In the Beginning-God

​ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Gen 1:1

"When man looks out from himself upon the wonderful home in which he is placed, upon the various orders of living things around him, upon the solid earth which he treads, upon the heavens into which he gazes, with such ever-varying impressions, by day and by night; when he surveys the mechanism of his own bodily frame; when he turns his thought, as he can turn it, in upon itself, and takes to pieces by subtle analysis the beautiful instrument which places him in conscious relation to the universe around him; his first and last anxiety is to account for the existence of all that thus interests him; he must answer the question, How and why did this vast system of being come to be? Science may unveil in nature regular modes of working, and name their laws. But the great question still awaits her—the problem of the origin of the universe. This question is answered by the first verse in the Bible: “In the beginning - God created”. And that answer is accepted by every believer in the Christian Creed: “I believe in one God."   (Excerpt from Biblical Illustrator)

“By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear.” The creation, then, was no operation wrought upon pre-existent matter, neither is it an emanation from a Divine substance. The Hebrew cosmogony has no tinge in it either of dualism or of pantheism. God is the eternal, self-subsistent Being; “He is before all things, and by him all things consist.” Moreover, on its first page the Hebrew Scripture asserts clearly the unity of the Godhead. There are no rival deities here, each exercising an independent power, and claiming separate worship: God is one." (Excerpt from Great Texts)
Heb 11:3  Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. 

In Colossians 1:15-18 the Bible teaches us that it was Christ Himself who formed the worlds, and created all we see, and and exist in. The Father had given Him the power and authority to create all we see and know, up to this point. This is why the angels, and demons submit to Him, and give Him glory. We, who are also His creatures, differ in one point. He gave us the power of free will to either receive Him as our Lord and Savior, or reject Him. This world is a school house, for our learning, and our eternal decisions. What we choose here, will determine where we spend eternity. If you die rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have chosen your own destiny. You will find yourself in hell, with the devil and the demons. The choice is always ours, until the day we die.

Col 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 
Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 
Col 1:17  And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 
Col 1:18  And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 

The Book of Our Life

​GENESIS MEANS Beginning. Here we discover the source of many streams, some crystal, some turbid, which are still flowing through the world. It tells us of the beginning of the heavens and the earth; of the human race; of sin and redemption; of marriage and the institution of the home; of the sciences and arts that have built up the fabric of our civilization; of the existence of the Hebrew race, and of the division of the human family into the various nationalities of the world. All of these cannot be attributed to the originating of God, for with regard to the sin and pain and sorrow of the world, it must be conceded that "an enemy hath done this."
In Hebrew the word for God is plural, the verb conjoined to it is singular, indicating that God is One, but the noun is plural, indicating the mystery of the Holy Trinity. In His earthly life, our Lord asked the Father to glorify Him with the glory that they had together before the world was.
Let us make God in Christ our beginning, the beginning of the book of our life, of our heaven, with its prayer, meditation, and devotion; of our earth, with its practical daily business; of our marriage and home; of our interests and pleasures. Here is the chief corner-stone in which alone the whole building of life can be fitly framed together. Here is the chord of harmony, with which the subsequent oratorio must be consistent. Here is the perfect circle of happiness, in which all that is fairest, sweetest, and strongest must be found.
God is a Faithful Creator. What He begins He finishes. He fainteth not, neither is weary. You may exhaust the dearest human love, but you can never wear out God. If you have never entered on the Divine life, begin with putting God in His right place, as Alpha, the First. If we cry, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." He will answer, "Behold I make all things new." Listen to the Divine assurance: "I am Alpha and Omega... the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. He that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take the water of life freely."  (Our Daily Walk)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
The same was in the beginning with God. 
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Joh 1:1-3

Christ the Eternal Word

"In the beginning was the Word." "In the beginning—of all things; farther back than the mind can conceive. For, form in your mind any image you will, however far back beyond the present state of things, of a definite point and a condition existing, and the beginning is beyond that. The expression is a simple one, but it baffles thought. We have here asserted, not that at some very remote period the world began to be, but that beyond the very remotest period which the mind can conceive, the Word was, was existing, not then brought into being, but then having His being and consequently, for such is the expression in which we take refuge when baffled by these things which stretch beyond the range of our ideas, "being from everlasting."

This Word, then, thus being in the beginning, is said also by the Evangelist to have been "with God." That is not with, in the sense of together with, or besides; but with in the sense of abiding with, as when we say, "I have it with me," or "He is abiding with us—with God, so as to be in that place where God especially was present, so as to be at home with Him and inseparable from Him. It is thus that the Word was with God as His beloved in whom He was well-pleased.

III. The next and concluding clause of our text now follows by an easy sequence. That which was in the beginning—that which was in the beginning with God and inseparable from Him—what was it? Could it be a created being? If so, a certain definite moment must have witnessed its calling into being; and before that moment it was not, and thus could not be in the beginning. With creation necessarily began the incidents and limitations of time. Created being is the channel, so to speak, in which the stream of time flows on. But the Word "was" in the beginning, and is therefore uncreated. Again, the Word was "with God." Could a created being accompany the Almighty in the inhabitation of eternity? Could it be said of the Jealous One, who giveth not His glory to another, that even the loftiest of His angelic ministers was, or could be, "with Him"—His assessor, His companion, the sharer of His glory, the impress of His substance? We are thus, you see, led on to the next declaration of our text, "the Word was God:" was no created being, no angelic intelligence, but partook of the nature and essence of God, equal with the Father, as indeed the very term itself implies. So that the Father in the beginning was not more, nor the Son less, Divine; but both were co-equal, and co-eternal. The Lord Jesus, in His humiliation, was the same Divine Person as before the worlds began; clothed in the garb of flesh, but not a different person. And if at that time we find Him performing acts of distinct personality, addressing the Father, speaking of the Father, so must it have been setting aside merely the difference made by His humiliation, in the beginning, when He was with God and was God. The fulness of the Father’s glory was upon, shone forth from, was expressed by, Him. "All that the Father hath," He says, "is Mine." You cannot exalt, cannot reverence, you cannot adore, the Son of God too much. There is no such thing as exaggerating His Divine majesty and glory. The worship which we owe to the Father, the same precisely we owe to Him. He Himself describes the purpose of His course to be, "that all men may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."   (H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. vi., p. 1.)

The Light Shines in the Darkness

​The titles of our Lord are set forth in royal fashion. As speech reveals the hidden thoughts of men, so does our Lord utter the unseen God. God spake and it was done. His words preceded the act of creation, but Christ was the Word or utterance of God. He who created time preceded time, and that which is before time is eternal and divine. Christ is the organ or medium by which God goes forth in creation, providence, and redemption. The life of God was stored in the human nature of Jesus, when the Word became flesh, that it might more readily pass into us. True life is always light, as the minute infusoria of the ocean are phosphorescent. When we receive Christ’s life, we shine.

Men are still sent from God, as John was, to bear witness to Jesus; but there is also a witness to Him in the breast of man. We call it conscience, or the inner light. The blinded world knew Him not. Indeed, Joh_9:1-41 is a parable of mankind’s condition, 2Co_4:4. Believing and receiving are the same thing. Let Christ in, and you have instantly the right to call yourself a child of God, Gal_3:26. Only God can impart to us the germ of that life, which we share with the Son Himself. (F.B. Meyer)
Joh 17:5  And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 
Jas 1:18  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.