Greek

πάντα         διʼ αὐτοῦ        ἐγένετο,      καὶ  χωρὶς   αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο       οὐδὲ                 ἕν  

All things through him    came to be and without   him  came to be not one thing   which

ὃ γέγονεν

had come to be

 

Latin

Omnia per ipsum facta sunt et sine ipso factum est nihil quod factum est

DRB: All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.

 

English Translations with variant readings:

Standard: All things were made through (by) him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

NASB: All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

DARBY: All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being.

AMP: All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being.

CEV: And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created

GENEVA: All things were made by it, & without it was made nothing that was made.

LB: He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make.

NEB: and through him all things came to be; no single thing was created without him.

 

Comments and Commentaries:

This verse states the truth in two ways. First, that the “word” created everything that exists. That’s the positive side of the statement. Then John proceeds to say it negatively to reinforce the truth. If the Word, Jesus, created everything that exists, then “nothing can come into existence without him.”

All things came to be through the Word of God. All creatures came to be through the Word of God but people came to be through the “breath” of God.

One commentator makes an interesting comment: “Plato, we are told, once turned to that little group of philosophers and students that had gathered around him during the Greek Golden Age in Athens and said to his followers, “It may be that some day there will come forth from God a Word, a Logos, who will reveal all mysteries and make everything plain.” Now John is saying, “Yes, Plato, and the Logos has come; now God is revealed to us perfectly.”[1]

There are about 100 billion stars in the average galaxy, and there are at least one hundred million galaxies in known space. Einstein believed that we have scanned with our largest telescopes only one billionth of theoretical space. This means that there are probably something like 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in space (ten octillion). How many is that? 1,000 thousands = a million; 1,000 millions = a billion; 1,000 billions = a trillion; 1,000 trillions = a quadrillion; 1,000 quadrillions = a quintillion; 1,000 quintillions = a sextillion; 1,000 sextillions = a septillion; 1,000 septillions = an octillion. So ten octillion is a 10 with twenty-seven zeros behind it. And Jesus created them all![2]

 

CLV (Chuck Larsen Version): Everything that exists came into being by the power of the Word of God. Nothing exists apart from Him.

[1] James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 35.

[2] R. Kent Hughes, John: That You May Believe, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 17.