Sermons - Cornerstone Christian Fellowship

The Beginning and the End - Part Two

Oct 20, 2024 by: John Herbert | Series: The Beginning and the End

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Ge 1:1 In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Today we will continue to look at that which is contained in this verse and what we can learn from it.

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Sunday October 20th 2024
The Beginning and the End
Part Two

Ge 1:1 In beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

We had seen last time that not only was there a specific moment when God created the heavens and the earth within the already created universe, but that this creation was also the most important thing that God wanted to communicate to us as He began to reveal Himself and His plans and purposes for the ages. This first verse of Scripture then, is more than just a statement of fact, it is also a statement of intent.

And so, with this in mind let us return to the former things of old once again, by looking at the first three words of our English translation of the Bible one more time - Ge 1:1 In beginning God [Elohim. The plural form of the word translated God, showing more than one]………….

That done ‘in beginning’, when God created the heavens and the earth, was the combined work of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and as we compare Scripture with Scripture by going to the Gospel of John where the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1 is dealt with again, so the importance of what was done ‘in beginning’ will become clear – Jn 1:1 In beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made…….. 14 And the Word became 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. 
 
To this we can then add further commentary on the creation of the heavens and the earth from - Col 1:16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 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 may have the preeminence.

And as John wrote his first epistle to the Church, so he returned once again to the same time seen in Genesis and the same time that begins his Gospel – 1 Jn 1:1 That which was from beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
 
That which God had inspired John to record in his Gospel would have to be seen within the overall context of the purpose for John’s Gospel, which we will remember, was written during the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews by the Church. The Jesus who walked in the midst of the Jews, who performed validating signs and preached the Kingdom of the heavens is the same Word made flesh of whom it is recorded that ‘all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.’ It is this same Jesus who the nation killed who John was presenting again in conjunction with the eight signs recorded in his Gospel, that the Jews might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, that they might have life for the age.

And it is of course this same Jesus, by whom and for whom all things were made, whom they pierced, that the Jews will look upon at the end of the Tribulation, who, they will then receive as the Christ, the One who is the Son of the living God, the Second Man, the Last Adam.

Who Jesus is, and the significance of His role ‘in beginning’, as recorded in John’s Gospel, remains a statement of fundamental importance whether viewed from a Jewish or a Christian perspective.

And from a Christian perspective we have that recorded by Paul in his letter to the Colossians. And again in 1 John where John is writing to the Church after the re-offer of the Kingdom of the heavens to the Jews had come to an end.

And that which God had said recorded in John Chapter 1, Colossians Chapter 1 and 1 John Chapter 1, is exactly the same as God had said that was recorded by Moses in Genesis 1:1. Moses wrote that which God had given to him, in the first verse of all of Scripture, and then God added more clarifying detail to His foundational statement through that recorded by John in his Gospel concerning the creative activity of the nation’s Messiah on the one hand, which is the same creative activity of the Christian Savior, the same Jesus, on the other. And by comparing Scripture with Scripture, God has revealed to us the how and the why of what happened ‘in beginning’.

And that which is recorded in Genesis 1:1 cannot be understood apart from that seen in John Chapter 1, Colossians Chapter 1, and 1 John Chapter 1.

And putting all this together, as we look at, ‘in beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’, we can now in this first verse of all of Scripture see Jesus, the One who said, ‘I am the Alpha’, ‘I am the Beginning’ ‘the first.’ The One through whom all things have been made. We can see Jesus, the One for whom all things have been made. And that which has been made by Him and made for Him, that are in the heavens and on earth, both visible and invisible, are ‘thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.’ Or to sum this up in one word, RULERSHIP. Rulership from the heavens over the earth and rulership on the earth. And the fulfillment of God’s purpose with respect to this rulership, the finishing of the mystery of God, as it pertains to the One who is the Omega, the End, is recorded in the Book of His Revelation, the last Book of Scripture. A Book given by God to the Apostle John to record, the same John whose Gospel begins within the same timeframe as Moses began; a Gospel that sets out the same Seven Day structure seen in Moses, which provides the gateway to a proper understanding of the NT. And in the Revelation, God through John, again uses signs as the means of communicating this – 
Re 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.

Re 11:15 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

‘In beginning’ the Triune God created the heavens and the earth, and the heavens appear first, as it is from the heavens that the earth is ruled. We will remember from Daniel that ‘the heavens do rule’. And we have seen by comparing Scripture with Scripture, that the heavens, the place of rulership, has been created by the Christ and for the Christ, He is the Alpha. And in the Book in which He is revealed, in the Book where He is unveiled with respect to all that is said of Him and the mystery of God, previously recorded in all the Scriptures, He is shown to be the Omega, the fulfillment of God’s purpose that was established ‘in beginning’ – Re 19:6 And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!............. 16 And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Hopefully we can now see that the very first verse of all of Scripture has declared that God’s purpose for creating the heavens and the earth ‘in beginning’ is rulership. Rulership that has been established by and for God’s Son, the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, within the Seventh Day.

And because it is the heavens which appear first in God’s creation, and then the earth, another foundational truth is established, a truth that then continues throughout the rest of the Scriptures, and directly impacts us every day. And the truth that is established ‘In beginning’ is that there is a distinction made between that which is above and that which is below. From the first verse of Scripture, we see the heavens are above and the earth is below.

And this distinction between above and below is continued throughout the rest of the first Chapter of Genesis. On the first day in Genesis Chapter 1, the darkness is below, on the face of the deep and the light shines from above. On the second day there is a division between the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament. On the third day, the dry land appears and is above the waters and the waters below the dry land. On the fourth day the lights in the firmament above provide light for the earth below. And on the fifth day there are the sea creatures in the waters below and the birds flying in the firmament above. And finally, on the sixth day there were land animals below to be ruled over by created Man from the heavens above in the Seventh Day.

And we will be familiar with the importance of that which is brought forth from above and that which is brought forth from below, established here in the foundation, from our previous studies on this subject - 1 Pe 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again [brought us forth from above] to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Jn 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again [brought forth from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jas 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

And the distinction between that which is brought forth from above, which is the wisdom of God that has an inseparable connection with light and life, and that which is brought forth from below which is the wisdom of this world, that which is inseparably connected to the god of this age, connected to darkness and death, will be found together throughout the Scriptures if we will have eyes to see it.

And as we think about this, let’s consider just a few examples of the wisdom brought forth from above and the wisdom brought forth from below, that will help us to see what we are talking about. Within the third Chapter of Genesis, when the Woman ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was she brought forth from above or from below? When Cain chose to slay Abel, was he brought forth from above or from below? When Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees by faith, was he brought forth from above or from below? And to bring this into the NT, when Peter rebuked the Lord in Matthew Chapter 16, was he brought forth from above or from below? – Mt 16:23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

And to see this from our own experience, when we made our own choice, ‘I will go’, as we saw through the types of Ruth and Rebekah, were we brought forth from above, or from below?

And the decisions we make day by day will either show we have been brought forth from above or brought forth from below. Decisions coming from the man of the Spirit in line with the Scriptures or the man of the flesh in line with the god of this world. And at the very end of the matter for us, the end that has been declared from the beginning, rulership from the heavens above over the earth below, established in foundation in Genesis 1:1, will be the reward for those who have been consistently brought forth from above during the course of their race of the faith.

And God’s purpose concerning rulership of the earth from above, stated as we have seen in the first verse of Scripture, will now bring clarity to the creation of Adam and the Woman and will explain the overwhelming importance that God attaches to the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens, offered to and rejected by national Israel, and now offered to the one new man in Christ. It is, from God’s perspective, which should also be ours, THE most important thing – Heb 2:1 Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, 4 God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?

And with respect to rulership in the Seventh Day the Scriptures remain consistent throughout, from their beginning to their end, because although, as a whole, they are recorded in sixty-six books by forty different Jewish writers over some one-thousand-five-hundred years, they were all given to those individual writers through the ministry of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit – 
1 Pe 1:20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

2 Ti 3:16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, [literally God breathed] and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

There can be no inconsistency, no confusion, and no variety of interpretation. There is only one Author through a variety of different writers, who has expressed the same singular purpose through each one.

And as we continue with the God breathed Scriptures recorded in the first Chapter of Genesis, we find that the heavens and the earth became formless and void, which we know by comparing Scripture with Scripture, was because of Satan’s rebellion – Isa 14:12 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

Satan was the original ‘messianic angel’, the anointed one, the son of God, given jurisdiction over the earth. And not only did his rebellion cause his sanctuaries to become defiled, cause the earth to become formless and void – Eze 28:18 “You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading…….

But his rebellion also disqualified him to be the earth’s ruler. However, it is a scriptural principle, seen through the account of Saul and David that typifies the present situation with Satan and Christ, that a disqualified ruler will remain in place until the one who will replace him is both present and proven worthy to do so. And in this we will remember that it is only God who can place and remove rulers, both heavenly and earthly – Da 4:17 ‘This decision is by the decree of the watchers, And the sentence by the word of the holy ones, In order that the living may know That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, Gives it to whomever He will, And sets over it the lowest of men.’

And we know from what we have seen by comparing Scripture with Scripture, that the purpose established in the very first verse of Scripture, if we take it to its conclusion in the Revelation, shows us who will rule from the heavens over the earth in Satan’s place. It is the One from ‘in beginning’ who made all things and for whom all things were made, the Lord Jesus Christ, but within God’s purpose the Christ cannot do this alone – Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”…………. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Adam was created on the Sixth Day to have dominion, and the Woman was built from a part of Adam’s body on the same Day to share in that dominion over the newly restored and populated earth with him, as his helper. Adam and the Woman were specifically and intentionally created in the image and likeness of God, that together they could exercise dominion over the earth in the place of Satan and his angels in the heavens.

And we find ourselves again here in the territory of remembering the former things of old, of the end declared from the beginning, those things from ancient times not yet done. And that established from the beginning declares that at the end, at the fulfillment of God’s purpose, when the mystery of God is finished, that a Man and a Woman MUST rule together from the heavens over the earth. And the Man, pictured through Adam, is identified for us – Ro 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

It is of course the Christ, the One identified from ‘in beginning’. And the Woman, as we will see from comparing Scripture with Scripture, can only be identified as the church, and more specifically as faithful Christians, who will one day be Christ’s Wife.

And it might be of interest for us to note that the typology revealing Christ and His Bride through Adam and the Woman, is presented in the Scripture in the first three Chapters of Genesis, before Israel is introduced in the type seen through the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis Chapter 4. And in a similar way, it is Enoch, who is the foundational type for the resurrection/rapture of the church, who is presented before Noah, who pictures Israel during the Tribulation, is seen.

And from the beginning the end has been declared, because if we go to the Revelation, the final Book of our Bible, we find that the first three Chapters of that Book deal with the resurrection/rapture and judgment of the church to identify the Bride for Christ, which must take place before God renews His dealings with national Israel. Judgments upon the nation that will bring them to repentance at the hands of the Gentile nations beginning in Chapter 6.

And to this we should add, from the Scripture, that God gave Adam and the Woman a mandate as a precursor to rulership, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…, and only once this mandate was fulfilled could they then have ruled over the material creation that had been restored and populated over five days of preceding work. And this rulership in the place of Satan and his angels was to take place during the Seventh Day, the only Day from Genesis Chapters 1-2, where no mention is made of the evening and the morning, of day and night.

And so then, because of what we now know about the end being declared from the beginning we will know that the Christ must have a Wife, He must have faithful Christians, to rule with Him in the Seventh Day. This is what is addressed in Ephesians Chapter 5, which takes us back to Genesis Chapter 2 - Eph 5:30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

And this is seen in its conclusion at the end - Re 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. 9 Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”

We will need to continue with this next time though, if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

The Beginning and the End - Part Two

Refresh A Recap from the Sermon

The Beginning and the End - Part Two

Oct 20, 2024

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: The Beginning and the End

Category: Sunday Morning

Refresh
A Recap from the Sermon