"In
the beginning, when God created the universe.”
I
don't know about you, but I have had some odd conversations about
this very thing. The conversations sound a lot like this:
This
is my attempt at a short explanation of when time began. I chuckle as
I write this because I don't do short very well.
How about the legitimate question, when did this all begin? Another way of pursuing this peculiar train of thought is to ask when do we initiate the timing of things based on what we see in scripture? Truth be known, there is no legitimate answer unless God solved this chronology by starting the clock with the fall of mankind in the garden.
The Jewish community begins their chronology of man based upon the garden moment when Eve was deceived and then handed the "deadly" fruit to Adam. However, they don't seem to notice that this action made us all accountable for the death penalty. Anyway, this makes humanity a mere 6000 years old. If I sound annoyed or troubled, that would be because Adam and eventually Eve were in place upon the earth long before the garden incident, and God said to Eve, now you will have pain in childbirth. That statement cannot make sense unless she was already producing babies without pain. If that is the case what was the impact of sins emergence from the garden upon anyone born outside of the garden? Interesting question, is it not. Especially since the impact that concerns us is the genetic damage in both Adam and Eve, which affected every human being thereafter. I recently glanced at an article that posed the question, who were the people that Cain was afraid of? Well, if we hold to a tight chronology of humanity based upon what we see in the garden, then there are no other people on the earth; and yet, Cain fears for his life, finds a wife, and builds a (small) city.
Now, as to the possibility that God was merely floating out in space, I do not know the answer, nor does anyone else. Spending time on the idea hurts my head, so we won't. Sadly, there are many things we do not know, but like Dinosaurs, there is no denying that they happened, so we take what we know and do the best we can with it.
I do not think anyone can legitimately answer most of these questions; however, they do open some interesting thoughts about God's magnificence if you are willing to let His Word speak to your heart.
Let's
dive in.
“IN
THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God Himself.” [Isaiah. 9:6.] John
1:1 AMP
Before
we go one step further, let's see what Isaiah 9:6 adds to
this.
“For
to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall
be on his shoulder: and his name shall be
called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.”
You
would be correct if your initial assumption were that Isaiah was
talking about Jesus, the Son. But note that it says, “his name
shall be called …, The mighty God, The everlasting Father.”
If we grasp that John is writing to a Jewish community of believers and trying to make a point about the supremacy of the Messiah, saying, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself,” does just that. (Hopefully, you understand that Jesus was God at this point.)
Many
hold fast to the idea that the Apostles went about preaching to
Gentiles.
What would have given us that idea?
Well, Jesus did
go to the Samaritans, but we saw the disciples struggle with that
idea (racism and prejudice run deep.) We do not have
strong evidence that the majority of the disciples displayed strong
emotion against Matthew, a Jew who had legally robbed from the Jewish community and turned his
back on his Jewishness by working for the Romans.
Let's see if I can change your mind.
Jesus sent out the disciples with these instructions:
“Jesus
sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions: “Don’t go
to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of
Israel—God’s lost sheep.” Matthew
10:5-6
NLT
Later on, we can read that Paul and Barnabas took the gospel to the Gentiles.
"Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and declared, “It was necessary that we first preach the word of God to you Jews. But since you have rejected it and judged yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we will offer it to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46 NLT
In
the book of Acts, Paul and Barnabas are sent to Jerusalem to address
the apostles and elders about the teaching that says: “Unless
you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you
cannot be saved.” (You find this in Acts chapter 15)
Pushing the new Gentile converts to be circumcised may not sound like much to many, but this is
an exceptionally Jewish concept and teaching. The primary purpose the
Apostles and early church elders
forwarded such an idea was because
of their conviction that salvation through Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was a Jewish benefit.
Sure,
there was room for exceptions, and we see that with Peter and
his interactions with the Roman Centurion and his family. Read about this in Acts chapter 11, but take note of this.
“So
then those who were scattered because of the persecution that
occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and
Cyprus and Antioch, speaking
the word to no one except to Jews alone.”
Acts
11:19 NAS95
While
Peter eventually stood to say something, agreeing that God had
accepted the Gentiles through his ministry, we
do not see Peter taking this message further than the Roman
Centurion's home.
While Foxes Book of Martyrs may point out something historically
different, we, in general, do not see the disciples dealing with
anyone else but Jews in scripture.
Mind
you, much time has passed, and John's understanding of this God-man
he walked beside has deepened. However, while Jesus walked with
them, they
did not grasp who he was.
Is
it possible that John's understanding of Jesus was based upon what he
might have comprehended from the Prophet Isaiah's writings? Anything
is possible, and we cannot exclude the idea merely because we do not
see it in scripture. We do not see dinosaurs in scripture, but there
is no denying they were here.
We
just looked at Isaiah 9:6, where it says, "His
name shall be called …, The mighty God, The everlasting Father."
Is it possible that the Holy Spirit saw fit to establish and validate
the Son all at once by pointing out that they are one and the
same, and yet individual, capable of being the "son"
that is given? Absolutely!
The
following is the verse with the Strong's numbers integrated into the
passage.
John
1:1 NASB: "In the beginningG746 was the WordG3056, and the WordG3056 was with
GodG2316, and the WordG3056 was GodG2316."
I
want to focus on the phrase "In
the beginning."
The variations on translating this are wide:
The ERV
(Easy to Read Version) states,
"Before the world began, the Word was there," which implies a time frame.
If you were to use the Literal Version, it italicized the word "the"
to indicate that it was added for clarity. The LITV conveys a process.
When
I read from one of the most used translations, the NIV, I get this,
"In the beginning was the Word." "In the beginning
was the Word" strikes me as little more than a statement of
fact, but doesn't that present a problem as the mind immediately
wants proof.
Since
our "Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge" reference to "in
beginning" leads to other passages, let's see what they say.
In
the beginning:
Genesis
1:1 NET.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The
statement is comparable to what John said, and every Jewish reader
would have had the loud tone of their teaching Rabbi in their head as
their mind turned back to Genesis and the Torah. This was the
beginning of history; their story and knowledge of the Holy begins
here.
Here,
though, in Genesis, the Hebrew word is: רֵאשִׁית
/
rê'shı̂yth / ray-sheeth'. From the same as H7218, the first,
in place, time, order or rank (specifically a firstfruit): -
beginning, chief (-est), first (-fruits, part, time),
principal thing.
Strong's
concordance points us to the origin or base word H7218 – רֹאשׁ
/
rô'sh /roshe. From an unused root apparently meaning to shake; the
head (as most easily shaken), whether literally or figuratively.
Based
on the Hebrew, I see that I could have also said,
The
first thing -
The
order of things -
The
principal thing (this opens another line of thinking in me.)
And finally, I might have said, the chief thing.
(Again,
another line of thinking entails the
idea that multiple things were to be done.)
Since
God knows the end of a matter before it ever starts, He was aware that putting an end to a mutiny, such as Satan's, had to come. He could have restored the world without us perpetuating the problem, but here we are, and therefore, we are a part of the plan.
The
phrase "in beginning," indicates a process. That means creation
could have been an aspect of the process.
I
briefly touched upon the Hebrew word rê'shı̂yth, but what about
the Greek word for beginning, the place where we started?
"In
the beginning." In
Greek, the word is ἀρχή / archē /
ar-khay'. From G756; (properly abstract) a
commencement,
or (concrete) chief (in various applications of order,
time, place or rank):
- beginning,
corner, (at the) first (estate), magistrate, power, principality,
principle, rule.
Once
again, we have the idea of a process that opens the door to other
things.
The
TSK references continue with the following:
Colossians
1:17 NASB: "He
is before all things,
and in Him, all things hold together."
Suggesting
that Jesus was right there, in the nothingness, before creation.
Ephesians
3:9 NASB
"and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery
which
for ages has been hidden in
God who created all things;."
Since
we have pointed out that the Word was God -
"In
the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
(John 1:1 MKJV)
Then,
when we look at Ephesians 3:9, we can understand that God
and Jesus are considered one and the same.
I
will finish this portion by adding verses two and three.
John
1:1-3 MKJV,
In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. 2) He was in the beginning with God. 3) All
things came into being through Him, and without Him, not even one
thing came into being that has come into being.
Let
me point something out, "and
without Him, not even one thing came into being that has come into
being." That
happens to include you.
The question has come up lately: Are you comfortable with your relationship with the Father?
The
answer, for me, is an immediate yes, but then my mindset tends to
look at this as speaking about His love for me.
I
know He loves me. This statement, on my part, is not a boast; this
came out of times of stress and pain when I cried out to God. It
develops the trust one builds when someone sticks by you,
especially when you do not think you deserve it. However, it does not
always override the negativity in my head, which comes from a
lifetime of abuse in which co-dependency was unwittingly taught; I
hope that was the case.
An
acquaintance recently commented about perpetrators getting minuscule
sentences while the abuse
they inflicted stays with the victims for their lifetime.
Understanding what I am saying requires you to think outside
the box. Perpetrators may not be criminal in their actions because,
in some cases, they only use words as their weapons. However, the
damage haunts you forever. I deal with the effects of that very thing
to this day, holding memories of abuses inflicted by others as far
back as elementary school – we are talking about a time frame that
extends beyond fifty years. My fiancee does not understand, but neither do I most of the time. Though I wish it could just go away, my only hope is in the peace I obtain through my relationship
with Jesus Christ.
Question:
Had
Jesus, knowing how things would turn out, submitted Himself to take
on the form of a man?
One
piece of evidence that fuels a thought such as this comes from the
many pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus Christ (Theology
likes to use the word Christophany)
throughout the Old Testament. If the Messiah created
with a human inclination, then he would have done so with a concern
for the beauty of nature, which we humans are so taken with, as it
would have become a part of His thinking. Although I am getting ahead
of myself, John 1:14 clearly tells us that the Word became flesh many times.
“And
the
Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
(John
1:14 NASB)
The
word became is
the Greek word ginomai.
The Word Study Dictionary gives us the meaning: to
begin to be, to come into existence or into any state, or simply to
be.
1
John 1:1 NASB “What
was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched
with our hands, concerning the Word of Life--”
John
and many other disciples unashamedly testified to some essential
things that many feel comfortable denying or ignoring.
We heard.
Many events have sounds and memorable sayings associated with them.
We have seen with our eyes.
We saw people's lives change because of the miracles.
And,
we touched with our hands.
While touching has some wide latitude, it could be taken to mean they felt the Son of God.
In
a translation such as the LITV, the word "the"
is italicized, indicating that it was added for clarity.
John
1:1 LITV
"In the beginning,
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
I
could read this, "In
beginning."
A
read like this applies no parameters to how this should be
understood.
The Septuagint, where it reads "en
arche,"
conveys the idea of
a point of commencement, simply
to
begin, or it is indicative of a process.
Since
John seems to lean heavily upon Genesis 1:1 as a prophetic witness,
you would think that we would see the same treatment of the word
"the" in the Genesis record. However, a
proper study of the Genesis account proves that it could be read in
the same manner but through the usage of a singular Hebrew word,
rê'shı̂yth.
Now, let's ponder the phrase "the
Word"
momentarily.
Joh_1:14; Rev_19:13
The
phrase is simple enough. It is (as Strong's concordance points out) “... in
other words, pointing to one thing, the
person of Jesus in all His forms.
I
already pointed out how John 1:14 tells us that the Word became
flesh.
Suddenly, I find my thoughts swimming in muddy water, and here is why.
Here
I am in January of 2023, and lately, one of the trends is to ask
some artificial intelligence application to provide an image of God.
Some results are effeminate, homogeneous, ethereal beings with a
single eye where the forehead should be.
When
people try to play the race card and say that “we” have created a
white God, I point out that there is the possibility that God is
nuclear energy. I say that because Moses was NOT allowed to look at
the face of God, as it would kill the man. Instead, Moses was allowed
a fleeting glimpse of the backside of God as He moved away. As a
result of that moment, Moses glowed for quite a while, so much so
that the people asked him to cover his head.
“It
came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two
tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand as he was coming down
from the mountain) that Moses
did not know that the skin of his face shone
because of his speaking with Him.” (Exodus 34:29
NASB)
We
know that Moses was on that mountain for 40 days and nights, longer
than a human can live without water and food, but we have no
chronological timeline of when specific things occurred. The point
here is we do not know how long Moses glowed.
And
yet, when the Pharisees demanded that Jesus show them the Father, He
merely said, if
you have seen me, you have seen the Father. We see Jesus, and therefore, the Father, through His word.
