"What did John 17:24 say the Father did with the Son before the world began? Didn't it say 'you loved me before the foundation of the world'?
"The verse reads, [24] Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
"Paul says in Ephesians 1, [4] 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:
"Back before the foundation of the world, in this one He loved, He chose the Body of Christ. God, when He thought about forming the Body of Christ, thought about the Body of Christ in exactly the way He thought about His Son," says Richard Jordan. "That's one of those spiritual blessings that ought to thrill you.
"That's why when Paul says in Ephesians 6 that He's 'made us accepted in the beloved,' that's not just right now, that's from eternity past. That's what God had planned to do with the church the Body of Christ.
"Ephesians 1:9: [9] Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
"God had a secret He purposed in Himself to accomplish something. When did He purpose that? Titus 1:1-2: [1] Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; [2] In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
"When I think about a passage like this I think, 'Wow, Ephesians is the same way.' Paul just runs through this information in the first breath of an epistle.
"You know how many people live their whole Christian life and never learn this stuff? Paul's just bouncing right through this like it's just common everyday understanding. I think, 'Wow, no wonder he says in Ephesians 3, [If you have heard], because so many people haven't!'
"II Timothy 1:9: [9] Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
"You see how it's really clear that there was something going on among the godhead before Genesis 1:1? What John's doing as he begins the Book of John is going back to this original plan of the godhead.
"In verse 3 he talks about creation and that original plan God had for creation. He talks about the one who is the expression of that plan. [3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
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"John 1:1:[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
"What in the world would it mean to call the Lord Jesus Christ the Word? What do you do with words? You express yourself; you reveal what's in your mind, what's in your heart. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who's going to reveal what's in the mind and heart of God.
"To understand who God is and to grasp His person you can't look at creation. Creation doesn't tell you the person of God. It will tell you about the power of God and some natural things, but it doesn't tell you about Him as a person.
"If you're going to know Him, Jesus tells Phillip in John 14:9, 'If you've seen me you've seen the Father.' If you want to know God you have to look at the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Paul's got that wonderful passage in II Corinthians 4:6 about 'the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ'. But Jesus Christ is not just revealing God as God through all of His attributes. His purpose in revealing God is to reveal to you what's in God's heart because that's how you really get to know someone.
"If you really want to get to know someone, fall in love with them. You don't just want to know about them; you want to know them. The way you know them is to understand what they're thinking, how they think about things, how they react to things. What are their plans, what are their purposes? Where are they going? Are they able to get there?
"Jesus Christ as the Word implies that the godhead's got a plan and that Jesus Christ is the agency of the godhead through whom that plan is going to be communicated. That is such a stupendous thing to grasp. It's not to diminish at all . . . in fact, it's to glorify the fact Jesus Christ is the revealer of God and without Him you couldn't know God.
"What you're learning about God isn't just that He's high and mighty and lifted up, righteous and holy. I mean, He revealed that to Moses about Himself and the one who revealed that was God the Son, but the purpose in all that revelation is to bring you into an appreciation of what God's plan in His creation is, and the ultimate goal of God is to glorify Himself in Jesus Christ. That's where that ultimate issue comes in.
"The Lord Jesus Christ is going to be the Word, the medium, the agency through whom God reveals His mind and His will and He literally just lays bare His heart.
"John 1:18: [18] No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
"What do you do when you declare something? You set it forth, you tell it out. You've probably heard the expression, 'Well, I do declare.'
"Hebrews 1 begins, [1] God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
[2] 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;[3] Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
"Notice that Jesus Christ is the express image of His person and we see that in John 1. In John 1 and 2 he tells you that Jesus Christ is the spoken out image of God. God spoke by His Son whom He's appointed heir of all things.
"Jesus says in Revelation 1:8: [8] I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
"Verse 11: [11] Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
"Alpha is the first letter in a Greek alphabet and Omega is the last letter. Words are made of letters and what Jesus is saying there is, 'I'm God's alphabet and I'm the one who's going to display and spell out for you the mind of God and what God's got to say; I'm the one going to lay it all out for you.'
"By the way, when He says 'I'm Alpha,' He's saying, 'The last thing God's going to say to you is going to come from me.' That's why in Hebrews 1 He says, 'In these last days.' The conclusion of revelation is going to come from Jesus Christ. That's why it isn't Paul, it's 'the preaching of Jesus Christ' because it's Christ who's the issue even in Paul's ministry.
"Henry Culp pointed out one time that the phrase is translated in a unique way in Acts 14. Verse 15 says, [15] And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein. Verse 12 says, [12] And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.
"That term 'chief speaker' is the term for Word over there. If you took that translation of the Word and applied it to John 1, what you'd have is God the Son is the chief speaker of the godhead. They nominated God the Son and that's exactly the idea there.
"It's the idea in Colossians when Paul says He's 'the image of the invisible God'. Adam was God's spokesman in the earth; Jesus Christ is the one member of the godhead who's going to speak on behalf of the godhead.
"Psalm 33:6 says, [6] By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Notice again how it's connected with creation, just as it is in John 1."
(new article tomorrow)
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