On the way through this series, we are discovering that there is more we can know and understand of God’s eternal kingdom than we have been lead to believe – much more. And discovering it is not just run-of-the-mill information; it is life-changing. It gives reason and purpose to many of the things we do. To go back to the analogy of the museum in an earlier post, we will see many of the artefacts differently as a result of seeing and understanding the elements of the background and the little windows.
So
… find an uncomfortable chair and
let’s position ourselves with a view to eternity past and to eternity future;
to the time before God made the first
Adam and to the time after the second
Adam is married and getting on with his new LIFE. And let’s tell God we are settled and quiet
and ready for Him to join us and enlighten our spirits with His truth.
What
was God doing before He created the world and set man in his place? One part of the answer to that question lies
in a re-statement of His character and attributes.
A. Household of Love, Light and Truth
In
my opinion, the first of these comes from the very first verse in the
bible. God is Himself a “household”; a
family; a “community”. In Restoration Theology, Kevin J Conner
says:
Verse
one simply says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Who can find “the beginning”? There is no “time element” given here. Simply, it is “in the beginning”. No human being can find that beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.
The
Hebrew word for “God” is “Elohim”. It is
a Hebrew uni-plural word, denoting plurality of Divine Persons
without stating the number. Subsequent
Scripture shows the word to be significant of the Godhead, as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. Genesis 1:1-5 may be
compared with John 1:1-3 and Job 26:13.
In the Scriptures we find that the
eternal Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, were each active in creation
– the original creation of the heavens and the earth. God is the creator of all things whether seen
or unseen, visible or invisible. (Italics added)
And
this is not just about some kind of “peaceful co-existence”; there is a unity
between them that leads some to refer to it as a communion. Note how Jesus talks of his union with the
Father in his prayer in John 17: just about every verse says something about a
deep and abiding love connection.
If
you read Luke 4, you will see how Jesus’ life on earth was characterised by
submission to and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Jesus, “full of the Holy Spirit, returned
from the Jordan and led about by the
Spirit in the wilderness.” (4:1) Verse
14 says, “Jesus returned to Galilee in
the power of the Spirit.” And in
verse 18, Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight
to the blind, to set free those who are down-trodden, to proclaim the
favourable year of the Lord.”
In John 16:7-15, Jesus teaches his disciples that it is to their advantage that he leave, “for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you… When He the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify me; for He shall take of Mine and shall disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine…”
When
Peter is preaching at Caesarea, he reminds his listeners that Jesus of Nazareth
was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power. (Acts 10:38) And according to John the Baptist, he was able
to identify Jesus because God had told him “He on whom you see the Spirit
descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”
In eternity past, the Godhead entirely functions by means of a deep and abiding love connection: a communion, a household, a family. It comes as no surprise, then, to note that God’s household-building activity extends into the time-space-matter continuum of our life here on earth.
We
know from Apostle John some of the defining features and activities of God’s household:
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in
love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16) “This is the message we have heard from Him
and announce to you, that God is Light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) John the Baptist said, “He who has received
His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. (John 3:33)
Love,
light and the real, ideal, genuine,
manifest reality are the defining features and over-arching activities of God’s
household: love, with no darkness and no falseness at all.
B. Ruling / Regulating
Sometimes when I need a reality check, I go back to the book of Job, as I did recently. What thoughts might have been going through God’s mind as He heard the discussions and debates between Job and Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar – and the young man, Elihu? At some point, God has had enough and speaks for Himself. It kind of put everything in perspective, and, in the end, Job makes this profound and liberating statement: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes see You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6)
Among
the many things God said to Job was this, “Do you know the ordinances of the
heavens, or fix their rule over the earth?” (Job 38:33) By implication, God is not only well able to
do so, He actually does so – with ease and grace. Translators of this verse have had trouble
finding adequate words to put it into simple English. Ordinances is sometimes translated rules or
statutes or laws or simply order. It is
literally ‘the limits’ of the heavens.
Rule is sometimes translated dominion or regulate or establish or simply
reason. What is God telling Job?
God knows the limits of the universe, the rules by which it runs and the order which it requires for continuous functioning. He knows them because He made them; He wrote the specifications, the rule books and the manuals. He is reminding Job – and reminding us, I believe – that we neither know nor understand these limits; we know few of the laws by which things run; and we understand little of the order required for the universe.
Now, given that Isaiah confirms that God “inhabits eternity” (as well as making His home among the bruised and broken), we need to see if we can find a way to conceptualise this aspect of what God was doing before He created the world.
I have found it helpful to think along these lines. Imagine all of history as a multi-strand rope that goes all the way back to “in the beginning” when God created the world, whenever that was. For us humans, restricted as we are to the passing of time, we conceptualise these events as a time sequence – like a long line of rope. Imagine now that rope tightly coiled up so it forms a circle or disk that makes all the events of history present and visible at once.
I believe He sees it all laid out before Him as we might see a vast rope coil. Nothing is missing, nothing is forgotten, nothing is obscured. According to W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary, this is the core or root idea of the Greek word we translate ‘true’ or ‘truth’. We could say ‘God is true’ (as John the Baptist said) and mean God is accurate to the finest possible detail: never missing anything, never forgetting anything, never hiding anything, never being deceived.
Consequently, He is not only able to rule, to regulate, to exercise dominion – He actually does it; for the whole universe; for all of what we call time. It is laid out before Him as His ever-present Kingdom, and His household is ‘Administration Central’ in that Kingdom. The household began with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and then they added angels (household servants, if you like) and a Bride for the Son. Thus, to me, history is His Story.
“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house you could build for me? And where is a place that I may rest? For my hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being, declares the Lord. But to this one I will look: to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1-2)
Summary
I believe God always has been, is now and always will be building a household whose defining features and activities are love, light and truth. And He is establishing His Kingdom in which love, light and truth (righteousness) reside and prevail perpetually. From this base, He is making a future for us humans out of love, light and truth. The genesis of this project is located deep within the spirit of the Godhead in eternity past, as “the Spirit of God was moving gently over the face of the waters.”
Cheers,
Kevin.
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