In the beginning… This is just two words in the Greek.
Last time we saw, THIS book of John is a book unlike any other. And his book is not primarily about an event. It’s not just a compilation of historical happenings. John was given a front row seat to show us a Person, and THIS Person is a Being unlike any other. And as we will see, He is the God•send. Unequaled. Unsurpassed. Unparalleled. Unprecedented.
Notice how John begins: [In the beginning]… There’s another book in the Bible - one other book - which begins the exact same way, with these same three words, in the beginning. [Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.] Both the Hebrew and the Greek literally mean the same thing: In the first. In the first. And this is not a coincidence - John uses this phrase twice here in these first two verses: in the first, in the beginning. He clearly wants to begin by focusing us all the way back to the very beginning.
“InTheFirst” IS a matter of sequence. This was the first happening in history. The first of many. THE first cause that caused everything else. It all began here. In the first. But “InTheFirst” is also a matter of priority. In first place. God is telling us through Moses AND thru John that this is our all-important starting point. [InTheBeginning] Your life and mine today points back to this point, THE origin. Our origin story. How we got here. How we got to this. Who we are, who we were always meant to be - all points back to this. In the first. This is the vital key to understanding our direction in life. Our True North. In the first is our anchor-point, without which we are truly lost. Tossed here and there by wind and waves of culture and feelings. Adrift on the seas of life. That’s where the world is today. Cut loose from the Anchor. Adrift. Lost. So many divine image-bearers, desperate to remove the Divine Origin-ator from their life. From their origin story. And the most popular theory posits that there WAS no beginning. No Begin-or. No First Cause. Everything always just was, and what is today is only the result of billions of years of random mutations. A long series of hopeful accidents. You and I are an accident. There’s NO good reason for us to be here. We just are. And someday soon, we won’t. End of story. This is what so many “UNbelievers” choose to believe. This unproven theory. It cannot be proven, full of gaps, yet it prevails in so many places, throughout institutions of learning and halls of power. [where talking about a Begin-or is forbidden!]
What can we say about The Accident? When I tell you, “it was an accident”, what am I saying (besides the fact that something went fundamentally wrong)? Even if I caused it, if I say it was an accident, I’m saying, it’s not my fault. Don’t blame me. I.e. No blame. Do not hold me accountable. This is why the theory of the accident is so attractive to so many. The world is so desperate to reject the concept of a First Cause because it is so desperate to remove the prospect of accountability. No accountability. No blame. We’d all like to be blameless, wouldn’t we? We’re wired this way. We shift blame, try to avoid accountability. No consequences. Don’t blame me. And what kind of world do I get if I remove accountability? If I’m NOT accountable, then basically I’m in charge. I’ve made myself out to be... god. Cuz now I think I can do whatever I want, with no consequences. With IMPUNITY. Rejecting the First Cause/Cause-ator.
What else do we get with the accident? This idea that everything always just was, that there was no first cause, is what is called an infinite regress. Which is logical nonsense [i.e. “This sentence is false”]. So, we get [no sense]. Now some suppose that the theory of what is called the Big Bang is a pseudo-beginning, where at one point all the matter in the universe was somehow contained in a massive ball of sorts, and somehow it all exploded into these tiny little bits with a really big bang and flung out all matter throughout the universe, some of which has now reformed into planets and living people and such. But even if all of that could happen, it still leaves us with the question, what caused the Big Bang? And where did the BIG ball come from? You still go back and back and never arrive at a first cause, at a sensible explanation. Even if you convince yourself that there’s solid footing on this shifting sand of no sense, you’re still left with the accident. We’re all just a bunch of accidents.
What else do we get with the accident? So-and-so had an accident. What does that usually entail? Accidents & mutations do not produce order - much less beauty. Not better. Not usually. Pretty much you get something worse. Disorder. And what else do we get? “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it". In other words, there’s [no meaning]. It was unintended. A fluke. IF we are accidents that means there is NO meaning to our existence. Just do the best you can, cuz tomorrow you die and that’s all she wrote. Aka "Survival of the fittest". A need to be ruthless [see Gould below]. Look out for number one. Do what you want. Is it any wonder then that there’s so much selfishness today? And so much confusion about life, obsession with death? With sex? It’s. No. Accident. It’s the natural reasonable by-product of The Accident, what you get if there is no beginning. No First Cause. With The Accident, without a beginning, we get non sense, not better, and no meaning.
To which John says, In the beginning... He says it twice! In the beginning, in the first. There WAS a beginning. That’s the message of the whole Bible, from beginning to end - there was a beginning. Which is intuitively obvious to the open minded person - everything in this sphere has a beginning. Every effect has a cause. This is how the known universe works. And so we trace back all things, all these effects, to either this infinite regress (the non-sensical meaningless accident), or better, to a First Cause, an uncaused First Cause. The Origin. The Origin-ator (more on that next time). THAT is what John is saying.
He says, [in The beginning WAS] (the Word). The Word already was. This is the imperfect tense. It’s the [present tense, an ongoing line, but shifted into the past]. So, this is a line in the past with no explicit beginning or endpoint. This Word simply was, and always had been, ongoing, eternally existent. This is THE Uncaused First Cause. This Word WAS, in the beginning. Back then. Always was. Always had been. Always will be. A Being unbounded, not bound by time - out of time. In the beginning WAS. Something was. What was?
We’ll get into this next time. John is about to introduce us to this SomeOne Who is far beyond our finite ability to truly comprehend. A Being of Perfect Perfection, Timeless and Outside of Time. In the beginning was. Barely describable, mostly inconceivable, wholly inexplicable. Words fall short. We cannot fully understand or conceive of such a Being because our finite brains are inescapably bound to this mortal plane, limited by time and space - and the only way that John is able to even begin to show us this One-Who-Was is that there was this Divine Intersect. This One Who Was, in the first, stepped out of eternity and He revealed Himself. John met Him and journeyed with Him in His immediate presence for three years. Front row seat.
John’s encounter with this One-Who-Was changed the course of his life, cuz he found his anchor. Transformed him from the Son of Thunder into the Disciple Who Jesus Loved. From the son of a fisherman into a child of God. We know this One-Who-Was as Jesus, Emmanuel - God with us - and for John, meeting Jesus was the beginning of the rest of his life, eternal life, life as it was always meant to be. [see Piper below] Have you met Jesus yet? [HINT: He's standing at the door of your heart right now...]
“Only one causal force produces evolutionary change in Darwin’s world: the unconscious struggle among individual organisms to promote their own personal reproductive success…” -Stephen Gould
(i.e. When we cut ourselves loose from the anchor of the One-Who-Was, the uncaused First Cause, we are not free. We become slaves of personal passions and popular trends...)
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