This detailed Bible research infographic examines the textual variant in Ephesians 3:9. It compares the King James Bible wording “who created all things by Jesus Christ” with the shorter critical Greek reading, “God, the One having created all things.” It also compares modern Bible translations and Isaiah 44:24, where Yahweh declares that He makes all things and stretched out the heavens by Himself.
QUICK FACTS: EPHESIANS 3:9
DID PAUL REALLY WRITE: “WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST”?
Ephesians 3:9 contains an important textual difference that every serious Bible student should know about.
The King James Bible reads:
“And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”
Notice the final words:
“WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST.”
Read naturally, this sounds as though Paul explicitly wrote that:
GOD CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST.
This wording is therefore sometimes used as evidence that Jesus personally existed before His birth and participated in God's creation of the universe.
But there is a major textual problem:
“BY JESUS CHRIST” IS NOT FOUND IN THE EARLIEST AND BEST GREEK TEXTUAL WITNESSES.
This is not merely a question of how one translates a Greek word.
It is a genuine textual variant.
Let's examine it.
WHAT DOES THE GREEK TEXT SAY?
The shorter Greek reading ends:
τοῦ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντος
Meaning:
“THE ONE HAVING CREATED ALL THINGS.”
A literal rendering of the relevant portion is:
“…the mystery having been hidden from the ages in God, the One having created all things.”
Notice what is absent:
❌ “BY JESUS CHRIST”
The Greek words corresponding to:
“through Jesus Christ”
are:
διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
Those words appear in the later textual tradition behind the KJV, but they are absent from the critical Greek text followed by most modern translations.
Therefore, the shorter reading simply says that the mystery was hidden:
“IN GOD, THE ONE HAVING CREATED ALL THINGS.”
THIS IS IMPORTANT: DON'T CALL THIS A “MODERN TRANSLATION” ADDITION
There is an important correction we should make.
The KJV's “by Jesus Christ” was not invented by the King James translators themselves.
The translators were following the Greek textual tradition available to them that contained:
διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ — “THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.”
Therefore, the strongest historical argument is not:
“THE KJV TRANSLATORS ADDED THESE WORDS.”
Rather:
“THE KJV PRESERVES A LATER GREEK READING THAT IS ABSENT FROM IMPORTANT EARLIER MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE.”
That is much more precise.
And importantly, most modern critical-text translations actually REMOVE the phrase rather than add it.
COMPARE THE TRANSLATIONS
KING JAMES VERSION
“…God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.”
Now compare translations following the shorter Greek reading.
BEREAN LITERAL BIBLE
“…God, the One having created all things…”
ESV
“…God, who created all things…”
NASB
“…God who created all things…”
NIV
“…God, who created all things.”
Notice what has disappeared:
“BY JESUS CHRIST.”
Why?
Because the underlying critical Greek text does not contain those words.
SO WHAT DOES EPHESIANS 3:9 ACTUALLY ESTABLISH?
With the disputed phrase removed, the statement is straightforward:
GOD CREATED ALL THINGS.
The verse does not explicitly say:
GOD CREATED ALL THINGS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.
And it does not explicitly say:
JESUS CREATED ALL THINGS.
Jesus Christ is certainly central to the surrounding mystery and God's purpose—Ephesians 3 repeatedly discusses Christ—but the phrase “through Jesus Christ” at the end of verse 9 is textually disputed and absent from the critical text.
That distinction matters enormously when this particular verse is being used as a proof text for Christ's role in Genesis creation.
NOW COMPARE ISAIAH 44:24
This shorter reading fits naturally alongside Yahweh's declaration in Isaiah:
“Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb: ‘I am Yahweh, who makes all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself, spreading out the earth—who was with Me?’”
— Isaiah 44:24
Look carefully at God's words:
“I AM YAHWEH.”
“WHO MAKES ALL THINGS.”
“STRETCHING OUT THE HEAVENS BY MYSELF.”
The language is emphatic.
Yahweh declares Himself to be the Creator.
“WHO WAS WITH ME?”
Isaiah 44:24 contains an especially interesting rhetorical question:
“WHO WAS WITH ME?”
This deserves consideration whenever someone argues that another person was alongside Yahweh performing the work of creation.
The passage presents Yahweh's creative work in emphatically singular language:
I am Yahweh
I make all things
I stretched out the heavens
by Myself
Therefore, if another passage is interpreted as saying someone else participated in creation, that interpretation should be carefully reconciled with Isaiah 44:24 rather than simply assumed.
EPHESIANS 3:9 AGREES WITH THIS BASIC STATEMENT
Remove the disputed words from Ephesians 3:9 and what remains?
GOD — THE ONE HAVING CREATED ALL THINGS.
That is entirely straightforward.
There is no explicit statement in the shorter text saying:
“JESUS CREATED THE UNIVERSE.”
Nor:
“GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE THROUGH JESUS.”
Those ideas would have to be argued from other passages.
They cannot securely be established from the disputed ending of Ephesians 3:9.
WHAT ABOUT THE SURROUNDING CONTEXT?
This is particularly important.
Paul's subject in Ephesians 3 is not primarily how Genesis creation happened.
He is explaining God's previously hidden mystery and purpose now revealed through Christ.
Paul speaks about:
the mystery,
God's eternal purpose,
Christ Jesus,
Jews and Gentiles sharing together,
and God's wisdom being revealed through the church.
So we should not make Ephesians 3:9 say more about cosmology than its textual evidence and context actually establish.
GOD'S PURPOSE CENTERS ON CHRIST
None of this diminishes Christ's extraordinary place in God's purpose.
The New Testament repeatedly presents God's plan as centered upon His Son.
1 Peter 1:20 describes Christ as having been foreknown before the foundation of the world.
Galatians 4:4 says:
“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son…”
God's redemptive purpose was centered upon Christ.
But there is a difference between saying:
CREATION WAS PART OF GOD'S PURPOSE THAT CULMINATES IN CHRIST
and claiming:
EPHESIANS 3:9 EXPLICITLY SAYS JESUS CREATED THE UNIVERSE.
The shorter and better-attested text does not say that.
WHY TEXTUAL VARIANTS MATTER
This is exactly why Christians should examine manuscript evidence instead of relying upon a single translation.
Sometimes later manuscripts contain additional words.
Sometimes scribes accidentally omit words.
Sometimes readings expand through explanatory additions.
Textual criticism compares the surviving manuscripts, their dates, geographical distribution and relationships in an attempt to determine the earliest recoverable wording.
That process should not be feared.
It helps us get closer to the original text.
And Ephesians 3:9 provides a useful example.
DOES THIS PROVE A “TRINITARIAN CONSPIRACY”?
We should be careful here.
The textual evidence strongly supports questioning the phrase:
“BY JESUS CHRIST.”
But the manuscript evidence by itself does not prove why the longer reading arose.
It does not demonstrate that a particular scribe deliberately inserted the words specifically to manufacture the Trinity doctrine.
That would require separate historical evidence.
Therefore, the strongest case is to stick to what we can demonstrate:
THE PHRASE IS TEXTUALLY SECONDARY ACCORDING TO THE CRITICAL TEXT.
That fact is powerful enough without claiming a motive that the surviving manuscripts cannot establish.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT FACT
Ironically, this textual issue demonstrates why it would be inaccurate to blame “modern Trinitarian translations” generally.
Many modern translations produced by Trinitarian scholars actually reject the longer reading.
They remove:
“BY JESUS CHRIST.”
That includes translations such as the ESV, NASB and NIV.
So regardless of the translators' theology, modern textual scholarship has generally recognized that these words probably were not part of the earliest text of Ephesians 3:9.
That is worth emphasizing because it strengthens the credibility of the textual argument.
QUICK FACTS — WHAT HAVE WE DISCOVERED?
1.
The KJV reads:
“WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST.”
2.
The words:
“BY JESUS CHRIST”
represent the Greek:
διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
3.
Those words are absent from the critical Greek text and important early manuscript evidence.
4.
The shorter reading says:
“GOD, THE ONE HAVING CREATED ALL THINGS.”
5.
Most modern critical-text translations therefore omit:
“BY JESUS CHRIST.”
6.
This means Ephesians 3:9 cannot securely be used to prove that Paul explicitly wrote:
“GOD CREATED EVERYTHING THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.”
7.
Isaiah 44:24 explicitly presents Yahweh saying that He makes all things and stretched out the heavens:
“BY MYSELF.”
FINAL CONCLUSION
Did Paul originally write in Ephesians 3:9:
“GOD, WHO CREATED ALL THINGS BY JESUS CHRIST”?
The strongest textual evidence indicates:
NO.
The shorter reading is:
“…God, the One having created all things.”
The words:
“BY JESUS CHRIST”
are a later textual variant preserved in the manuscript tradition behind the King James Version.
Therefore, we should not use those disputed words as though their originality were certain—especially when building a major doctrine upon them.
And we should also avoid going beyond the evidence by accusing individual translators of deliberately falsifying Scripture when they were translating the Greek text available to them.
The stronger argument is simpler:
CHECK THE MANUSCRIPTS.
CHECK THE GREEK.
COMPARE THE TRANSLATIONS.
AND DON'T BUILD DOCTRINE UPON WORDS THAT THE EARLIEST TEXTUAL EVIDENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT.
The shorter text leaves us with the simple declaration:
GOD IS “THE ONE HAVING CREATED ALL THINGS.”
And that fits remarkably well with Yahweh's own declaration:
“I am Yahweh, who makes all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself…”
— Isaiah 44:24
Research by Simon Brown
wwwrealdiscoveriesorg-simon.blogspot.com
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