THE ALPHA AND OMEGA
“And
he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end. I will
give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely”
(Rev. 21:6).
Think
of it! NO more death, NO more tears, NO
more sorrow, NO more crying, NO more pain, because the former things, all of them, are passed away! Thus, He
that sitteth upon the throne can exultantly exclaim, “It is done! I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End! I initiated all things with a grand
purpose in mind for mankind, and I have also completed all things and have
realized my wonderful plan for planet earth.”
This is a prophecy out of the mouth of the Lord Himself who sees all
things from the beginning to the end, and counts those things which are not as
though they are because the outcome is
secure.
Our
Lord proclaims the superlative, transcendental, all-encompassing truth in five
marvelous words: “I AM Alpha and Omega!” Most believers, whatever their native tongue,
are aware that Alpha and Omega are the first
and last letters of the alphabet used by the Greeks. Alpha is the name given to the letter A, and Omega
is the name for the long O, the last
letter of the Greek alphabet. For Christ
to affirm that He is “A and O” is as though He were to say to English speaking
people, “I am A to Z.” The English
language has twenty-six letters. All the
books ever written, all the libraries of the English speaking world, have
contained only these twenty-six letters.
These are used to program space research, label
medicines, pen beautiful classics, write voluminous law books, and give
messages to the delivery
man. Every newspaper or magazine ever
printed in English has used just the same twenty-six letters. Arranged,
juggled, and placed in millions of different configurations, only twenty-six
letters are used for the communication of information.
Jesus,
as Alpha and Omega, likens Himself to the
whole alphabet. “I am A, I am B, I am C,
I am D and so on all the way to Z — do you get it? Not only is He the letters, He is all that
the letters can convey! As one has
written, “Is there any need in the whole realm of our experiences, our topics,
and our themes that the alphabet cannot be adapted to meet? Has the alphabet ever failed poet or
lover? Has the traveler found it
lacking, or has any philosopher, author, statesman, scholar, scientist, or
theologian proved it inadequate for literary needs? Potentially the alphabet, with its twenty-six
letters, contains all that is necessary for the expression of the utmost wisdom and
knowledge. If we wish
to describe our feelings, disclose our hopes and dreams, or expound upon
any subject of interest, we possess, in the alphabet, the full means to do
so. Through the medium of words, thought
is expressed, so that, in the letters of the alphabet, we possess the key that
unlocks every gateway to learning, every door of knowledge, and every treasury
of wisdom.”
The
declaration of Jesus that He is Himself Alpha and Omega
conveys the thought of infinite and inexhaustible wealth. The letters A to Z constitute a claim by
which is set forth the absolute completeness of His character, wisdom, and power. Is this not what Jesus was saying when He
declared, “I AM THE TRUTH.” And is this
not what Jesus is saying: “I AM THE TOTAL REALITY OF ALL THINGS!” I am every letter, I am unique, I am
substance, I am shape, I am image, I am form, I am essence, I am all height and depth and length
and breadth of Being, not just words and letters, but the reality of life and
power and value of all things, the WORD OF LIFE!” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:1,4).
Alpha
and Omega is a revelation! It is all that can be said of the Lord Jesus
proclaimed in a way that can be seen and understood. It stands for the revelation of Jesus Christ! By this word He is revealed! Christ is the alphabet — the Word, all that
can be said of God. We’ve seen that in
the figure of a Man who walked the shores of Galilee. But we have only touched the shell of that
man, the outer image, not the inner intelligence. It’s as though we are holding a book, looking
at it, flipping its pages, but we haven’t read it yet. The inner intelligence of the Lord Jesus
represents His omniscient mind, His omnipotent power, and His divine nature. Until we have personally experienced Him in all that He is we
have not discovered Him in the A to Z — that is, we have not read the book
which He is! In speaking of the inner
intelligence of the Lord Jesus, we are speaking of the greatest reality of
Being in the universe! The truth we are
entertaining at this point will prove that all our eternal hopes of sonship and
the kingdom depend upon one thing and one thing alone: that the mind of Christ,
the power of Christ, and the nature of Christ dwell in us fully. This is
the Alpha and the Omega — all that can be said
of God WRITTEN AND INSCRIBED IN OUR INNER LIFE AS CHRIST IN US.
Here
then is the truth of truths: God is the
Word — the Word is God. Language not
only describes what has happened and what is seen — it creates. “And God said,
Let there be…and there was.” “In the
beginning was the Word…all things
were made by Him; and without Him was
not anything made that was made” (Jn.
1:1,3). He is the Sovereign Creator of all things, the
Fount out of which are all things. And
in Him all things have their purpose.
Even as all things are out of Him, so they also are unto Him. From the beginning He made all things with a
view to the end: the Alpha is connected to the Omega,
the one must inevitably lead to the other.
And whatever lies between the Alpha and the Omega
is through Him. He controls all things
in such a way that His counsel and His purpose are accomplished, His design is
fulfilled, His end is reached. And that
end is “THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST” that God may be fully seen, known, and
experienced! God as the Word creates
within us the substance of Himself! The
Alpha and Omega speaks into our being the
reality of God! When we speak of Alpha
and Omega, we speak of Christ as the
Word. When we speak of Christ as the
Word, we speak of that dimension of Christ by which God reproduces Himself
within us. If God by the Christ within
you, my beloved, is speaking a word within you, it is a creative word! Believe that
word, walk in that word, live by that word and you will be changed!
You will be filled with all the fullness of God! God will take form in you! He will write Himself in living reality upon
the tables of your mind and heart! Your
life is the pages of the book, and He is the letters of the alphabet, the message, the revelation written upon the tables of your inner nature! Christ in us, the Alpha and Omega, is our
only hope of sonship!
“I
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
ending, saith the Lord…the first and
the last” (Rev. 1:8,11). I have heard it said that when Jesus called
Himself “the first and the last” He was claiming to be both the “first Adam” who
stood in the garden of Eden
and ate the forbidden fruit, and the “last
Adam” who
came to take away the sin of the world.
How could this be, my friends? It
is always a fatal mistake for any man, regardless of who he is, to add to the
words of God. That mistake will lead him
into error and many strange and unscriptural absurdities. When men say what the scriptures do not say
they are strumming on harps that have no
strings. They make a lot of interesting
noise, but there is no harmony with
the rest of God’s revelation. You see,
dear ones, Jesus did indeed
say, “I am the first and the last.”
But He clearly did not say,
“I am the first Adam
and the last Adam.”
When you add the word “Adam”
to Christ’s statement you have qualified it and changed its meaning
altogether! You could add any word to His statement and make it
mean anything you please! Jesus
proclaims that He is the first and
the last — period! This momentous
statement reaches far beyond Adam — first or
last! It reaches from eternity to
eternity and encompasses all things. The
statement corresponds to the other terms that accompany it — the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and
the ending. How gloriously do the New Testament
writers describe what it means for Christ to be the first!
It
would be of utmost profit for any of us to diligently study the oft repeated
scriptural term “in Christ” or “in Him.”
With this thought in mind I would draw your attention to some scripture
passages which appear to teach us that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Creator of
all things. He is, of course! But that is not the specific truth set forth
in these particular verses. The first
passage we will consider is found in Colossians
1:15-17. I will quote this first from
the King James Bible for this is one of the passages that seems to say that all
things were created by Jesus
Christ. “Who is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of every
creature (way before the first Adam, of course!); 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. And He is before
all things, and by Him all things
consist.”
From
this scripture we would be led to believe that the creation was made by the
Son; but the word translated “by” here in the first instance is in the Greek en, and means “in,” not “by,” and this
is the way most of the other translations have rendered it. “For in
Him were all things created.” If you
have other translations, check them, and you will see that this is
correct. The Greek preposition en clearly defines location or
position. In the second instance in this
passage where the word “by” is used — “all things were created by Him and for Him” — the word
translated “by” is a different Greek word, the word dia meaning “through,” “on account of,” or “by the agency of.” You will find nearly all translations have
translated it using the simple term “through.”
Weymouth’s rendering of this is lovely, “For in Him were created the universe of things in heaven and in earth,
things seen and things unseen, thrones, dominions, princedoms, powers, all were
created and exist through Him and for
Him. And He is before all things (the first), and in and through Him the
universe is one harmonious whole.” Isn’t
that beautiful!
You
see, there is a whole world of difference between something being created by Him, or created in Him, and my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will make this real
to you. I think, as we proceed with this
thought, we will clearly see what the Spirit has said. It is unfortunate that the translators were
so inconsistent in some of the translations. In this statement, “For by Him were all things created that are in heaven,” the word “by,” and the word
“in,” are both translated from the same Greek word en, yet in the first instance it was translated “by,” and in the
second instance it was translated “in,” as it should be. This is misleading to the reader!
I
am not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, but when we were on the
mission field in Mexico
back in the 1960’s, I built most of the furniture we had in our house, crude
though it was. From rough lumber I
constructed kitchen cabinets, tables, chairs, beds, and a variety of other
items. Even I was amazed at how serviceable
and attractive some of these articles turned out to be! They were made by me, but when I left the
place where they were, they were all sold and left behind, and I was separated
from them, never
to see them again; for, you see, they were not
part of me. Though they were made by me, they had no part with me. But if somehow they had been made in me, rather than merely by me, then wherever I went they would
be with me, for they would be a part of me, of my very own being. And if by some tragedy they would be severed
from me as an arm or a leg might be, I would have moved heaven and earth to
find a surgeon who could restore them back into me. If the creation had been merely made by the Son, then it could be a thing
apart from Him, and not a part of Him.
When we truly see that God the Father created the universe and all things
IN THE CHRIST, and the whole of created things was in the beginning an integral
part of His Being, then that is an altogether different picture!
Words
are totally inadequate to articulate a truth so sublime, so I must leave this
ultimately to the blessed spirit of Truth to unfold within your spirit. You see, when God planned the present
universe, He planned it in and around His Christ. The Christ is the center and the circumference
of all! He is the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end, the first and the last. The whole vast creation was made in Him and for Him. Before the sun ever
kissed this earth creation began in Him and
therefore it will also end in Him, for
HE is the beginning and the end of it.
The Christ is the beginning of the creation of God! “These things saith the Amen, the faithful
and true witness, THE BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD” (Rev. 3:14). Do you
see how this theme is stated again and again in different terms throughout the
book of Revelation? Christ is the
beginning of creation and He is also the end, all things must begin in Him and
end in Him, regardless of what happens in between those two points, for this is
the Father’s purpose for His Son! Aren’t you glad!
Our
God and Father has been pleased to leave us in no doubt or uncertainty as to
how or where all things began, but in clear, unequivocal language stated the
source and goal of all things for our assurance and joy. All originated in Him, created from the
substance of His own divine energy and Being, and held together in a harmonious
wholeness in His eternal Word, or the
Christ. But, for His own wise purposes, all did
not remain that way! We have already
explained the Greek preposition en which
means “in” and denotes a position of rest, an established location. According to the scriptures ALL was created IN the Christ! The scriptures are also clear, however, that
all did not remain “in” Him. We are assured that there was initiated
another stage of activity whereby all things were brought “out” of Him. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that
“in” and “out” are opposites! You cannot be both in and out of any
place or thing at the same time! This
principle has determined the outcome of many a court case because the defendant
contended that he was “in” a particular place at a specified time, but valid
witnesses placed him “out” of that place at that time! Coming
“out” from a place or position involves a process, an action.
There
is another Greek preposition, ek, meaning
“out of.” It indicates action. If you come
out of your house — that involves action!
The word of God declares that not only were all things created in God and His Christ, but there was a process by which all things came out of God and His Christ. Let us read it: “We are aware that an idol is
nothing in the world, and that there is no
other God except One. For even if it
so be that there are those things called gods, whether in heaven or on earth,
even as there are many gods and many lords, nevertheless to us there is but one God, the Father, O-U-T OF (ek)
WHOM ALL IS…(I Cor. 8:4-7). Again, “O,
the depth of the riches and of the wisdom
and of the knowledge of God! How
inscrutable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways! For who knew the mind of the Lord? Or became His adviser? or who gives to Him
first, and will be repaid by Him? Seeing
that ALL
IS O-U-T
O-F (ek) HIM and through Him
and for Him: to Him be glory for the ages!
Amen!” (Rom.
11:33-36). Now let us read these last
verses from the Emphatic Diaglott: “For
who knew the mind of the Lord? Or who
has been His counselor? Or who first
gave to Him, and it shall be given to him again? For OUT OF HIM, and through Him, and for Him
are ALL
THINGS. To Him be glory for the
ages. Amen.”
This
is without doubt one of the least understood statements in the word of
God! And yet, a true comprehension of
the real purpose of God throughout the ages cannot be had apart from it. Considering the creation of the heavens and
the earth — the universe and all that is therein, visible and invisible — fresh
from the hands of the Creator in all its primeval and pristine glory, God being
all-wise and omnipotent, the question presses itself upon us: From whence came
sin and evil? From whence came darkness
and death? Why did God permit these to
enter the creation which had been made in
Him? How did it happen? Why the disruption of the primeval state?
The
answer to these monumental questions is to be discovered in the great fact of
the creation being “brought out” of God! When God lowered the creation from the realm
of pure spirit existence in Christ in the heavenly sphere, to this gross
material realm of matter and form, there occurred a mighty disruption, breaking up, or
fragmentation. The creation was “made
subject to vanity” and the whole
downward process of disintegration and dissolution was begun. Just as our ascent back into the image and
fullness of God is ever “from glory to glory,” “from faith to faith,” and “from
experience to experience,” so the process downward into fragmentation and
dissolution continued through various stages and vast ages of time until the
lowest depths of frustration were reached.
The
first downward step came when creation was lowered from the realm of pure
spirit existence in Christ to this physical and material realm. Not only did man begin in the spirit, later to be lowered into this material realm after God “formed man of the dust of the
ground” and then “breathed into his nostrils the
breath of
lives” (the male and female lives (spirits) that had been brought forth in
Genesis 1:26-27), but all things began in
spirit and were subsequently lowered into this physical world. The magnificent wonders portrayed in Genesis reveal this
truth with divine certainty. We read
there of “every plant of the field before
it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the
earth, and there was not a (physical) man to till the ground…and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath (spirit) of lives; and
man became a living soul” (Gen.
2:5-7). Behold how great an
understanding divine inspiration has placed upon all who have ears to
hear! These words teach us infallibly
that there were plants and herbs before they
were in the earth or ever grew in soil; and there was a spirit man who was blown into
the clay model of the man Adam by the very breath of God. The union of this spirit man with the clay
model produced Adam the living soul! That was the first step downward, even in
the glories of Eden! And then the Tempter came, man’s experiment
with sin followed, and death seized man with its unrelenting power. Step by step, stage by stage, the whole
creation came out of Christ!
How
obvious today the vast difference between those who are either “in” or “out” of
Christ! “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation.” “Who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in Christ.” “In whom we have obtained an
inheritance.” Of our state before we were in Christ, it is stated, “At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from
the commonwealth
of Israel,
strangers from the covenants of
promise, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph.
2:12). Outside of Christ is naught but ignorance, sin, sorrow, darkness,
and death! In or out — what a great
gulf separates these two! The very
process of creation’s coming out of
God produced a disruption and fragmentation of the whole. “Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our
God is ONE LORD.” That statement doesn’t
mean that Yahweh is the only God, true as that is. In the Hebrew language it
signifies that He IS ONE — that is, UNITED, UNIFIED, UNDIVIDED,
UNFRAGMENTED. All within Himself is
harmonized, synchronized and joined in perfect unity. That is God’s nature! Therefore, in Him, creation was one harmonious whole without a discordant note
anywhere! It was preeminently a spiritual creation, vibrating as a
symphony of unutterable beauty, a triumphant masterpiece of dynamic harmonious
accord. In the glory of that celestial
beginning we were all sons of God, there
was no trace of sin, no evil, no strife, no carnal mind, no adversary, no
death, and no darkness or discord at all.
Everything everywhere existed in
Christ and every spirit stood forth in its full majesty, pulsating the dynamic anthem of
exulting creative glory. What a song!
And
that is how it is in the new
creation! For you see, beloved, the
new creation is but the old creation re-conciled, re-deemed, re-generated,
re-stored to its original place, condition, and state IN CHRIST! The new spiritual creation is all that is “in
Christ Jesus” in the fullness of what that means. We are unified
again in Him. Not only are we
unified with one another, but each of us is unified within ourself — there is
PEACE. The new creation has already
begun! Step by step, just as we came out of God, we are now coming back into God. When the scripture says, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation: old
things are passed away, behold, all things are become new,” this is speaking of
that little firstfruits company that is the first to enter experientially into
the new. These become fully a new creation in Christ.
In the life of the one who has truly entered into Christ, and been
unified again in Him, all the old has passed away and everything has become
new! Now I know this scripture is applied to all believers of whatever stage of spiritual
growth and development in Christ, but if we consider this reverently and
carefully, we can easily see that this is not the experience of the average
believer. When we first believe on the
Lord a new beginning takes place. A change has started. Some of the old has passed away, and some new
things have taken their place; but how many believers can honestly say that ALL old things have
passed away, and EVERYTHING in their
lives and experience has been made new?
Our restoration is a progressive work!
It begins when we first turn to the Lord, and continues until we are
completely restored into Christ!
The
proto-type of this wonderful reality of restoration into Christ is our Lord
Jesus Christ. That’s what the book of
Revelation is all about — it is the
revelation of Jesus Christ! When Jesus
says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, the first and the last,” — what a revelation that is! Jesus often spoke of His Father being in Him. He said, “It is not I that do the works, it
is my Father that is in me.” The Father
dwelt in the Son and worked through His Son to accomplish His will. But this isn’t all! He also explained to His disciples this great
truth, “Believest thou not that I am in
the Father, and the Father in me?” It wasn’t just that the Father was in
Him, but He was also in the Father. The
glory of Creation when it was created in
God is thus revealed in our Lord Jesus the Christ! When Jesus was praying to the Father for
those God had given Him, that they might
be one, that they might come into this
glorious unity, He prayed thus, “That they all may be one, as Thou Father art
in me, and I in Thee, that they may be one
in us” (Jn. 17:21). It is such a union of life that we think as one, walk
as one, and act as one. That’s what Jesus did! One could never tell whether it was Jesus speaking,
walking, or acting — or whether it was His Father. Only this mutual “dwelling” can bring the
oneness, the unity, the wholeness that
we originally knew in Him!
The
only way all old things can completely and forever pass away is through our
entrance back into God! John 3:16 is
called by many “the golden text”
of the Bible. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should
not perish, but have everlasting life.”
There is a marvelous significance in those words that surpasses any
sermon I ever heard in my years in the
church systems. “…that whosoever
believeth in Him…” The word “in” here is translated from the
Greek preposition eis, which means
“into,” denoting action and progression.
Using the word “into” it reads like this with a literal translation, “…that
everyone believing into Him should not
perish, but have the life of the ages.” Eis carries with it a sense of growth,
and of going on into something. It suggests
a progressive salvation, as other scriptures tell us. “Now is our (full) salvation nearer than when
we believed.” We didn’t come out of God in one grand leap,
and we are not returning into God in one grand leap. We were not delivered from all sin and death, nor did we
receive the fullness of His divine life, by “believing on” the Lord Jesus Christ one night in a revival meeting. Oh, no!
But we are being progressively delivered,
changed, and transformed as we constantly believe more and more into Him!
It
is this same Greek word eis that is
used in many, many wonderful passages where the true meaning has been concealed
by faulty translation. I will quote just
one passage for you and capitalize the places where the word eis has been used, and will use the word
“into” in place of whatever word the King James Bible uses. I think you will see the beauty of this, and
perceive its special, deeper meaning. “Till
we all come INTO the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, INTO a perfect man, INTO the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ…speaking the truth in love may grow up INTO Him in all things, which is
the head, even Christ…from whom the whole body fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body INTO the
edifying of itself in love” (Eph. 4:9-15).
In these verses we are told of the body of Christ and how the body grows
and is built up by the ministry of every part.
We are exhorted to minister in love, so that the body can grow INTO
CHRIST. We are to grow up INTO the full
stature of God’s Christ!
Paul Mueller has written a
precious exhortation. “As we have grown and
progressed in the kingdom
of God, our understanding
of Christ and of the Father also has increased, for we now see ourselves as
being a part of Him. We are the body of
Christ, and He is the Head of this body.
Christ has said, ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the
last.’ Christ is the Spirit of God;
He is the beginning of all things. He is
the Word that was spoken by the Father that brought all things into
existence. And He also is the end of all
things! All things shall ultimately be gathered into Christ, to
be unified with the Father that ‘God may
be all in all’ (I Cor. 15:28). By
the wisdom of
the mind of Christ we now see that we are a part of Him who is the ‘Alpha,’ or
the beginning of all things, for we were originally in Him in spirit. So also are we a part of Him who is revealed
and seen now as the ‘Omega,’ or as the end of
all things. We came out of God in our
beginning! And now we are returning into God, but with a redeemed mind (soul) and
body. We also are becoming a part of the glory of Christ!”
Our
Lord called Himself the Alpha and the Omega in Greek, the Aleph
and the Tau in Hebrew, or the A and the Z in English, or its equivalent in any
other language, without in the least altering the figure of its
significance. Alphabetical languages
usually have the letters arranged in a fixed order. The first is often used as a symbol of the
beginning of anything and the last for its ending. That is, our Lord claims to be what letters
and language were meant to be, namely, the expression
of truth. HE IS T-H-E W-O-R-D — the
expression of the totality of God’s nature, wisdom, power, purpose, and substance from
first to last. God is a spirit — an
invisible, incorporeal, intangible, unapproachable Spirit. But that hidden and unsearchable One may be
uttered, expressed, and manifested is such a way that He may be communicated to
man. And that utterance, that
expression, that manifestation of invisible Godhead is the Christ, the Logos,
the Word — God projected from the plane of the invisible, intangible, and
unknowable, and filtered through into the realm of the visible, tangible, and
knowable. In that long ago beginning all
things were created in the Christ, and
apart from Him, outside of Him was not anything made that was made. In Christ Jesus we see clearly our very own
origin in God! In Christ Jesus we see
perfectly the original state of all
things! In Christ Jesus we see precisely
what kind of a man Adam
was before he was lowered into this gross material realm and subsequently into
the vanity of sin and death. Oh, my
Christ and my God! In Thee I see how I,
and all men, and all things once
were! I see the Alpha! My God and my
Christ! In Thee I see how I, and all
men, and all things shall again be! I see the Omega! My Lord, that is the Word
that Thou art to me! In God’s revelation
of Himself and His plan of the ages He has used many characters, but the first
one was Christ and the last one will be Christ again. All commences and concludes in Him!
Christ
is the Alpha and the Omega. Only the glorious mind of Christ can reveal
to our hearts what that means! Through a
glass darkly I can see that He was the first,
“before all things.” Can I also
believe that HE IS THE LAST? If He is the beginning, can my feeble mind dare to
comprehend what it signifies when
He says that He is also THE END? Let us
look at some things that happened in our experience in that long-ago beginning.
Surely Ephesians, chapter one, makes this as clear as it can be at
this juncture in our understanding. Paul says that “God…chose
us in Christ before the world began.” And in another place, “In hope of eternal
life, which God, who cannot lie, promised
(us) before the world began” (Tit.
1:2). And then, “Who hath saved us, and
called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace,
which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began” (II Tim. 1:9).
Obviously, then, our beginning was not in the garden of Eden, nor at Calvary, nor when we
were born into this world, nor even when we received our salvation
experience! All of these things were
experienced by us “in Christ” BEFORE THE WORLD BEGAN! Oh, the mystery of it! Paul
goes on from that beginning out of eternity to reach forth to that which will
be at the conclusion of all ages of time, declaring that God is “making known
to us the mystery of His will — of His plan, of His purpose. And it is this: In accordance with His good
pleasure which He hath previously
purposed and set forth in Him, He
planned for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and
CONSUMMATE THEM I-N C-H-R-I-S-T…in
Him also we had been foreordained in
accordance with His purpose” (Eph. 1:4,9-11).
If
you can conceive of God taking Eve and putting her back into Adam, as she was in Eden,
then you may also understand what is this glorious purpose that transcends Adam and Eve — when God takes the whole vast creation and
MAKES IT ONE IN CHRIST AGAIN! This
oneness denotes “harmony,” not a loss of identity. Eastern religion teaches that the goal of
life is to lose your personal identity in
the ocean of divine being. Now there’s
an irony! True religion is supposed to
point the way home to God. But some
believe that getting “lost” is the aim of spirituality: forget that you exist,
that creation exists; just shed these illusions and dissolve yourself in the
divine ocean like a grain of salt. But
let me ask you, my friend: If all “things” were created “in Him,” is there not identity?
And if God saw us, chose us, predestinated us, and both promised
and gave us things before the
world began — did we not possess identity? Just as the body is made of many members,
and all the members of that body, being
many, are one body — SO ALSO IS CHRIST!
All of mankind’s yearnings and searching after God to fully know Him shall find their complete and
eternal satisfaction there where all things are brought back into Christ.
The
First and the Last bring before us both the time element and the substance of
creation. “For out of Him everything comes; through
Him everything exists; and in Him
everything ends! Glory to Him forever!”
(Rom.
11:36, Goodspeed). “For out of Him and through
Him and to Him are all
things. For all things originate with Him and come from Him;
all things live through Him, and all things center in and tend to consummate
and to end in Him. To Him be glory forever!” (Amplified
Bible). Truly HE is the beginning and
the end of all things! The beginning,
precious friend of mine, was not a date on the calendar. The beginning was and is a glorious Person —
our Lord Jesus Christ! Christ Himself is the beginning! If you consider with reverent honesty these
words of significance and truth, you will understand as never before the spiritual words which open
our Bible: “In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth.” IN
THE BEGINNING! “I am the
beginning.” Can you not see the
mystery? Thus, the spiritual translation
of the first verse of scripture should read, “IN THE CHRIST God created the
heavens and the earth.” The beginning is
neither time nor place. The beginning is
Christ Himself! Men can argue about how
old the universe is and when man appeared on earth. It is all irrelevant. In HIM all things were created and set in
order in the beauty and unity and perfection and harmony of the Spirit of God!
What
has now been provided in Christ is a re-turn, a re-storation, a re-newing, a
re-demption, a re-conciliation, a re-surrection, a re-stitution. The prefix “re” means BACK, AGAIN, ANEW — and
all the words with this prefix indicate
something that LEFT ITS PLACE AND STATE, AND HAS NOW MADE ITS CIRCUIT AND COME
BACK TO THE POINT OF ITS BEGINNING. Oh,
mighty Christ!
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
