I didn't intend to restrict “dia” to the meaning of agency in every case but most certainly in the case under discussion.
“This is important because instrumentality can mean significantly more than mere agency. In an agent-principal relationship, I may give my agent the legal authority to act on my behalf, for few or many things. But my own hands may be an instrument of my will, and in such a case there is no sense in which my hands are less liable than I am for what they do.”
Then consider how the use of agents is described in the Scriptures.
In Genesis 18 three men appear to Abraham. Abraham addressed one of them as Jehovah or Yahweh and he responds in the first person.
This angel could so because spoke in and acted under the authority of and by direction of God. God's agent could speak as though he himself were God. And Abraham could properly address him as such.
In Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles with a man and says he has “seen God face to face” and not died, something denied to Moses. Had Jacob seen God or had he seen God's agent?
Other examples could be cited but in view of these is improper or unlikely that Jesus could be spoken of in the same way when acting as his father's agent or representitive? Obviously, No.
Hebrews 1:8 is frequently translated “Your throne, O God.......
How shall Heb. 1:8 be translated? Vocative or Nominative?
Robertson's commentary suggests two ways are equally possible from the Greek:
Hebrews 1:8
“O God (o teov).
This quotation (the fifth) is from Psalms 45:7. A Hebrew nuptial ode (epitalamium) for a king treated here as Messianic. It is not certain whether o teov is here the vocative (address with the nominative form as in John 20:28 with the Messiah termed teov as is possible, John 1:18) or o teov is nominative (subject or predicate) with estin (is) understood: “God is thy throne” or “Thy throne is God.” Either makes good sense.”
But since this quote was from a poetical ode to the King, possibly Solomon, the Psalmist was not calling the King Almighty God. Saying that God was his throne, the source and support of the king's power makes perfect sense and is in keeping with the rest of the O.T.
“Thy throne is God” is a better rendering according to the context.
Psalm 102 is quoted by Paul and applied to Christ. In the first verse of Hebrews Paul establishes that Christ was an agent for God..’God spoke to them..by means of Christ.’
Thus the Psalm would describe either since Paul applied it to Christ.
“John 1:3 “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
In the first clause, the positive assertion is made. In ordinary contract law this would be enough, based on the rule that whatever is included automatically excludes whatever is left out. But just to make sure we didn’t miss it, John doubles down with the negative assertion of exclusion, basically saying that no created thing, period, came to be that way without him, that is, Jesus. This is a hermetically sealed set, and if this were a contract dispute I could win easy on this language in any reasonable court, hands down.”
The New Greek/English Interlinear New Testament (United Bible Society) reads:
“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”.
This is not contract law but I could easily overcome the “hermetically sealed” idea by showing in idiomatic Greek “all things” need not be understood to be without exception even if not named.
Paul says ‘all things were to be subjected to the Christ’, but ‘all things’ has an exception that Paul says is evident, the one doing the subjecting. (1 Cor. 15:27)
Just as in English, in Greek exceptions to “all/every” may be understood if not named.
For example at Luke11:42 Jesus says the Pharisees give a tenth of the mint and the rue and every (Greek “pan”) herb or plant.
It's evident the Pharisees didn't give a tenth of every plant but every other one like the ones named.
Jesus is called part of creation at Col.1:15, in fact “the first born of all creation.”
“John 14:8 “Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. [9] Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
Is Jesus saying here that he, Jesus, is the Father or that he shows what the Father is like?
1. About John 1:3.
You like AT Robertson, so do I. In this place he takes the negative half of the exclusion and obliterates any hope of squeezing in an exception, because the phrase actually reads as follows:
Panta di autou egeneto kai xoris autou egeneto oude ev ho gegonen
Literally
All things by means of him were created and without him was created not even one created thing.
Did you catch that? An emphatic denial that even one created thing was made apart from Christ. There is clarity in John here. He means to deny the Gnostics their perverse misuse of angels, and your own choice of Greek grammarian agrees, it’s a lockout. No angels treading there.
2. On Hebrews 1:8
“Your throne O God” would be the vocative rendering, and nominative would change it to “God is your throne.” No contest. It’s vocative. Of course Robertson’s more tenuous evaluation is necessarily limited to the linguistic artifacts of the one verse, but the problem is not unsolvable, because we also have the Hebrew psalm upon which this quote is based, and that is clearly in the vocative:
Psa 45:6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
Which only makes sense, as there never has been any such expression as God being a throne for some high king. It really is ludicrous on its face.
Therefore, as the writer of Hebrews applies this Messianic psalm to the Son, and as we know there is no God but Jehovah, the only reasonable conclusion is that he means, like John, to set Christ above the angels, in a unique category of sonship, which of course has implications for the use of legal terms like “firstborn,” which imply in this case a logical order, not a chronological order.
For a true chronology of the Word, we must again look to John 1:1, in which we find:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”
Note the first clause. In the beginning, the Word simply was, in a verb of being that represents a continuous state. Eternal. At the beginning he had no beginning, because he already was. Again, keep in mind the John is laying out a case for who Jesus is that will defeat the Gnostic distortions trying to reduce him to a mere angel.
The rest of the passage is translated correctly as given above, and even AT Roberson approves. Do you still wish to keep using him as your Greek expert?
3. About theophanies of Christ before his incarnation.
There is no doubt that Christ appeared to various people before his incarnation. As the Word, we know he was already existing when everything began, so appearances before his incarnation are reasonable and even to be expected. Theses theophanies actually have no bearing whatsoever on your theory of limited agency. Trinitarian theory allows God to be presented in human form through the Son. Each time he is, we understand that to be the Son, and the natural role of the Son, to be the perfect expression of the Father. Hence no problem with the exchange between Jesus and Philip.
So, as far as you have taken it, each action you take to be agency could just as well be a deeper form of instrumentality based on a unity of being. Your burden, and you cannot meet it, is to show that even one of these theophanies was carried out by a created being. The text provides no such evidence, but does describe Messiah in terms that would allow for an eternal being:
Micah 5:2 “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
4. On dia.
The fact is, with respect to John 1:3, you are attempting to use dia to restrict the possible meaning of instrumentality to a particular form of limited agency, in particular, an agency between an uncreated principal and a created agent. Yet the word in itself does not inherently have that limitation, and that is why I’m not letting you off the hook regarding its broader range of meaning. You simply cannot build a case for created angelic nature as opposed to eternal divine nature on a single preposition that has such enormous versatility. Well, of course you can build whatever case you like, but do not expect it to be convincing to anyone who actually knows the language.
5. On Psalm 102
Yes, God has spoken to us by his Son, whom I note is the Son of the Father, who would not be the Father but for the Son. Again, your theory presents a very restricted kind of creature-Creator agency, and makes no allowance for this unique Father and Son relationship, where we already have evidence that both parties to the arrangement are eternal and uncreated. Your inferences from agency are divorced from this reality, and therefore cannot be expected to explain the totality of the Biblical record.
In particular, Psalm 102’s application is not left to chance or speculation, whether the referent is the Father or the Son, because the conjunction kai at Hebrews 1:10 links both Messianic prophesies together as being applicable to the Son mentioned in 1:8:
Heb 1:10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
But this does not address the problem raised in Job, where Jehovah does this same work of creating the universe, not through an agent, but alone:
Job 9:8-9 Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. [9] Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.
Which makes sense if “alone” here means unaided by lesser beings, but through the instrumentality of the Son. And that you may recall is the whole point of Job, to show that no man nor anyone but God can enter into the mind of God and know what he is doing and why he is doing it. That is the very cornerstone of his argument that Job should humble himself and accept that Gods ways are past finding out, and we must trust him no matter what.
And again the same rule of context applies to Hebrews chapter 1, The writer is going to great pains to show, not that Christ is some high angel, but that he is above the angels, in a class by himself, shared only with the Father, for only God is to receive worship, and Jesus said so during his temptation, and yet:
Heb 1:6 “And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.”
But:
Matthew 4:10 “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
So are the angels of Hebrews wrong to worship the Son? Not if he’s God.
Peace,
SR