The Beginning

In the beginning was the Word… He is the Firstborn of all creation He is the Beginning… Christ Jesus, being God, existed at the beginning of all things-He already was. In fact, all things came into existence through Him and for Him and without Him was nothing made that was made. He is very God and very Creator-Truly God and truly Creator. In Him all things consist; all things hold together in Him. But He not only was there, not only created it all but He IS the beginning itself. Without Him, not only would there be no creation, there would be no beginning. In Colossians one, we have an ever-expanding view of our Lord Jesus. There are four pairs of descriptions. The first and the fourth pair are Hebrew poetic parallelisms. He is the image of the invisible God; The firstborn of all creation. He is the beginning; The firstborn from the dead. Creation being a beginning, we are presented with two beginnings: the beginning of things and another beginning which is He Himself. In a sense, without detracting from the glory of creation, it was a false start, or maybe better put, an incomplete start. We rhapsodize the beauty of Eden past and future and rightly so, for it was all that we can imagine and so much more. But that Edenic beauty, lost an restored, is of things, of bodies, and fruit, leaves and earth. We cannot conceive of the beauty that will strike the eye when first exposed to its perfection-perfect harmony between light and color and shape in individual and in corporate view. No matter the scale, subatomic to universe, when seen with the newborn eye of a redeemed soul, we shall be breathless with wonder and awe. All our art is but child’s scribblings, our music but fingernails scraping on a blackboard, our writing henscratchings in the barnyard dirt. But this beauty is not The Beginning. The Beginning did not happen at the beginning. The true Beginning, the beginning which made the first creation real required passing through the deep waters of Jordan, through death itself, by One who was qualified. At the time when all seemed lost, the Creator Himself, the great Originator, Life Himself, stepped into the frame. He, the precise image of the invisible God, the creator of all, became the Beginning. He did not speak this beginning into existence as He had the creation. He became it. He was it; it was Him. He stepped into the death chamber and for a fraction of a moment, was lost to sight. Then the new beginning, the glorious Beginning Himself broke free and became the Beginning of all things as He was the Creator of all things. Now the world could truly begin, truly start down its real path. And, wonder of wonders, in this bloody path, this scarlet weekend, He triumphed far beyond any imagination of the wisest of mankind’s wisdom. In the blood of His cross---listen carefully now-in the blood of His cross, He reconciled man to God. All that alienated mankind from Godkind was swept away; peace was restored, God and sinners reconciled as the old Christmas hymn says so succinctly. Not only things on earth reconciled, but things in heaven as well—all things reconciled. It is yet a shadow of a dream, but lives in future time as if it already is-God and man are reconciled. The war is over, rebellion has burned itself to cinders on the cross. All is at peace, all is at rest. The Sabbath of eternity is but is not yet at the same time. The blood, His blood, has accomplished this great thing. It’s end, the conclusion of the story, the experiencing of the reality is here and now for some; then and there for others, but the reality exists for those to whom it is revealed. We live in Him, we move and have our existence in Him. We are at peace with God, in Him, in the accomplishments of His cross. What words can convey such great glory? What music? What art? Can the thought even be hinted at in the brightest of minds? No, I think not. But though we see as in a smoky mirror, this glory, this delight, it is nonetheless real and approaches with the deliberate speed of Him who knows all things and knows the end from the beginning and has marked it out on His timetable. He knows and I am content to await its revelation and bask in the early dawn light of that glorious day when peace will break through like the dawning of the day and mankind will come home to Godkind, settle into His all-encompassing lap and snuggle close to His great heart-at peace forevermore. ********* Scriptures: John 1:1-5; Colossians 1:13-21 12.27.12

God Dust

There is no such thing as nothing. Nothing “exists” in the same way in which darkness does: it is the absence of something. We who claim the title “creationists” often say that all that is was created “ex nihilo” or “out of nothing.” This makes no sense. If something is made from nothing, then nothing would have substance—a logical conundrum. We would be made up of nothing. Those who contend that we are the result of the “Big Bang” say that we are made of stardust.We consist of an almost incomprehensibel number of interactions and reactions between particles which originated in an extremely ancient “explosion” which itself resulted from an incredibly small bundle of pre-matter. What was outside of this, few attempt to explain; what it expanded into, what it displaced, no one can tell. The primary point of agreement is that we exist, we consist, we have substance. So, then, of what does substance consist? Scripture, especially in the writings of Paul, repeatedly uses the phrase “In Him.” In my favorite text, all things are “of Him.” If we are “of Him” and if we exist “in Him,” then we are of the very substance of God and we exist within Him: “in Him we live, move and exist (The Acts of the Apostles chapter 17 verse 34). We are made of and within Him; we are maintained within Him and return to Him (Pauls’ Letter to the Romans, Chapter 11 verse 36). We are not stardust; we are God dust. Now to be perfectly clear I am not suggesting that, being made of God dust, we worship the dust. We are not God—He does not require us to exist or function. Rather, we exist only because He does. He is the framework upon which we depend; the form which shapes us; the oxygen, water and nutrients on which we subsist. We breathe Him, drink Him, eat Him whether we acknowledge Him or not. There is no outside to God within which He exists. In some mystical way, all that is exists within Him. We are alive, function and have our very being within the universe that is Him—the Universe that is all that is. We are saturated in Him. Between every organ of our body, between and within every cell, every atom, every subatomic particle, there is God—or rather, it is all God dust—every thing that is consists of Him, yet is separate from Him. Ah what grand mystery, what wondrous quandry. How beautiful and how glorious, how mysterious and beautiful is He in Whom we exist! Being of Him, we are stamped with His image, His likeness; our DNA codes His reflection into our body, soul and spirit—We are bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, spirit of His Spirit, yet not Him. As mirror reflects a clear likeness, so we reflect an inexact but real likeness of Him from whom we are, from Whom we derive action, life and being. God dust—You, me and all that is. 12.26.12