Where Were You Before Creation (Part 1)

The Father loves the Son so much so that we may discover when all of this is over that all of it was done just so the Father could display the Son of God to us all and let us see how glorious His Son Christ Jesus is. That His whole purpose in creation…maybe, I’m not suggesting this as all or the only point, but boy, as you begin to see this, the Father’s love for the Son, the Son’s love for the Father just is overwhelming. It is overwhelming. Alright, the Father and the Son are in fellowship, and I cannot understand what is going on here. All I know is that Father, you loved me, He said, before the foundation of the ages. Now, please help me understand why the Father and Son would decide, before creation, that the Son would be slain before creation. Do you understand that? That is beyond anything we will ever know. There’s a song that goes, “Oh, what love. Oh, what love.” The way it begins. That Christ should die for me. Oh, what love. Oh, what love. That love did not begin with the fall; that love did not begin when you did something you ought not to have. It did not begin when you really got messed up, and you really got messed up. His love for you began before anything existed.

Now, the only way I can even hope to understand or grasp that is when I find out in Colossians that I was in Christ, or when I discover in Ephesians 1:4 that I was in Christ before the foundation of the ages. Therefore, the Father loved the Son before the foundation of the ages. Therefore, if the Father loved the Son and I was in the Son before the foundation of the world, then I got in on that love in some way. Now, nothing has been created yet, and yet, there is reciprocating love, and somewhere in there, there is some portion of me that is in the Son, in Christ. Somewhere in there is a portion of me. I’ll declare right now, whether anybody ever agrees with me, that’s the most important part of me, and that’s the part I’m really banking on. That part that is eternal.

Now, if you become one who gives your life to Jesus Christ and you become a believer, something happens inside of you, and one of the things that happens to you is that you have eternal life, which means that you’re going to go on from now…boy, this is going to drive you crazy…you’re going to go on from right now, when you believe and give your life to Him…you’re going to go on eternally. Right? Wrong. Have you got that camera going? Eternal life does not have a beginning, nor does it have an end. Therefore, something happened to me in space and time that has already gone in both directions. Thank God that it went in the past direction as well as the future direction, because Christ loved the Son before creation, and some part of me that is eternal was in Christ before the foundation…before creation. Well, say something! That is not the most discouraging word you have ever heard, but if you come after the meeting and explain it to me, I would sure appreciate it.

We are before creation, and the Father loves the Son. We also see a lamb slain before creation, and that helps us know that something is going to happen in creation, that is, wow, should I say less than wonderful, something terrible, or am I missing a point here? Maybe there really is something wonderful here. We’re in the eternals. There’s no creation yet, no mass, no space, no time, no space- time. Can you help me here? What if Adam had not sinned? What if this creation had not fallen? Would the lamb still have needed to have been slain if there had been a creation? I believe the lamb would still have to be slain because there’s not only the need for being saved and being redeemed, but there is also the need for God to divide His nature, to divide His life so that it can be placed in many, many, many. If His creation does tell us something about His nature, then we know that it’s very difficult for there to be division of God’s life, unless…it’s impossible…unless there’s death. Therefore, I have to say something, and that is that the element of death or the need of death was there before creation. The need for death. Even death, this monster of all monsters beyond comprehension, the monster of monsters, is a handmaiden, is a tool, in the hands of God. The cross, so despised and so hated, is not only a cross of death and destruction, but it is eternal, and it is in God before creation, and it is part of the nature of God.

Now, just let’s let that soak in. That part of the nature of God is the cross. Part of the nature of God is the cross. Now you know what this means. Can someone in this audience who never knew this before figure out what that means for you? We’re going to get personal for just a second. What does that mean for you? Can you say it? Can you tell us? It means that if you ever partake of divine life, if you become a one who has taken a portion of God, then that life, not your own, that life higher than your life, biologically higher, is placed in you; you have automatically received the cross working in you. I’m not talking about redemption. I’m not talking about getting saved. I’m talking about destruction. Well, have I lost you completely here? I hope not. So, let’s go back. There is God before creation. There is love of the Father to the Son, and there is also love for you and love for me. And there is a Lamb slain, but we’re going to just say more about the Lamb here in just a second. There is something else to be said: we now have a signal that something’s going to go awry. Something negative is going to happen in a creation that has not yet happened because we have seen the Lamb slain. There’s no creation. At this point, the Father chooses you. He marks off in His Son, who is spirit, who is invisible, who is born of the Father; He chooses a portion of God the Father and marks that portion off to be placed in someone in a creation that has not taken place. Now, who is that someone? You.

Now, let’s go through it again. The Father has chosen, has predestined, has chosen you in Christ to be sons of God before the foundation of the world. Now, He did not choose you way out there in space and time somewhere; He chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world. That no matter what took place, no matter what this negative mess was, there would be…what? What would happen? Say it. That before Him, not before your husband or your wife or your friend, but before Him, you would be without blame. And who’s never going to blame you? Oh, Gene, come on. God’s going to blame me…When I do something I shouldn’t do. No, before Him…maybe not before your boss or your husband or your wife or your mom and your daddy, but before Him…He marked you off in Christ that you would be blameless. And a pretty good person. Better than a pretty good person. That He would make you holy. That no, that you would be holy, not make you, that you would be holy and blameless. A son, to be predestined to be a son of God. Therefore, He signals a race of children. He signals something greater than that, and I have to say that nearly everybody who gets this far in the subject misses the point by saying God won’t. What is it? I am just staggered that not everybody instantly knows this. Eternal love of the Father for the Son. Wonderful. You can’t go any further than that. That’s not what I have in mind. Somebody…that we be conformed to His image. That we are sons. Okay, the church.

Saints, there’s something beyond all of that. God is the All. In Him is the Son. He marks off parts of the Son. Those parts are one with the Father as much as all of the Son is one with the Father. And above and beyond all things is that whatever happens, those who were chosen, those who were predestined, those who were marked off in Him before the foundation are destined to end up the way they started: to be one with God. That’s beyond…that’s returning to the very place where things were before the beginning when He was All. How could you sit there and listen to this and look at me? Say something. Praise the Lord.

Now then, we know something’s going to happen that’s not too good. We’ve got a cross here, but we also know that He loved the Son, and in loving the Son, He loved us. We also know that we have been predestined, marked off, and chosen, no matter what happens. There’s a part of us that was once part of God, and as much a part of God as any other part of God, a part of the very Son, the eternal Son, marked off in the Father before creation. That is eternal; it doesn’t matter what happens here in the darkness of creation. This is eternal.

Somewhere down deep inside of you, you don’t believe this. Let me tell you which part you don’t believe. You believe this part over here, where all things before creation. You believe all these wonderful things about when this creation is over. What you don’t believe is this part down here in the creation. You know why? Because you’re such a stinker. You are just a loathsome worm. You are no good, and if you don’t know that, then just wait till a Baptist preacher gets through with you. You are a failure as a Christian. Well, this morning you didn’t even pray, and yesterday you thought something you shouldn’t have thought, and tomorrow you are going to do something you shouldn’t do. It’s this middle part that gives us such a hard time. You know that there’s Lucifer, the devil, running around here. You know that demons are running around here. You know that sin’s running around here, and you know that death is running around here. You know this creation has fallen. You know that things are getting worse and worse. I don’t know. The first child ever born on this planet was a murderer. I don’t see where things can get any worse than that. I think when you say things are getting worse, you’re just beginning to understand the depravity of fallen man; that’s all. It’s always been bad. I don’t know if you know this, but the Assyrians used to kill everybody they captured in the most horrible, brutal ways the mind can imagine, and they would have been horrified if anybody criticized them for it. They would have simply responded, “We’re just doing that so that the next country we go to conquer won’t resist us and we won’t have to kill anybody.” They thought it was humanitarian to do all this brutal, unbelievable stuff they did to people, so that the next country they were going to conquer, they’d give up first.

(continued in Part 2)