Seeing the Heavens Opened: The Meaning of Being Born Again in Christ (DCLC 1984)

…To you who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, just as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

Now then, there is a cross-reference to that verse. I think I’ve preached through almost every verse in the New Testament, and I can’t tell you where any of them are. Where is the verse that says marked off? Audience: 1:11.

Verse (Ephesians) 1:11, thank you. Also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things out. That’s not right. You’re giving me spurious references here. Audience: The one that it said predestined.

Oh, right. Thank you. I’ll go to my… I don’t see it there. Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m going back to the verse before it. He has chosen us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in the beloved. And the only thing I want to establish here is that you and I were chosen before creation.

Now, that is not an ethereal matter. That actually happened. It happened somewhere at a given time, not in time. At a given place, not in space. Alright, I’ll start with that.

A really dishonest group of fellas and Jesus finding the first disciples, the incident with Nathaniel and the fig tree, and the Lord’s first miracle. And that’s what we’re going to try to cover this evening. Before we can establish anything here, we need a little background. And if at any time you don’t understand something, don’t hesitate to stand up, would you? One of the younger sisters asked me today, ‘Do you really live in an afterlife?” You know, because I don’t believe in heaven. And it really concerns me how I come across. I really do believe there is a place called the heavenly places, and I really do believe in an afterlife, and I believe I’m going to live forever. I don’t know where. I have the notion it will be in a city called the New Jerusalem, and I think that actually deep down in my heart. I don’t even really believe that’s where I’m going to live forever.

I have a feeling that I’ve just picked up every once in a while that I’m going to spend eternity in God. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I wouldn’t fight you for a second, but I think that my ultimate end is my original beginning. That’s why I bring to you this point, that I was marked off in Christ before the foundations of the world.

Now, if I try to understand, I can only come up with one conclusion, and that is that I pre-exist, that some part of God, some part of God, was laid aside before the Lord created the first angel, before He created eternity. He marked off a portion of Himself destined to be placed one day in someone with the name Gene Edwards. Now, you know, I know so little. Maybe that’s not true. And again, I wouldn’t argue the point at all. If you’ve got a better idea, that’s fine with me. I’ll accept it. It all looks good, no matter which direction you look at it—just getting saved. If I died and went to the grave and never came out of it in any form, I couldn’t complain… and you couldn’t either. Salvation rescued me, saved me, delivered me, and I have no complaints. But it seems, and it would appear that somewhere in the council of God, He did some ordaining of different portions of His being to be marked off. There is no question that some portion of God dwells within me and has since my conversion. But there’s just the possibility that in an enormous “cataclysmic” event, maybe I was meeting the real Gene Edwards. That eventually my soul will be overcome by my spirit, and it’s just possible that I’m going back to God, from whence I came.

Now I don’t know where that is. That may be the picture that is trying to be and everything in, because it was an experience that took place in other realms, and what took place in other realms you can’t describe. But you can only try. And it may be that that’s what we see in the description of the new Jerusalem, a city made up of living stones with Christ at the center and God in Christ. The entire city seems to have an element of divinity in it. Seems to, I don’t know, but I know this, I am certain. What it means, I don’t know. But with this, I am certain. God was all. And when it’s all over with, He’s going to be all in all. Oh, what does that mean? He will be the all in all.

Now there is foreknowledge – not mine, but His – of who is predestined. Oh, by the way, for those of you who really worry about that. Does it ever worry you? I’ll get off the subject. God predestined some to go to heaven. Some of them are predestined to go to…terrible. Does that ever bother you? Doesn’t bother you a bit, does it? No, it doesn’t bother me a bit. Never has. I’ll tell you why it doesn’t bother me. There are two reasons. One is that He is I am. He cannot act, nor even consider, without also knowing.

He is not just at the beginning of creation, nor is He present now, but He is also already at the end. He is there at the end right now. He is at this moment, at the beginning. He is even now before the beginning, and He is present beyond the end. He is there in all those places. If you go now to Joshua, I am. If you go down now to Moses, I am. If you go to creation, I am. I am there. I am here. I am over there. The entire scope of all activity takes place in Him. He knows the beginning from the end. He cannot act without foreknowledge. He already knew what we would do, and that gets very complex for temporal beings, but I’m just telling you, folks. He cannot act without foreknowledge of the outcome.  It must be kind of boring sometimes to be God, to never have the joy of suspense about what comes out in the last chapter. But somehow, He already knew in the very act of beginning because He is also at the end. There is no time, no space, no dimension with the almighty God. That’s one reason. Didn’t make any sense, but that’s one reason you shouldn’t worry about it.