If everyone could turn to Ephesians 1, we are going to read the first five verses there. Then we are going to get into a discussion about events before the foundation of the world. We are going to try and take a look at what the Bible has to say about that.
In Ephesians 1:1-5:
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
In this passage, God lays out His plan of salvation and how it is that people become saved. It is all done by the will and the work of God. God did everything in the matter of salvation for His people.
We read here in Ephesians 1:4, “He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus makes the statement, “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you,” and many other things in the Bible support that and back that up. Whenever it comes to salvation, man does nothing and God does all the work. God does the work of saving.
Jesus saves sinners, and what do we do? Well, we can hear the Gospel, and as we hear, yes, we can beseech God for mercy, we can try to turn from our sins, we can pray. We are permitted and encouraged to do all those things, but none of those things are going to save us. None of that will save us. Nothing we do, as a matter of fact, will save us. God has to do the saving, completely and entirely.
We are learning, and I think this is really fascinating, we are learning now, right at the edge of the end of the world, right before we enter into eternity future, we are learning about eternity past. God is teaching us, He is revealing things that we maybe had a little glimpse into. We read the verses. We thought we knew what they meant, but now God is opening up information concerning events or some of the things that took place before the world began, before this world was created. Before He spoke and brought this universe into being, God was not idle. He was not idle. He was not lounging around, not doing anything.
And actually, the first thing we should really take a look at, before we look into the subject of “before the foundation of the world,” is a couple of verses that teach us about the Person of God, who He is and exactly whom we are talking about.
In Psalm 90:1-2, it says:
JEHOVAH, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
That is something that is immediately beyond us. We cannot grasp it. We cannot fully understand it. We cannot even really begin to understand at all that before this world, before this universe—the sun, moon, and stars—before all these things came into being, God lived.
He told Moses, as Moses came to Him saying, “Who shall I tell the people that You are?” (That is not an exact quote.) “Tell them, I AM that I AM.” “The ever-living God” is basically what He is saying.
He always exists. He always has been. He always will be. He is Eternal, and that means, as it says, “from everlasting,” that God has no beginning point. He is the “Alpha and Omega.” He is called “the beginning and the end,” but He has no beginning point. He has no conception of His being. There cannot be a time when He came to be in existence. He has always been.
This is the nature of God. He is an Eternal Being and we are not, or we have not been. We have not been “from everlasting,” that is for sure. We were just created, and some of us just a few years ago.
It is interesting how when we think about the Mind of God, we realize that He is an Infinite Being and His Mind is so brilliant. And here we are in this world, and some of us maybe start to think that we know something when we get to be 40 or 50 or 60 years old. We have been around a long time, haven’t we? 60 years, 70 years. Is that a long time? No, it is not a long time. Maybe in comparison to others in this world it is. But in comparison to God, what are we? Really, what are we?
When God says that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways, “as the heavens are higher than the earth,” that is exactly what He means, that we really should be humbled. We should go trembling before God, before the One who wrote this Book, as the “Ancient of Days” that He is, and give Him the utmost honor and respect in going to Him and beseeching Him that He would reveal His Infinite Mind to us finite creatures. That is how we should go to the Bible.
Another verse (I am not going to go to too many), but in Isaiah 57, God sums up a great deal in one verse, in Isaiah 57:15, where it says:
For thus saith the high and lofty One…
He is One God, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” He is just One in His person, well, One in His being. There are three persons of the Godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So God reveals Himself as three, but One.
For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy…
We inhabit our house and we are on the first floor. We are not on the second floor. We cannot even completely fill up our house. But God inhabits the whole realm of existence. From eternity past to eternity future, He is there.
I do not know how. I have no idea. I do not think any of us knows exactly what God has in mind with this kind of a statement, except that He knows all things and He is in complete control of all things and so He does inhabit eternity.
And the Bible speaks of this world as the creation that comes in between. We have eternity past; God created the world. Then we have eternity future: after this world is destroyed and God’s saved people enter into the joy of the Lord forever and ever when we will begin to live and experience eternity future in the presence of God. That is how God has laid it out, and yet now we are learning some things about eternity past.
We have known from the Bible what God says about the future. He is going to give us new resurrected bodies and a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no sorrow, no pain, no death, no sickness of any kind. God has given us some information about the future. We can know these things and they are true and faithful. They are absolutely trustworthy because God has said these things in the Bible and it is impossible for Him to lie. He has revealed these things to us. And we did not really have too much information about the past. But now, God is revealing some things about events that took place in eternity past.
One thing we have to know is the nature and the character of God. Let me say what I mean, as far as God’s work ethic. Did you ever hear of the Calvinistic work ethic? There is no Calvinistic work ethic. There is the Bible work ethic, as God made statements like this in the Bible.
For instance, in Romans 12:11, and this will relate to what we are talking about in eternity past. In Romans 12:11, it says:
Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
God makes all kinds of statements about working. Work heartily “as to the Lord, and not to men.” So Christians, true believers, in days past, have been very good workers for their earthly masters. For their earthly businesses, they have worked hard, because these statements are found in the Bible and believers want to do God’s will. They want to obey Him in every area that God reveals.
And so God has made statements about how terrible it is to be a sluggard, as we read in Proverbs. Again and again, God has negative things to say about the sluggard or the slothful.
One of these statements can be found in Proverbs 6:6, where it says:
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
And in Proverbs 6:9:
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
And then God speaks of very negative things about not working. Remember what He says in the New Testament, “If any would not work, do not let him eat.” (That is not an exact quote.)
2 Thessalonians 3:10:
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
That is a Biblical principle that has to do with the way we exist in this world, as we go to our jobs. We should have a job. If we do not have a job, we should find one if possible, if we are capable of doing the work.
So God has set that down. And, of course, spiritually, it has to do with getting the Gospel out into the world. We are “not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel” is what God tells us, so we should not be lazy about that. We should not be slow, like the sloth, to respond to God’s command to bring the Gospel to others, and that is what is behind these verses.
And it says in 2 Thessalonians 3:11-12:
For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.
We make money so that we can buy food and we can live. We survive through work. And that is what God has established for man in this world. We are to work to get money in order to eat. And that is also what He has established for the study of the Bible. If we are lazy when it comes to reading the Bible and studying the Bible, God still, because He is gracious, may give us bread. But He says in 2 Thessalonians 3:12:
…with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.
Isn’t that the best, when you study and dig into a Bible passage and you learn something, as you have been putting forth effort comparing Scripture with Scripture to come a truth?
For instance, Mr. Camping has come out with doctrines and teachings regarding certain events before the foundation of the world. Don’t we have to check them out? Don’t we have to study so that it becomes our own bread, or do we just listen?
That is not a good thing to do. Yes, to listen is a good thing to do, but to leave it at that is not a good thing to do. We should be checking these things out, making sure that they are so. Like the Bereans who were more honorable than the rest, because daily they were checking out what they heard.
Well anyway, God makes all kinds of statements in the Bible regarding work. Work as hard as you can. When we go to our job and we know what the boss expects of us, let us work as unto the Lord. And we are serving the Lord. We are not serving, firstly, the boss or the business. We are serving the Lord.
And remember with the parable of the vineyard and sending workers into the vineyard, God comes to those who are standing around idle all the day to the eleventh hour and said unto them, “Why stand ye here all the day idle? There is a vineyard. There is work to be done,” and then He sent them into His vineyard at the eleventh hour so that they would work.
God has given us these Laws and He has commanded us that we are to work, because we know this is the nature of God. God is not idle. He is not idle. What has God been doing from eternity past? Lounging? Relaxing? Just enjoying the Godhead? What has He been doing from eternity past? He has been working.
What kind of work does God do? We know that when God saves sinners, that is the work of God, “This is the work of God, that ye believe.” We know that when Christ performed miracles, that was the work of God. But a very particular work of God, we find in the book of Genesis.
If we go back to Genesis 2:1-3, where it says:
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
And God reveals in Genesis 1 how He spoke and brought the world into being. He spoke and brought the universe into being. He spoke and created the animals, the sea creatures, the land animals, the insects. He created such a variety of creatures in this world. If we would think of the vast variety of creatures that God has made, it is really astounding. And we are still discovering today. Scientists find a creature that they never knew existed, even after all these thousands of years of creation. Still, every now and then, a new creature is discovered, and God had made that creature, too. So there are all of these incredible differences within this creation.
And then God made man in His own image, and man is different than all the other creatures. Man is very special and a very important part of God’s creation. And, of course, there is nothing like man anywhere else, nothing like the human being anywhere else, but man is very different from the animals, although similar.
Another part of God’s creation are the angels who are spirit beings. That is another creature unlike man and unlike animals. You see, God can create very different things, very different creatures. And they are all creatures. The angel is a creature. The elephant is a creature. Man is a creature. They are all very diverse, and yet we are all part of God’s creation. We are all creatures that God has made.
Let us just think what God has been doing from eternity past. He has been working. And we have seen here in Genesis 2 and Genesis 1, when God creates, it is part of His work.
How much effort did it take God to create the world? We know it took Him 6 days, and the 7th day He rested, which was only in order to paint a picture, to provide a spiritual principle in the manner of salvation, that we do nothing when it comes to getting ourselves saved. Anybody who would work the least bit on the Sabbath was to be put to death. So God is illustrating that when it comes to salvation, we do not do any kind of work at all.
So God spoke and this universe came into being with about as little effort as possible, that I can see. We do not see God breaking a sweat. We do not see Him exerting Himself all that much, if at all. I do not see it at all. He just spoke and the world came into being, with all its complexities—a whole universe that we have not been able to discover into the galaxies that we still cannot find the boundaries of. Even as we get microscopes and we look inward, we cannot find the beginning point of that either.
God spoke and He worked and He created this world, and it took very little effort. So this is the nature of God. He is not idle. He is bound by His Laws just like we are, isn’t He? And if He tells us, “Why stand ye here all the day idle?,” do you think that He has a divine excuse where He would not have to also work?
No. God has been busy working from eternity past. We do not know what He has done, but we know that He has been working in creating. We do know that now. We kind of thought it, we suspected it, but now we know. He has been creating other creations. Just as different as a man is from an angel or an elephant from a butterfly, God created a world over here and He set boundaries and limitations about that world where that world, that creation, has its own laws, like we have the laws of physics or gravity. That world would have its own law, and God has been creating worlds and establishing them with “principalities and powers.” That is, there are rulers in the worlds, in these creations that God has been making.
We read this in Ephesians 3. Why don’t we go there and just take a look at this verse. Mr. Camping has been mentioning this recently. In Ephesians 3:8-9:
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
And we will take a look at that maybe later or at another time, how God created through Christ.
Then Ephesians 3:10:
To the intent…
Now keep in mind the last part of Ephesians 3:9, “Who created all things by Jesus Christ,” this world this universe. Ephesians 3:10:
To the intent…
Or, for the purpose of.
…that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places (in heavenlies)…
That is plural. It is a plural Greek word. It is not singular.
…in heavenlies might be known by the church…
Or, through the church.
…the manifold wisdom of God,
God created Earth for a purpose. He had a very definite purpose in mind. “To the intent,” this is the purpose, that unto these “principalities and powers” that are out there. And they are out there, but they are not Martians and they are not aliens that we read or hear so much about today, as people think there are UFO’s out there. No, that is not what God is talking about, even though, basically, they have the general idea because there is life out there somewhere, but not in a galaxy far, far way, because that galaxy would still be a part of this creation. But there is life out there, outside of the boundary of this whole creation, that we cannot reach and we cannot see.
We do not know what they are or what they look like or who they are or what type of creatures they are. We do not know any of that, but we do know that God has been creating creations and none of those creations have a creature like man in it. None of them. There is nothing in the Bible that indicates that there is any other creature in some creation out there that has a being that was created in the image of God like mankind.
And really, it serves to glorify God even more. Actually, it should humble us even more, that God has made man in His image, unlike angels, unlike cats and dogs, unlike whatever creatures are out there in these creations that exist beyond our universe. God created all things in this world “to the intent” that He would show unto these “principalities and powers” and make known to them through the church, or via the church (not the corporate church but the elect, the eternal Church of God, which is made up of all the true believers). And what does God mean by that, that He would make known to these heavenly powers, through the Church, His manifold wisdom?
Well let us think about eternity past. God has these creations where there is no sin. There is no rebellion. There is no transgression in any of these other created worlds or creations, whatever we can call them. They are all just like the angels that did not fall that are in Heaven with God. They remained obedient. They are holy. They are pure creatures and there is no rebellion in them. God was the ruler over the realm of all these creations, and all of these creations recognized Him as a Holy God and a Just God and a merciful God and a loving God and a gracious God and a wise God, as He would make Himself known to them. However, none of them, fully or completely, in an experiential way, understood what any of that meant, that God was gracious and merciful.
How could they know what mercy was when mercy is when you have a rebellious sinner who has transgressed the Law of God and is worthy to die and deserving of eternal death? How can they know that when God takes a sinner like that and saves them and takes their sins, their evil deeds upon Himself, and pays for them, that that is what mercy is?
They could hear it. God could state that He was a merciful God, but they did not know. So God developed a plan, and this is the reason and the purpose for planet Earth, to create this world and this universe, in order to testify unto these “principalities and powers…the manifold wisdom of God,” and also to glorify Himself in His mercy and in His salvation.
So that is what God has been doing in eternity past and that is why this world was created and why man was permitted…that is, why God created man good, but still there was a test, why God tested man. Man was not restrained, we could say, from sinning. He fell into sin and corruption. “The wages of sin is death,” so the whole world immediately came under the wrath of God and saw corruption that none of these other creations had ever seen. There was no sin, no corruption in their created worlds, whatever they are. But now on Earth, there was sin; there was the transgressing of the Law of God. And so God is going to show His salvation plan and make it known to all these rulers of these other creations that are under God’s realm of His created things.
So that is one thing that we know. It is not a guess. The Bible tells us that God is doing this to “principalities and powers.” He is putting on display these things.
That is another reason why annihilation is absolutely necessary, that God destroy the sinner at the end of the world. God permitted sin in a narrow window in this world for the space of time, through 13,000 years of Earth’s history, in order to demonstrate His glorious attributes and His manifold wisdom. But then following that, after He has put it all on display and God is greatly glorified, He does not create another world. He does not create another creation called “hell” and put sinful man into “hell” where man could then gnash his teeth on God forever and ever and ever and sin could continue unrestrained in “hell.” It would be new sin every time they gnashed their teeth or shook their fist at God and blasphemed Him, and it would still be contrary to the Law of God. It would be offensive to God.
God, once He has accomplished His purposes, will wipe it out. He will wipe it out. He will destroy sin by destroying the sinner on that Day of Judgment, after the 5-month period, on October 21st, and He is going to wipe it out completely in all the realm of His created things. Once again, there will be perfect holiness and purity. And yet God made His point. He demonstrated to all of them what these attributes of His are. And now, He will rid the world of sin and there will be no eternal damnation of sinners. There will be an eternal destruction, as they cease to exist forevermore.
You see, we were reading Ephesians 1, and God spoke there of predestinating people to salvation from before the foundation of the world. And if we go to Revelation 17:8, it says:
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
So they did not have their names written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world. God made choice. I do not know why He chose Jacob and not Esau before either had done any good or bad or evil. The Bible tells us that. God loved Jacob and He hated Esau. He chose one and not the other. God chose Abel; He did not choose Cain.
And when did God make this choice? Was it as they were born and entered into the world and lived out their lives and then God could see, “Oh, this person is doing good. I am going to save that person”?
No. Before the foundation of the world, the Bible speaks of a Book of Life, and God put His elect’s names in that Book of Life and He did not put the non-elect’s names in that Book, as it says here, “whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world.”
And we do not know who is who. We do not know who is eternally predestinated to salvation and who is not, so we bring the Gospel to every creature and we never try to make judgment of who is who. We bring it to everyone and we let God make decision. We let God choose through His Word. He will draw one to salvation; another, He will leave. The true child of God knows these things and just leaves it all in God’s hands. But God is speaking of the Book of Life from the foundation of the world.
Or go over to Revelation 13:8. It says:
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life…
Again, that same language.
…of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
So here again, it is tying in with God predestinating certain ones and not choosing others, whose names were not recorded. God did not put them in the registry, in a sense.
Now this is all spiritual language; there is no actual “book.” There is no ink put on paper. God just made choice and He is using this language, we can understand, to reveal to us how He saves some and does not save others.
But the interesting thing here that is different from Revelation 17:8 is that it speaks of the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” And we know this is before God created the world. We were wondering about that because God in some places says “before,” like in Ephesians 1:4, and other places, like here, He says “from.” But it all took place before the worlds were created. Jesus was slain as the Lamb. He was the Lamb, like John the Baptist proclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” and yet God says that before the world was created, He was already slain. He already died for His people’s sins. And it is not in principle. It does not say here that He died as the Lamb, in principle.
Read theologians’ writings and you will find all over the place, “In principle, He died.” But we added that. We added that to the verse. It does not say, “in principle.” It is a matter-of-fact statement: the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
So now we have to read the Bible, and we have to say, “Okay. God makes this statement. How can that be? How can it be that this is what happened, when we know that Jesus was born of a virgin and entered into the world, and we see in the Gospel accounts that He went to the Cross to die for sin?”
And, actually, what we learn is that the payment was made already before the foundation of the world, but that He had to suffer twice. He suffered before the foundation of the world and He suffered when He entered into the world and was living out the events that had already taken place before the world began.
We can know this based on a couple of things. If we go over to Hebrews 4:3, it says:
For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
The work of Christ in saving His people was completed, again, before the foundation of the world. And God accomplished this. He finished all the works necessary to save His people, before He even created the world. And we know that, too, if we go to Romans 1. And these verses all fit together only in that wonderful way that God can make them fit, as we do turn to the Bible and He harmonizes His Word as we look at Scripture with Scripture. These statements are very definite and precise.
In Romans 1:3:
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
I did not catch that the first few times I read it, but did you hear what it said? Romans 1:4:
And declared to be the Son of God with power…
Then God adds another statement, and He does this often. In this case, it is not that long, but in some cases, it can be really long. He opened up the verse with, “Declared to be the son of God with power” and then He makes a statement in between that can mislead some people.
Look at the end of Romans 1:4:
And declared to be the Son of God with power…by (or through or via) the resurrection from the dead:
Jesus is declared to be the Son of God through the resurrection from the dead. In other words, He had to rise from the dead before He could be called the Son of God. When God says in the Gospel accounts, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” He could not make that statement, that He was His Son, unless Jesus had already risen from the dead. He had to rise from the dead to be declared the Son of God, like we read in Revelation 1:5:
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten…
My “only begotten Son.”
…the first begotten of the dead…
You see, again, He is the Son via rising from the dead. That is the only way He is the Son.
Look at Colossians 1:18:
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
We have read these verses and we have naturally assumed they were referring to Resurrection Sunday, as Jesus rose from the dead. But God called Him the Son long before Resurrection Sunday. All throughout the Gospels, look in your Concordance and check out how many times God calls Jesus the Son of God. He is also called the Son of man and the Son of David; but again and again, the Son of God. And He is declared to be the Son through the rising from the dead.
If we go over to Hebrews 1…and I recommend listening to Mr. Camping’s studies on this on the Family Radio website (you can take your time). In Hebrews 1:1-2, it says:
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
The Son made the worlds. He could not be the Son until He rose from the dead.
Well, that is just out of the question. It is ridiculous that Jesus died and rose from the dead before the world began! And it would be out of the question if we did not have Revelation 8 that said that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
He died before the world began, so did he remain dead? No, because the Son, and the only way He can be called the Son is via the resurrection of the dead, created the world.
So Jesus died as the Lamb. He was slain. He rose. He became “the first begotten of (from) the dead,” and He spoke and created the world and universe as the Son of God. He entered into the world later and God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Well, He has been the Son of God since He rose from the dead from before the foundation of the world.
You see, we are learning these things from the Bible at this time for a couple of reasons. One is that God is opening the Scriptures and He is revealing Himself to His people in a far greater way than He ever has before. And secondly, this is as a test to those that may not be children of God. It is a test, as we are learning things that seem far-fetched. It seems far-fetched to talk about other creations, “principalities and powers,” but it is in the Bible and God speaks of “to the intent” to witness to these “principalities and powers,” that Jesus died and rose from before the foundation of the world.
These are very trying doctrines, very trying truths that we are learning from the Bible. Anybody who thought we were off-course with the end of the Church Age and then hearing about annihilation and about the five months and so forth, and now hearing about “principalities and powers” and Christ dying and rising before the world began, if there is anyone who is not a real child of God, you know, I do not know how long they can hold on. How long can they hold on?
It is one thing to come out of the church, like our forefathers did in the Reformation. That was an honorable thing, was it not? They came out of the Catholic Church. And so people today, who maybe were independently minded, came out of the corporate body of the church, and they liked that idea. They could still hold on to the Reformed faith, like Luther and Calvin who came out of their church. But now, these doctrines are not what traditionally have been taught by the Reformers, and so it gets very hard for anyone who maybe was independently minded. They like the idea of having no rulers over them, and that is how it is. Except for God and the Bible, there are no deacons, no elders, and no pastors. They like that idea, but now these other things are making it tough.
And that is one of the purposes for why God is revealing these things, to try and to test all those who profess to be believers and even all those who came out of the churches and congregations. Not everyone who left the church is a believer. Not every single person who came out is a believer.
Well, we are learning more. We are getting more information, you know, and I think it is fascinating. I really do. It is really amazing and fascinating that God is teaching us these things from His Word at this point in history.
Let us stop here and close with a word of prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father, we are very finite and we are as nothing before You. We are made of the dust of the ground. Our bodies return to the dust, which is very humbling. We are nothing great. We are just individual men. And yet, however Father, You reveal that we are made in Your image, and You tell us after we are saved that we are seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus and we are spoken of as being kings as well as prophets and priests. We are called the sons of God, adopted into the family of God. We are called the children of God, the Bride of Christ, and we can call you our Father. Oh, how intimately you speak to us and how glorious is our inheritance, as we read about it in the Bible, that there is eternal life and that there is an eternal habitation for Your people that will continue on and on and on and we will learn many more things about You. As we are getting glimpses into eternity past, we will find out great and beautiful things in that which is to come. And Father, we pray that You would help us to study to be workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Help us to take this day, this Sunday which is your Holy Day, and to spend some time thinking and meditating upon these things and to give ourselves wholly to them. Father, we ask for Your blessing in our fellowship and in the rest of what we do this day. We pray in Christ’s Name. Amen.
Chris: I know everyone is getting sick of seeing me, but we will just do this for a few minutes, if anyone has a question or a comment.
1st Question: You said that the Lord Jesus became the Son of God when He was resurrected from the dead. Does that mean that the Lord Jesus was not the Son of God after He resurrected from the dead the second time, or that He was resurrected from the dead when He was slain before the foundation of the world?
Chris: That is a good question, because Romans 1:4 says:
And declared to be the Son of God…by the resurrection from the dead:
Was Jesus the Son of God before He rose from the dead? No, He was not.
Actually, it helps us if we go to Mark 13. This is beginning to make more sense. Mark 13:32:
But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven…
So remember, we have to understand this as knowing in the sense of experiencing. It cannot be an intellectual understanding, because it goes on to say:
…neither the Son, but the Father.
So the Son did not experience it. That is what we were saying before. It is what I said, and I think Mr. Camping said, and others have said, which is at this point in Jesus’ ministry, He had not yet gone to the Cross, so the statement could be made that the Son did not know.
However, when we learn that Jesus is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” like we were talking about earlier, it affects other things. If Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world, you could not say that He had not experienced the judgment of God, because long ago, He had experienced it.
And so this is one of those verses that you begin to wonder, “Well how are we to understand it?” But see, as it is saying here, “Neither the Son, but the Father.” The Father knew about it or experienced that day and hour, the judgment of God, because God was the Lamb who was slain and rose. And once He rose, He became “the first begotten of (from) the dead,” the Son.
The Father knows but not the Son, so when Jesus enters into the world as the Son, He had not experienced, as the Son, the wrath of God when the Lamb was slain. But now, this second time, He will experience the suffering at the Cross in going up to the Cross and in the garden, but He will not be making payment, because that has already been made.
2nd Question: Okay, let me get this straight here. You said that Jesus was saving people. It says Jesus was doing the whole work saving people…
Chris: Well I did not say it. Didn’t Hebrews 4:3 say that the works were finished from the foundation of the world? God was slain as the Lamb from the foundation of the world.
2nd Question (continued): That is what I meant to say. Yes.
Chris: So God finished everything necessary for the salvation of His people. The only thing is that God also, as part of His Law, Jesus would enter into the world to reveal these things, as we read in 1 Peter 1:18-20:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you…
So Christ suffered as the Lamb before, but He “was manifest.” He entered into the human race, born of a virgin, as we read in the Gospel accounts, to reveal that which was secret and had been hidden. He made manifest. He put on display, we know, to the world and also to all the “principalities and powers” of all these other creations what He actually did when He was slain from the foundation of the world.
2nd Question (continued): So what you are saying is He has chosen us before the foundation of the world, but during that time the people were going down the aisle getting saved, and all of that kind of stuff, and they were not chosen before the foundation of the world?
Chris: Well, we do not know whom God chose. God chooses certain ones, and it is all based on His good pleasure. It is not based on anything else. God did not find some characteristic of Jacob more attractive than something in Esau, and so He chose Jacob. No, it is all according to His good pleasure that He saved individuals. He made choice. We do not know why He picked one and not another, but all that was done in Christ. Their sins were paid for in Christ before the foundation of the world, and so they were all predestinated to salvation. Now time unfolds after God creates the world, and from every generation, His elect people become saved, perfectly. God does not miss anybody. He will bring His Word to every individual who is one of His chosen elect people, up until today where He is going to save a great multitude. And then when He saves the last one, and that will be on May 21st, and at that time, then He will take them all up and out of the world with the Rapture.
3rd Question: This is my final question. My sister in1964 was scaring me about that I am going to go to Hell, that I am going to go to the devil because I sinned. I tried to shut my sister up and I told my mom and I was very fearful and scared of Hell, but I became very curious. Could it be that God was using my sister to do this?
Chris: Well, Lester, we know that all things work together for good to them that are the children of God. So God uses all kinds of circumstances and events in His people’s lives for good. And finally, what is that best good but that we become saved? And so God, He draws us. He carries us along the way, if we are one of the ones that He has chosen, all through our lives really.
4th Question: I have two verses. First, Matthew 25:34. Could you read that?
Chris: It says in Matthew 25:34:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
4th Question (continued): And then also Romans 9:22-23. This is in regards to Revelation 13:8, where Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Chris: In Romans 9:22-23:
What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Those verses fit right in with Revelation 13:8 and what we are reading in other places.
4th Question (continued): Yeah, that is what it was. I was reading those verses in Romans 9 this past week. And when I came to Romans 9:23, it reminded me of Matthew 25:34, where God speaks of “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom.”
Chris: Yes, and everything as far as the necessary work in salvation is done. It is all prepared. It is all finished. And now, it is just a matter of unfolding through time, and we are coming to the end of the world and the last one of His elect becoming saved.
4th Question (continued): It is also interesting in Romans 9:22, where God says, “Willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known,” and then in Romans 9:23, “That He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of His mercy.” Who is He making His power known to?
Chris: Now that is a good point, too.
4th Question (continued): Ephesians 3:10? Yes, the “principalities and powers.”
Chris: Yes, God knows all about that. We do not know too much. We will find out more, but it is an important aspect. It is very important.
Here is God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and we always assumed that referred to just this world. But actually, it could refer to many other rulers and principalities.
He is Lord of all, King of all, and yet He has been telling them from eternity, or whenever their particular worlds were created, “I am a God of love.” “Yes, Thou art a God of love.” They would all respond in whatever language they speak, whatever kind of communication there is, “You are a God of love.”
However, God wanted to put it on display. He wanted to make it known. And in a very real way or in a living way, He did make it known when He received the Lord Jesus dying on the Cross and suffering for the rebels and the ungodly and dying in their stead. Yes, He has definitely made it known what it means that God is love.
4th Question (continued): This verse, as I was standing up here, really comes to mind. James 1:19.
Chris: James 1:19 says:
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
4th Question (continued): That verse has really been shining through, you know, with these new doctrines that God has been unsealing.
Chris: Yes, this is a very good verse for us all, especially anybody who would share the Bible or teach the Bible. I know that I thought I knew some things. I had this doctrine over here in a compartment, and I never needed to check it out because it was so definite from the Bible, like “hell.” And yet God has shaken it and He is really showing us. And that is another reason why He is revealing these things, to humble us. It is so we do not think that we know it, that it is our reasoning, or that it is our understanding and our logic. I know that I do not know anything and that God has to teach me and show me what He means in His Word.
4th Question (continued): I think it is the wonderful mercies of God that He has developed this end-time testing program, you know, with God unsealing all these truths, with annihilation and Christ being slain from the foundation of the world. And as you had stated earlier, if we want to hold onto these doctrines that were traditionally taught from the churches, well, maybe I am not as humble as I think I am before the Word of God if I am still wanting to cling to some of these truths and not really understanding these new doctrines, you know.
Chris: Thank you for those verses. In some cases, someone can be a true child of God, a true believer, and just have an initial reaction like Peter (and I am glad God put that in the Bible), “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” Peter was very adamant, and yet God convinced him. He gave him the same vision three times. He sent three men from Cornelius’ house regarding coming and ministering the Gospel to them. And it was God’s purpose, because Peter was a child of God, that He would know. And every true believer will know. That is for certain. They will know the voice of the Shepherd. They will know what God is saying.
So if you are talking with someone and they are just initially, “No, I do not see that,” or, “I am not buying that,” be patient. Pray for them, that they would begin to see these things, and, yet, of course, the necessary thing is to check it out in the Bible.
Now if they are saying, “No way,” and close the book, they are not going to read these verses. They are not going to see if it is so. Well, that is a different matter. That is not the spirit of a child of God. The true believer will search the Scriptures, and they will desire the will of God as they do so.
Okay, I do not want to keep everyone too long, so we will take one last question from Paltalk. If you have a question or a comment, please post it now.
5th Question: I understand that you are teaching that Christ was slain and rose before the foundation of the world and that He was not called the Son of God until after He rose. The question is, what was Christ before He rose, if He did not become the Son of God until after He rose?
Chris: Well, we know that this in no way changes the Godhead. God is three, as we read in 1 John 5:7. He is three persons. Let me read that verse, because it states it flatly:
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
That is what the Bible says. So the doctrine of the Trinity is not affected at all.
God gives Himself many names in the Bible and one of the names is the Son. And He took upon Him the name of the Son when He rose from the dead, because the Bible tells us that. Jesus is God. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the Light. There are many, many, names.
Jesus existed as God from eternity past and He was God when He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. When He rose, He became the Son of God. And just think about it. He was “the first begotten of (from) the dead.” He had died and risen and then He was the Son.
So I do not know if we can pin the Lord Jesus down to any one particular name. I do not think it is necessary. He was God from eternity past and He was God when He died as the Lamb and He is also God when He arose, even though He is also called the Son.
Okay. Why don’t we stop here, and let us just close in prayer. Dear Father, we thank You for the Bible that is so fascinating. And, Father, man needs something to keep his mind busy, and we really have it in the Bible. All kinds of people like doing crossword puzzles or Sudoku. People love mysteries, and yet there is no mystery that can compare to the mystery that we find in the Scripture, the mystery of the Word that you have intentionally hidden in parables and proverbs and historical allegories. Again and again, we have to search and dig into it in order to try to harmonize these things. Once we do, we find that, surely, You are a God who hides Yourself and that it glorifies You and is an honor for us to search these things out. Father, we pray that You would help us, too, even though we might be familiar with something, to check it out and to continue to study to be brought into remembrance of these things. Father, we ask for Your blessing on our fellowship. We thank You for the food that You have provided and for everything that You have provided for us. In Christ’s Name we pray. Amen.