Knowing Christ before creation

Knowing Christ before creation

Matthew and Mark start their stories about Jesus with His genealogy. Luke begins with John the Baptist, the prophet who proclaimed the coming of Christ. John’s account begins somewhere entirely different.
Imagine what John thought when he began planning this writing. Where does this story begin? Where and when did Christ begin? The Holy Spirit starts to reveal to him a beginning even before the first recorded scripture. Before “In the beginning God created” he sees “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. He sees Christ in God before creation began. He sees Christ before sin entered the world. He sees Christ beyond the context of redemption. He sees Christ as the expression (Word) of God.

Let’s pause here for a moment. So much of our understanding of Christ has been based on His redemptive work. So much of our description of Him has been based on His life and work on earth. But Christ began before the world, before sin, before redemption was necessary. How do we describe Him in this place – in the eternal past?
Our definitions of Him have been too small. Our knowledge of Him has often been limited by mere information. He is a reality greater than what our logic can contain. We have often, and the temptation still remains, for us to take hold of an idea of Christ instead of taking hold of Christ Himself. Once we take hold of Him, we soon discover an inexhaustible source of revelation; revelation that defies the boundaries of natural understanding. Yet we speak, for our words, however inadequate, are still able to contain enough of the fire of this inward revelation, to set alight the forest in those who hear us.

Christ…before creation…what…who is He. Only once we understand Him in this place, before creation and before redemption, will we enter into a fuller revelation of who He really is and gain a proper perspective of redemption.

God’s eternal purpose:

Our Father is full of light, full of life, full of love. There are no half measures with Him. He brims over with goodness, absolute goodness. We see throughout the scriptures a God who desires to express Himself. His eternal purpose is to find a vessel; a body through which He can accurately, without constraint express Himself. He designed such a body and preserved that design in Christ. He designed a body in which the fullness of the Godhead would dwell and be comfortable.

This is why God so delights in Christ. The testimony of the Father delighting in His Son, is abundant throughout the New Testament. In Christ He found rest. Christ is the object of His delight. Christ is the body He always desired. But Christ was not to remain alone. God saw in Christ a multitude of individual parts, He saw YOU in Christ, before the foundation of this world. (Eph1:3,4)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” John 1:1

This word ‘beginning’ means origin. It speaks of that which is first and foremost, before all else. As Paul continued to behold Christ, he comes to the revelation that not only was He first in sequence – before creation – but God’s eternal purpose was that He should be first in importance. How could it be any different? Christ is God’s original design through which He would fulfil His ultimate purpose of expressing all that He is.

Heb 1:3 …who being the radiance of His glory and the exact expression of His substance.
Heb 10:5 Therefore, when He entered into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.
Col 2:9,10 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are completed in Him

Redemption in the light of Christ – God’s eternal purpose

Now that we know our Father’s eternal purpose we can see redemption in its proper perspective. The focus of redemption is not man, but Christ! It is so easy to get distracted by the great need of man and his utter desperation, that our focus becomes centred on man and not on Christ. All things were created in Him, through Him and FOR Him. And the Father’s focus in redemption is for Christ to again have pre-eminence in all things (Col 1:17-20)

God’s love dream, for Christ to become the body through which He expresses Himself, includes you! Christ was not to remain in the one body of Jesus alone. The Fathers love dream included many ‘bodies’ becoming members of one body called Christ. For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ (1Cor12:12) Christ now consists of many members! Jesus became the firstborn among many brethren!

Just as John began to see the Father’s eternal purpose, which began before creation, so also Paul continued to see more and more concerning Christ. His focus was not ‘righteousness’, but ‘Christ’, for Christ has become to us righteousness. His focus was not ‘wisdom’; his focus was not ‘redemption’. His focus was Christ and Christ became to us wisdom, redemption and all else. Christ explains all these subjects. It was for Christ’s sake that God did what He did, not for man’s sake!

Paul could no longer limit his view of Christ to the time Jesus spent on earth. He saw Christ “before all”. He saw Christ, and man in Him, as part of that original plan of God, to express Himself. God purposed from the beginning, for men to be the individual parts that constitute the body in which He would live and move and have His being.

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. (Eph1:4)
Redemption became necessary to fulfil this purpose. The Word did not become Christ in order to accomplish salvation, rather salvation became necessary for Christ to become all that God purposed Him to be, namely: A body made of many parts through which He would live. So the purpose of Christ is not salvation. Salvation is a part of the plan for the ultimate purpose – a body for God!

By Andre Rabe
andre.rabe@gmail.com
http://eclesia.blogspot.com