“… the whole in Him combine …”
(Col. 1:17, ABP)
Perhaps we should start off by again reminding readers that we are currently investigating the overarching theme of how the sixth kingdom in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is manifested on earth. This kingdom, the kingdom of Christ, brings an end to the five preceding earthly kingdoms, and creates a completely new dispensation. To understand what this kingdom will look like, and to know how it will function, we are delving into the period before time, trying to Scripturally determine what actually happened. This mystery requires looking at it with a set of fresh eyes, to thus have a better grasp on the intervention that occurs with the apokalupsis of a new life in Christ. This includes knowing where we fell from when we fell from eternity (Rev. 2:5), and that we, as the Bride, will understand what the first works are that we have been called to fulfil, a call that came from before the foundations of the earth were laid. We must understand, in Jesus’s words, from where we’ve come and where we are going (John 8:14).
Thus: to realise what lies ahead in the future we need to return to before time, and perhaps these two temporalities are linked, so that we might perhaps be able to start off from where everything went awry after the fall. This also means gaining a better understanding of Adam, who was made “in the likeness of God” (Gen. 5:1), but which was broken, just like our covenant with God (Hos. 6:7). We still need to figure out what the status of the fallen Bride is in this period before time.
One of the conclusions of the previous teachings was that the concept “beginnings” cannot be seen as equal to the concept of points of origin. Everything in the natural world works toward linking things to concrete points of origin that are determined in space and time. But when we look at things from a spiritual angle, our perspective needs to be radically altered: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14). A spiritual perspective certainly broadens and even transcends almost every human belief and idea; it can penetrate into the invisible and offer us an understanding outside all natural limitations and laws. It is true of the natural man, even if he is a believer, that “their minds are feeding on earthly things” (Phil. 3:19, WMSNT), or as the YLT masterfully articulates: “who the things on earth are minding.”
When we are able to have an in-depth look into “the things of God” (Matt. 16:23), one of the first things that we notice is the Beginnings! It cannot be any different, as in Rev. 3:14 Jesus is called by the Name Amen, and are from there on sketched as “the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God”.
We recognize Someone who introduces Himself as the Beginnings, who the prophet Daniel referred to as the “Ancient of Days” (Dan. 7:9, CAB), and who is presented in Rev. 1:17 in similar terms, as “the First and the Last”. A few verses before this He is called “One like the Son of man” (verse 13), similar to the description found in Daniel.
He is thus not only the Beginnings and the Endings, but he is also the in-between: “in Him all things consist” (Col. 1:17). In truth, with our new understanding of the Parousia, we can comfortably refer to Him as “The Coming One” (Heb. 10:37, Rotherham), clearly in a continuous tense. It is thus undeniably so that everything occurs WITHIN HIM – “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). In Col. 1:16 Jesus is explained as the Life principle of all things, through the use of four pertinent prepositions: “by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” Also, as verse 17 notes: “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist,” or as these translations articulate it: “the whole in Him combine” (ABP), “all things … cohere, are held together” (AMP), literally, “subsist” (LITV).
Jesus is far more than our impoverished perception or thought paradigm of Him – He is truly the Life principle, or as Rom. 8:2 refers to Him: He embodies or contains “the law of the Spirit of life”. The word “law” (nomos) can better be explained here by referring to the Greek, which has it as “to parcel out, especially food or grazing” (Thayer). You too have received your specific subsection of your specific life, your personal manna piece of identity from Him. On a personal level, you then need to realise, as Col. 2:10 (MKJV) makes clear: “you are complete in Him”. Despite the fact that all things exist through the life principle of the Logos identity of God, we in Christ also have the reproduction ability of this wondrous Life principle of God WITHIN US.
Thus – FROM WITHIN Him comes all things. Because all things come from WITHIN HIM, He who is the Light (John 8:12), everything that He is not, is dark(ness). Everything that is outside of Him, IS the darkness. Therefore, Paul can definitively declare in Eph. 5:8: “For you were once darkness …” Take note – not like the darkness, not only beings who carried or contained some darkness – WE WERE THE DARKNESS. Everything lived or existed in darkness, even until today. If anything leaves the Light, it lives in the dark and in the shadow lands, as was the case with the fallen Adam.
Man’s thought function can sometimes create the impression that it is “enlightened,” or that it will bring enlightenment, but this is often a jumbled understanding of the enlightened “eyes of the understanding” (Eph. 1:18). In Matt. 6: 22-23 Jesus explains it as follows: “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
The word for evil in Greek is ponēros, which Thayer notes means, amongst other things, “diseased, blind”, and according to Strong: “degeneracy from original virtue”.
But man and the earth from which he was created was not intended to eternally remain in darkness. The hope that is found in Rom. 11:36, explains this Godly plan of His, “who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). In this verse we read: “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things …”:
- Firstly – all things came of
- Following this, all things thus go through Him (in other words: through His life, through His suffering, through His increase, through His joy, through His loss, through His cross, through His resurrection, through His glorification, etc.). He is by definition the Blueprint, the Sum total, the Example, the Prototype.
- And lastly – everything will again be restored to (into”– Strong; “in” – DRB) Christ (Matt. 17:11; Acts 3:21).
The Message paraphrases Rom. 11:36 in aptly aphoristic terms – “Everything comes from him; everything happens through him; everything ends up in him.” To have a better understanding of your origin, you will need to have a better understanding of your calling, your destiny. According to the law or circularity (Ecc. 1:5-7) everything will eventually reach its point of origin. The Amplified presents the verse above as “all things center in and tend to CONSUMMATE AND TO END IN HIM”.
In Him the entire creation was a harmonious whole, without a single dissonant note. It was a spiritual reality that vibrated with glory that cannot be articulated, a triumphant masterpiece of dynamic agreement. In that glorious whole of beginnings there were only sons of God – the morning stars celebrated, and all the sons of God exuberantly joined in (Job. 38:7)! There was no trace of sin, no evil, no darkness, no natural thoughts, no opponent, no illness, no decay, no sadness, no death.
In Gen. 2:4-5 important information is presented about a few matters: “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” (KJV). A few remarks:
- The word “generations” is translated in DBY as “the histories of the heavens and the earth.” JUB calls it “the origins”, Rotherham “the geneses” and YLT as: “These are births of the heavens and of the earth in their being prepared …” Note the plural form.
- All this occurred “in the day” (singular), although, according to the Gen. 1 report, various days (plural) had passed. This means that the different epodes of beginnings occurred in one day (AND THAT IS TODAY). The definition of “today” is simply spelled out in Gen. 1:4-5: “… God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day …” Day = today!
- The term today is thus not at all connected to time, and is not a 24-hour period – the Bible defines today as LIGHT! (This immensely important revelation is not mine, but one God gave to my son, Daniël Gouws). In this light (!) it means that all portions of Scripture about the importance of “today” is linked to the fact that you walk/exist in the light. This is what we also spelled out earlier – everything that is not IN Him, is in the darkness. Your existence in Christ is obviously today, and this means that you are in the light. We are not referring to the light of the sun or artificial light or whatever, but to “the true Light” (John 1:9). Therefore, Jesus notes in John 8:12: “He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of
life.” And remember Eph. 5:8 above: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” We have the unflinching hope of 1 John 2:8: “the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining”.
- One tends to miss this, but note the following: “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth [yet], and there was not [yet] a man to till the ground …” In the seed plot of the heavens and the earth was, already in the Beginnings, the totality of the harvest – the seed was there, the sprouting grass was there, the plants were there, the trees were there! That which the creation act notes took place on the third day was already built into the earth! No plant can live without the sun’s ability to create chlorophyll, or without water, yet all plants and trees exist without these essential elements – thus the sun and rain were also there! Before it physically existed, it existed spiritually. This principle is certainly a marker of Wonderful! In Jesus the Christ God gives the dead life, and calls things that do not exist as if they do (Rom. 4:17).
There is a time for everything, as God has already written the detail of eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). “TO EVERYTHING there is a season (kairos), and a time (chronos) for every matter or purpose under heaven.” (Ecc. 3:1, AMP; ABP).
- Selah: The ABP translates “season” as kairos and “time” as chronos. What would this mean?
- Read: 2 Cor. 7-13; Gal. 1-2
- Memorise: 2:20
