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Enjoying God Blog

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Last Sunday I began a new sermon series on the Gospel of John. As all of you are undoubtedly aware, the so-called “Prologue” to John’s gospel, chapter one, verses 1-18, is quite breathtaking! On Sunday we looked at seven things John says about the “Word” in vv. 1-5. Here I want to mention only two of them.

First, the Son of God, or the Word, was eternally pre-existent: “In the beginning was the Word” (v. 1a).

You should immediately recognize John’s language in v. 1 as an echo of Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Thus when John says that the “in the beginning was the Word” he is telling us that the Word, the Son of God, the person who became human in the person of Jesus, is eternally pre-existent.

Mark begins his gospel by saying: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). John may be alluding to Mark, saying: “Mark has told you about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry here on earth. But I want to show you that the real starting point of the gospel can be traced back farther than that, indeed, back before the creation of the entire universe!”

John is telling us that when it all began, the Word already was. The Word was not a part of the beginning. He was eternally prior to or before it. He was eternally antecedent to the beginning. When the beginning began, the Word already was! The Word didn’t begin with the beginning. The Word was himself the beginner of the beginning!

Therefore, the Word was not made. The Word simply was and is. The Word was not started. He was the starter. He did not commence to be. He was not shaped or fashioned or formed. The Word wasn’t produced and packaged. The Word wasn’t constructed or created. The Word simply is, and always has been: unbegun, unmade, uncreated.

The Word was not the product of the Big Bang (assuming for the sake of argument that there was a Big Bang). If the universe started with a Big Bang, the Word was the Big Banger! He lit the fuse.

The Word, therefore, is eternal. He is ageless. To be measured in terms of age you have to have begun at some point from which your time in existence can be calculated. Not the Word! The Word has no birthday. Jesus had a birthday. When the eternally pre-existent Word “became flesh” (John 1:14), the human being we know as Jesus began to be. But the Word who became Jesus never began to be but always is.

There never was a time when the Word was not. In 1950, I was not. In 433 a.d., I was not. In 1342 b.c., I was not. No such thing can be said about the Word. The Word existed before creation and is therefore no part of creation.

Let your mind stretch back into human history, to the conquests of Alexander the Great, to Solomon’s Temple, to the parting of the Red Sea and Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At no point, at no time, during no event can it be said that the Word was not there. Before all these events, indeed, before the creation of the first molecule and atom and quark, the Word simply was.

Second, the Son of God, or the Word, is the creator of all that is created: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (v. 3).

John clearly tells us that the Word was not created. In fact, everything that has come into being came into being because of the Word. If the Word was himself created, he was created by himself. But how does one create oneself? If you are a creature, something that has been created, there must have been a time when you did not exist. But if there was a time when the Word didn’t exist, how could the Word have existed in order to create himself?

Note carefully what John says. He doesn’t merely say that “all things were made through him” (v. 3a). After all, someone might object and say, “O.K., but the ‘all things’ that the Word made or created may not include the Word himself. It includes everything and everyone except himself. Perhaps then God the Father made or created Jesus.”

But again, John doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say that “without him was not any thing made that was made” (v. 3b). In other words, anything or anyone that falls under the category of being “made”, the Word made it. If you are a “made” thing; if you are in any sense a “created” thing, the Word is responsible. Therefore, Christ was not made or created or caused to be. Because before you exist, you can’t bring yourself into being.

We read elsewhere that everything that has been created was created by the Word, by God the Son, by the very one who became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ (see Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 3:14). The universe is not eternal. There was a time when it came into existence, and it came into existence through the action of the eternal Word of God, the second person of the Trinity.

If they haven’t already, one day your children will ask you: “Daddy/Mommy, where did I come from?” And you will have to decide if that day is the day you tell them about “the birds and the bees.” But my guess is that, at minimum, you will say: “You came from Mommy and Daddy.” And when they ask where Mommy and Daddy came from, you will tell them that we came from our Mommy and Daddy. After you have worked your way back through the ages to the Garden of Eden, explaining to them where Adam and Eve came from, they likely will ask: “So, where did God come from?”

And that is your opportunity for a glorious teaching moment. I trust you will turn to John 1:1-5, among numerous other texts, to tell them that God didn’t “come” at any time from any one, that he simply is, always and eternally. What a God we have!

3 Comments

One of my earliest memories is as a little boy around 1967 of little me getting ready for bed, standing in the kitchen with the light out and just a nightlight turned and a tea kettle heating on the stove. The scene has stayed with me forever. And I Remember the exact conversation - I was asking my mother "...but where did God come from, who made Him? How did He get here?

And she answered "He always has been, He didn't have a beginning, nobody made him" And I can still feel the amazement as I wrapped my mind around that. I knew she was right, I did not doubt her for a second, and I was left speechless.
I Think about that when people ask me when I became a Christian. It was the age of 2-3 years old. I have never doubted His existence She taught me about Jesus as I got older, and in 1974-75 I officially made the declaration through the help of my older Sister.
I'm tearing up a bit reading this thinking about bed time conversations with my young children that included this topic. They seem to grasp this so easily while the high and mighty cannot fathom or accept it. What a God we have, indeed!
Bedrock Truth.

A wonderful thing in a world of apparently intelligent (but lost) people who think we can control the weather and decide our gender.

Thanks Sam.

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