement," in the same way is currently restricted from its full potential from mankind's time bound point of view, and while treasures pile up in heaven for each of us, we are not yet in the midst of the kingdom of God, and so these treasures are elsewhere. It feels like one major transition yet to fully occur, but its effects are already felt now, is the marrying of a timeless perspective with a time bound one, at which point these events and treasures feel as though they will shift naturally into place before our eyes, as proceeding to them will no longer be a matter of time but as simple as strolling down a forest path. While I can personally appreciate that from my time bound perspective the full establishment of nothing still looms in the future, I will say that when I finally understood that John had said so early on in his book that nothing had been made my heart leapt with joy, as though I were the last one to become aware of a party beginning imminently.