IN THE BEGINNING

Religion

This is the first sermon in the series on the life of Christ on the theme THAT WE MAY KNOW HIM. It was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, September 14, 2014 by Pastor Paul Mims. You can hear this sermon at www.csbccl.org

John 1:1-4It was Augustine, who lived who lived 354-430 AD, who asked, “What is time?” His answer was, “I do not know.” He was one of the early thinkers of the Christian Church and was wrestling with time and eternity. From the eternal perspective nobody knows what time is. We measure our lives in years, or orbits. That is, in our way of measuring a year is the time that it takes earth to make a full orbit around our brightest star – the sun. From the divine standpoint the scripture says that “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)

We begin today a study of Him who lived in eternity before time was measured by the ancients. Scientists tell us that the universe is 14 billion years old measured by the light coming from the farthest star traveling at 186,000 miles per second. In geologic time they say that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Some Christian scholars have wrestled with these assumptions and augured for a young earth of less than 10,000 years old based on the genealogies in the Bible and their understanding of geology. A good case can be made from both perspectives and regardless of what we want to believe, we arrive at the same place Augustine did when he said, “I don’t know.”

But one thing we do know. The one before whom we bow this morning lived before time began to tick, before the first star twinkled in the heavens, and before there was a planet called “earth.”

I. BEFORE THE WORLD WAS HE WAS “WITH GOD”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God…”
Jesus, himself, said it in John 17:5, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You BEFORE THE WORLD WAS.” The Apostle John, who saw His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, said “In the beginning WAS the Word.”

What was this glory that He had with the Father? We can only define it in human terms. He was speaking of the time before He became a human being like us – before the time as the Apostle Paul described it, “…who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8) It was the glory of His Divine relationship with the Father without it being strained through the limitations of His humanity. It was the glory of His presence with the Father in the heavenly realms and not limited to earth as a human being. It was the glory of the work He did in eternity.

The closest thing I can imagine to what Jesus meant is the way a spouse must feel after the death of a mate with whom they had lived their lives. The glory of such a relationship is the highest form of human existence. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American aviator and author described even the time she spent away from her husband while he was alive. “Parting is inevitably painful, even for a short time. It’s like an amputation. I feel a limb is being torn off, without which I shall be unable to function.”

Those of you who have lost your lifetime mates can better understand what Jesus meant as He spoke of the glory He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. It was a lot for Him to give up to come to earth.

John says that He was WITH God. He does not call him Jesus or the Christ, he calls Him the WORD. This is a very revealing name for the Son. It is a very old concept and originated when the Jews were fearful of breaking the commandment that prohibited taking the Lord’s name in vain. They would substitute another word for Yahweh. In the Old Testament when God sought to reveal Himself to man, the Revealer was referred to as “Memra.” This is a Hebrew word for “a word.” This indicated that God was communicating Himself. So John used this ancient concept to say that Jesus is the fullest expression of God. The main thought is that Jesus is revealing the Father. In its Greek form the word is “logos” and John filled the word a new and deeper meaning that focused on the revelation relationship to the Father. John says, “He was in the beginning with God.” (v.2)

II. BEFORE THE WORLD JESUS “WAS GOD”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (v.1)
We who know Him and love Him have no difficulty in believing in the Deity of Christ. The Christ who existed before the foundation of the world and the Christ who invaded time and came to earth over 2,000 years ago is our Redeemer and we have no difficulty in believing in His Incarnation. But through the ages, Satan has attacked the Deity of Christ more than any other teaching of our faith for if he could win here all of Christianity would collapse.

During the early centuries of Christianity there were heresies as to who Jesus really is. Some of these were (1) Ebionism which was a Jewish sect that existed during the time of the apostles and had mistaken preconceptions about the Messiah and resulted in the denial of the divine nature of Christ. (2) Gnosticism, which developed in a group of people who claimed to have superior knowledge and they denied the humanity of Christ, even to the extent of denying the reality of his human body. (3) Sabellianism, which denied the Trinity and the existence of Jesus as a distinct person before the incarnation. They did accept the divine and human natures of Christ, but believed it to be temporary. (4) Arianism denied that the Son was the same essence as the Father. (5) Apollinarianism said that Christ had a human body, but not a human spirit so that He was not completely human.

You might say, “Pastor, I have never heard of this before. Why is this important?” It is important because the same old heresies are alive today. I was talking last week with a pastor who was trained with the thinking of Neo-orthodox theologians whose view of Christ is not the divine-human person that we see in the gospels. Emil Brunner and Karl Barth both believed that the real revelation of God centers not in the historical coming of Jesus, but only in the Christ who is discerned by the eye of faith. Neo-orthodox Christology tends to neglect both the words and deeds of Jesus. Brunner holds that to believe in both the divine and human natures in Christ exceeds man’s intellectual capacity. But we hold that faith is a higher faculty than reason and in that dimension it is easy to accept what the Apostle John says is true.
This is how the scriptures state it: John 8:58-59; “So the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’”

III. BEFORE CREATION
“All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (v.3)

This is high Christology to believe that He lived before creation and was the agent of the creation of all things. Both He and the Father and the Holy Spirit are included in the statement, “In the beginning God…” in Genesis 1:1. Both are included in “And God said…” as the universe was spoken into being.

The Apostle Paul said the same thing in Colossians 1:16-17; “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.” Also in I Corinthians 8:6: “…there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” Paul is saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct individual persons who make up the Godhead and are one.

In Hebrews 1:2, we read; “…in these last days (God) has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.”

When our youth hear this at church and go to college and hear that creation all happened through the natural processes of evolution and that man is descended from the apes or monkeys – what are they to think? Professor Craig Rusbult says that “There are three basic creation views, plus variations, that are compatible with a Judeo-Christian doctrine of theistic creation:

In young-earth creation, everything in the universe was miraculously created in a 144-hour period less than 10,000 years ago. Later, most of the earth’s geology and fossil record were formed in a global flood. In a variation that is less common, the earth is young but the universe is old.

In progressive creation, also called old-earth creation, at various times during a long history of nature (spanning billions of years) God used miraculous-appearing action to create. There are two kinds of progressive creation: one proposes independent creations “from scratch” so a new species would not necessarily have any relationships with previously existing species; another proposes creations by modification of the genetic material (by changing, adding, or deleting it) for some members (or all members) of an existing species.

In evolutionary creation, also called theistic evolution, natural evolution was God’s method of creation, with the universe designed so physical structures (galaxies, stars, planets) and complex biological organisms (bacteria, fish, dinosaurs, humans) would naturally evolve.”

What do you think of this? Everyone has to solve it in their own minds. But as Christians we accept the fact that God did it through Jesus Christ as the scripture indicates. He was the agent of creation and He is now holding all things together as Paul said.

John Chrysostom (c. 347–407), Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He said:

“I do not think of Christ as God alone, or man alone, but both together. For I know He was hungry, and I know that with five loves He fed five thousand. I know He was thirsty, and I know that He turned the water into wine. I know he was carried in a ship, and I know that He walked on the sea. I know that He died, and I know that He raised the dead. I know that He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father on His throne. I know that He was worshipped by angels, and I know that He was rejected by the Jews. And truly some of these I ascribe to the human, and others to the divine nature. For by reason of this He is said to have been both God and man.”

IV. IN HIM WE FIND LIFE
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (v.4)
Have you found it? Have you found the abundant and eternal life that the Father offers to us in Christ? I tremble to think where I would be today had I not found Him. He has given me wholeness and a life that would not have been possible without Him. I don’t have much, but I have everything. That is what is meant by “abundant life.” It began with personal salvation which happened as the Holy Spirit drew me to Him and I saw my need. I repented of my sin and awayness from God and believed that he would accept me as I trusted His promise, “…the one that comes to me I will certainly not cast out.” (John 6:37)
And with the life comes light. It is light of understanding of life and it lightens the way before me as He guides me into His will.

I don’t know who said this, but I can attest that it is true from my experience. “What do we need in God that we do not find in Christ? God is not beyond Him, but in Him. He brings God: in Him God comes-Immanuel. In Jesus Christ we meet God. He is One with the inmost heart of God. His life is a personal disclosure of the Life of God.

Like man He walked, like God He talked;
His words were oracles, His deeds were miracles;
Of God the true expression, of man the finest specimen;
Full-orbed humanity, crowned with Deity;
No trace of infirmity, no taint of iniquity;
Behold the Man! Behold thy God!
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail, Incarnate Deity!”

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!

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