These are the 13 events surrounding Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 and must be inserted between “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And, “Then the earth became an uninhabited and empty waste.”
-Ephesians 3:8-11, in verse 11 the word “eternal” is aion, a combination of aei, meaning “always” and on, which means “being” or “existing”. Then the word “purpose” is prothesis, “to design, plan or resolve”. For our understanding the plan of God has always existed. Note: Since the plan of God has been unfolding through the ages of time exactly as He planned it, we can be confident that His plan will continue to completion in the future as He has promised; the Old Testament illustrates this over and over again.
-I Peter 1:18-20, in verse 20 the word “foreordained” is proginisko, “to know before”. Christ’s coming was established before the “world” (kosmos, here it is probably referring to the material universe) existed.
-Romans 8:26-31, in verse 29 “foreknow” is proginisko, the same as above, “predestinate” is proorizo, “to decree or determine beforehand”, “conformed” is summorphos, “to be formed together or made the same”, “image” is eikon, “exact copies made from a prototype”, “firstborn” is protokos, “the first to come (in this case, the prototype), and “brethren” is adelphos, “children from the same parents”. God determined in the eternal past that those who submitted to His plan and purpose would eventually be made the same as His Son and become His children. This is the purpose of God that I emphasize over and over in my articles on the website www.voiceofonecrying.com and I will reference certain of these articles from time to time in order to explain some subjects more fully.
-Job 38:4-7, in verse 7 Job says when God created the earth (back in verse 4) the stars (the material universe) already existed. So did angels. In Job’s language, the “sons of God” were angels (compare Job 1:6, 2:1).
This is a good opportunity to explain a couple of principles related to Biblical study. Job uses the term “sons of God” in Job 38:7; however, the meaning of this term is found earlier in Job 1:6 and 2:1. The first principle is simply this: God expects us to remember what He has already established and apply it to later references in order to understand what He’s saying without having to repeat Himself. I’ve often thought it was His way of telling us to pay attention.
The second principle is that one should always consider the chronology of the time or events that are described to establish the proper context. In other words, Job uses the term when describing an earlier event, so we should conclude it means the same thing when used later. I’ll illustrate the importance of chronology several times throughout this series.
Then there’s one more thing I want to mention before we move on to the next lesson. Earlier I mentioned the website www.voiceofonecrying.com and simply suggest that if you want to get the fullest benefit from these lessons, you should familiarize yourself with the website; then you will be able to find the articles referenced (it’s a very easy website to navigate).
The 13 events will continue in Lesson 4 with the rest of part 4, the creation of the spirit realm.