Greeks 7:2

2
But he himself — truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, and the invisible God —he himself from heaven implanted among menand firmly fixed in their heartsthe truth and the holy and incomprehensible word.
He did not, as one might suppose, send to mensome attendant, or angel, or ruler,or one of those who govern earthly affairs,or one of those entrusted with the heavenly provinces.
Rather, he sent the very craftsman and builder of all things —by whom he created the heavens,by whom he shut the sea within its own bounds,whose mysteries all the elements faithfully keep,
from whom the sun has received the measures of its daily course to keep,whom the moon obeys when he bids her shine by night,whom the stars obey, following the moon in her course,
by whom all things have been ordered and circumscribed and made subject:the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, the sea and all that is in it;fire, air, the abyss;the heights, the depths, and all that lies between.— this one he sent to them.[fn]

Footnotes

2

Creator of all: Greek παντοκτίστης (*pantoktistēs*), an apparently coined word not otherwise found in the searched Greek corpora until Andrew of Crete in the 8th century, who applies it to God as ὁ Παντόκτιστος ('the All-Creator'). It is absent from Liddell-Scott-Jones, and BDAG and Lampe cite it from this verse alone. The author pairs it with παντοκράτωρ (*pantokratōr*, 'Almighty') for the assonance — *pantokratōr kai pantoktistēs* — apparently forming it on the model of the Septuagint phrase 'the Creator of all' (ὁ πάντων κτίστης, 2 Maccabees 1:24; Sirach 24:8); so Meecham.

word: Greek λόγος (*logos*). This is not capitalized because the UPDV reserves the title 'Speech' for the Johannine corpus (John 1:1, 1 John 1:1, Revelation 19:13) where λόγος functions as a recognized Christological title. The author of Greeks uses λόγος elsewhere in the original text (chapters 1-10) in its ordinary sense — at 2:1 of his own 'new teaching' and at 8:2-3 of philosophers' 'words and claims' — and nowhere else as a title for the Son. When he names the Son he uses παῖς ('Child,' 8:9, 8:11, 9:1), υἱός ('Son,' 9:2, 9:4), and μονογενής ('only-begotten,' 10:2); in this very verse the Son is named as 'the craftsman and builder of all things' (τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργός) whom God *sends*, distinct from the *word* God *implants in hearts*. See also Meecham, *The Epistle to Diognetus* (1949), who prefers the rendering 'teaching'; and Lienhard, 'The Christology of the Epistle to Diognetus' (1970), who treats λόγος here as a 'doubtful title' and finds the Logos-Christology of Diognetus 'almost untenable.'

craftsman and builder of all things: Greek τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων (*ton technitēn kai dēmiourgon tōn holōn*). The same Greek pair τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργός appears in Hebrews 11:10, where it is applied to God the Father (the only New Testament use of δημιουργός, the Platonic word for the world-fashioning maker). Here the pair is applied to the Son — the one God sends — among the earliest christological uses of the term. See note at Hebrews 11:10.