So what did happen in the beginning? When was the beginning? Was it Eden or was that just when our race began?
The book of Ephesians indicates that we were in His thoughts before the Kosmos was formed: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” Eph. 1:3-4 NIV
Was that before this globe, our galaxy or before everything that is was?
Timothy states that God “has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” II Tim. 1:9 NIV
“Not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose.” What was that purpose, companionship? Yes, if you consider the walks with Adam in the cool of the day. No, if you consider that it was Adam that was lonely, not God. What about Peter’s statement, “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” I Peter 1:20 NIV.
What was going on before creation or possibly before Eden?
The prophet Ezekiel rails out against the King of Tyre and then the Lord reveals who is really behind this tyrant:
“You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl.
Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.” Ezekiel 28:12-15 NIV
And Isaiah’s writings in the 14th chapter, vs. 12-17, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: ‘Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?’”
Finally an insight from The Revelation, Chapter 12:3-4: “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.”
Something happened in the heavens and this most powerful angel was cast out along with one-third of his peers, crouched down into Eden waiting that One foreordained before the foundation of the Earth to be born. Lucifer, bent on fulfilling this mutiny, though once the model of perfection.
Once again I reference an AP article, ran in the local newspaper May 23, 2010, entitled “Copernicus reburied with honor in church in Poland.”
For those not having earlier read that blog entry, you may remember from your high school science days, this astronomer from circa 1473-1543, who though little known in his day, used his phenomenal skills in math, supported by only minimal technology, to point us toward an understanding that the earth was not the center of the Universe, but rather the Sun. This challenged the universal church’s position on creation and thus he was declared a heretic. He was buried in an unmarked grave and only of late, his remains identified through DNA matches of a few pieces of hair found in one of his books. His major treatise “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres” was published near the end of his life, with Copernicus himself being presented a printed copy only on the day of his death.
I don’t know where Copernicus stood with the Lord, but obviously the church in his day missed something huge! This was a difficult time for the church, earlier having burned another academician at the stake, John Huss. This man simply suggested that the church might provide a translation of God’s Word to a few people in Moravia, a small province in the Czech Republic.
As a believer, a Creationist, as well as having some meager education in the field of science, I am challenged at times with our assertion as Christians that we hold some position of privilege around wisdom, especially when we miss moments like this? Perhaps my protestant friends will now respond with the fact that these dark moments in the church occurred under Catholicism? Catholicism as a sect, versus the Early Church, was simply the maturation of those who had drifted from the Spirit filled life known in the days of Peter! Time takes every institution that way. My point has little to do with Catholicism vs. Protestantism, as I see the same vestiges of institutional dysfunction manifest in today’s “reformed”, even among the relatively young churches within our own nation.
Admitting wrong is difficult for me personally and obviously even more so among our species once ideas have been institutionalized. This posthumous honoring of Copernicus, now 500 years overdue, is an example of the difficulty of repentance even by the church. Perhaps it was the way Copernicus went about his discovery, personally angry, arrogant or maybe even how he used this truth against God’s Word? I don’t know, I was not there, but I am trying to be open to any sense of hardness within myself that might be requiring such deep introspection and challenge of my own beliefs as a churchman at this time in my life.
Its worth stating again, that neither man, science nor the institutional church is the center of the Universe, but the Son instead! We may in fact be secondary to a saga that began long before Eden, the “garden” simply the place where God would stage His response to the enemy of the heavens?
John’s initial words, the first thoughts of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Not the Bible but the Word…thus the key to abundant life in Christ, “Thy Word, (Him) have I hidden in my heart….” “Christ in me the hope of glory.” An inferior race with a superior God all founded on a love, initially rejected by a third of the angels, but now by grace chosen by lesser creatures, a weaker race through which His Kingdom is to be reestablished. Could that be what God is up to?
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