Christ Before and After Creation IV

[0:00] To the book of Psalms, to Psalm 100. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

[0:18] Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God.

[0:32] It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

[0:46] Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him.

[0:57] Bless His name. For the Lord is good. His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations.

[1:11] And in connection with Psalm 100, and as a follow-up to the messages that we have been bringing over the past couple of weeks, which, by the way, are available on the table in the back if you were not here, feel free to pick one up because what we have to say this morning would make a whole lot more sense, I suppose, if you had the benefit of the previous two messages.

[1:44] And in connection with Psalm 100 and what we have been considering, we are engaging the most sublime and truly awesome subject on the planet, which has to do with the being and nature of God, and there is no greater area of investigation that we can undertake.

[2:05] No subject we can contemplate is more worthy than delving into the nature and character of the God who made us. The God described in the Scriptures, and I have a number of propositions here that I want to set forth, otherwise I'm sure I will not get them all in, and I'm going to do the best I can.

[2:26] I'm not sure how good that will be to discipline myself and not elaborate on these points, because if I do, I'll run out of time and you'll get cheated out of your Q&A again, so I'll try to keep on track here.

[2:38] The God who is described in the Scriptures is infinite in His knowledge and wisdom. And what does that mean, to be infinite?

[2:51] It means simply to be limitless. It means that you have no boundaries. It means that there is nothing that is above you or beyond you.

[3:05] To be infinite involves being omniscient, which simply means all-knowing. The word omni comes from the Latin, and it simply means all or everything.

[3:19] Several years ago in Atlanta, Georgia, they constructed a huge edifice that was designed to provide an entertainment venue and a sports arena and a convention arena and just all kinds of things housed into that one gigantic facility, and it was called the omni, which simply means it incorporates everything.

[3:46] So when we talk about God being omnipotent, we mean that God possesses all power. Now just think of the implications of that. All power resides in God.

[3:59] We may think of people or machinery or equipment or something like that as having great power. We tend to think in terms of horsepower and stuff like that.

[4:11] But for God to possess all power, to be omnipotent, means that all power that exists, I don't care whether it's horsepower, human power, whatever kind of power it is, atomic power or whatever, it all stems from and resides in Him.

[4:29] He possesses all power. And everything that we see as a demonstration of power or an expression of power has its origin in Him. Everything from an atomic bomb to a firecracker, its origin is in Him.

[4:45] By that I mean He is the source. He is the resource of all power. Not only power from the standpoint of dynamic power or dynamo power, but power from the standpoint of authority.

[4:59] He removes kings. He sets kings up. He gives the kingdom to whomsoever He will. So He possesses all of that kind of power as well. This is part of the infinity of God.

[5:10] And nobody here, including myself for sure, understands what infinity really means. But the best we can say, the best we can do is it is limitless.

[5:22] No boundaries. We just can't imagine that. And in addition to God being all-powerful or omnipotent, He is omniscient. There isn't anything He doesn't know.

[5:33] There is in today's culture and today's expression of Christendom a theological concept that is referred to as open theism.

[5:51] I don't know how familiar you are with it. But open theism simply suggests that there are things that God doesn't know. And the reason He doesn't know them is because they haven't happened yet.

[6:04] So God is as much taken aback by some things that take place as what we are. But this is not the God of the Scriptures. It is the God of a more modern brand of theology that we simply do not endorse.

[6:18] Because a God who does not know everything is a God from whom many things escape Him and He cannot address them, etc.

[6:29] He is not a helpless God. And He has never been taken by surprise. Someone said when they called on an elderly deacon to lead the congregation in prayer one morning, he began with, Now, Lord, you no doubt saw the mooring paper.

[6:49] And he commenced to tell God what was going on. But that's not the God of the Scriptures. The God of the Scriptures is omniscient. Someone asked a question. Does He know everything?

[7:02] Absolutely everything. Well, my best answer is that He knows everything that He cares to know. There may be things that He doesn't know because He doesn't care to.

[7:16] But I can't speak to that. I'm just giving you a Wiseman opinion. He knows all that He wants to know. He is omnipresent. That means He is everywhere present. I do not understand how God the Holy Spirit can dwell in you and you and me and millions of other believers.

[7:35] But this is part of the nature of that which is spirit. And we don't much understand that either, although each one of us possesses a human spirit. It is part of what makes you human.

[7:49] You have a human spirit. Whether you recognize it or not, whether you believe it or not, you have a human spirit. And the human spirit is not to be confused with the Holy Spirit.

[7:59] The Holy Spirit is a member of the triune nature of God. And He subsists with the Father and with the Son. And it is the Holy Spirit who bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God, a la Romans 8.

[8:14] The Omni-God subsists in three distinct persons as members of the triune God. God's being, nature, and constitution transcend human comprehension.

[8:28] And I have often told you that I would not care to worship a God that I could really understand. There have to be areas of mystery about the deity because He is so removed from us.

[8:42] He is not only transcendent, that is, above and beyond, but He is imminent. He is near and close. How can that be?

[8:53] It can't be unless you're the deity. He is the only one who can fulfill these things. If God did not transcend our understanding, He would not be the God we believe Him to be.

[9:11] The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. All were operative and engaged in creation. All were operative and engaged in redemption via the death, burial, and resurrection of the second person of the Trinity.

[9:26] All were operative and engaged in the culmination of earthly events yet to be fulfilled as predicted. Yet all three of these persons is fully God in His own right.

[9:42] There are not, we insist, not three gods. There are not three deities. There is but one God, and this one God subsists in three persons.

[9:53] And the three persons are co-equal and co-eternal. There is no rank nor competition in the Godhead. There is nothing there but filial love and complete cooperation and mutual respect for the roles and responsibilities that each member of the Godhead has.

[10:13] So there is no jealousy in the Godhead. There is no superiority and there is no inferiority in the Trinity. This Trinity, this being of God, is such that there is absolutely no other entity even close or to be compared with Him.

[10:35] He is this one true God. We have noted their inhabitation of eternity. And we pointed out in Isaiah 57 where Isaiah says that, Thus saith the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.

[10:51] God dwells in eternity. I cannot say eternity past because when you say past that assigns time to it. But eternity has no time.

[11:02] Eternity is timeless. Eternity is a state rather than a time. Keep in mind that there is no time. No years, no calendars, no clocks in eternity.

[11:16] It is different from our existence. It is where God dwelt in spirit form. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelt in eternity.

[11:28] They always have. And yet the time came when they deigned it, in accordance with their own good pleasure, to step out of eternity and create something that did not exist before.

[11:46] And that was Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God. And I'm not going to belabor the point, but I do want to say that, and we touched on this in previous sessions, God is Elohim in the Hebrew.

[12:03] And it is clearly plural. But it is used with a singular verb. Very curious. And Elohim, which is translated G-O-D in the English, is used, I think, 2,570 times in the Old Testament.

[12:21] And each time it is a plurality of beings. But it is a plurality that is a compound plurality in the same way that a man and woman are a compound.

[12:34] It is for this cause. A man shall leave his father and mother and clave unto his wife, and they, twain, shall be one flesh.

[12:45] And that one flesh is a compound unity, indicating the existence and the plurality of multiple persons, but their cohesiveness is such that it constitutes a oneness.

[12:57] And it is that way only even more mysterious with the triune nature of God. So, God, Elohim, created space and time.

[13:08] And you have to have space and time when you're going to have material substance. God is spirit, we are told in John 4. Remember the Jesus and the conversation with the woman at the well.

[13:20] God is spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. This means God is not made of stuff. God doesn't have flesh and bones as you see us have.

[13:32] This is the Mormon concept of God, and we talked a little bit about that. And we believe that they are well-intentioned, but they're just in error on this point. But while it is true that God is not a man, is not flesh and blood, but he is spirit, nonetheless, this God is able in his Trinitarian nature, a member of the Godhead is able to step out of that spirit existence and assume a human-like form.

[14:10] Now, I know this is strange stuff. It sounds otherworldly because it is otherworldly. We have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all subsisting in eternity, all in spirit form.

[14:30] But we always tend to think of the Son as flesh and blood, don't we? Because in connection with the Incarnation, he did become flesh and blood. But what was he before he became flesh and blood?

[14:45] He was spirit form. All I can tell you about that is there's no materiality there. And, you know, it just blows my mind to think in terms of, listen to this, non-materiality, which is what God is.

[15:07] Non-materiality created materiality. It was this spirit God who said, let there be light, created the heavens and the earth.

[15:24] Spirit. I can't get my brain around something that has no material substance to it, being able to do anything.

[15:39] But you must understand that it is spirit that precedes physicality and materiality. And out of this spirit person God, he created materiality.

[15:58] That is really something. We tend to think of non-materiality as nothing. That's a big mistake.

[16:09] Because God does not have non-materiality doesn't mean that he isn't. And yet this is the very trap that so many of our modern scientists have fallen into.

[16:22] You can call them naturalists. You can call them experientialists. You can call them physicalists.

[16:32] But quite simply, they believe that if an entity doesn't have a physical presence or physical properties, it doesn't exist.

[16:45] And the reason they feel that way is because they can't analyze what is not physical. So they just discount it and discard it, which is a big mistake. Because what God is all about is the spirit.

[16:58] And he created a spirit within us so that we are not just our body. And that's what Jesus meant, I'm convinced, when he said to Satan that man shall not live by bread alone.

[17:12] Because man is more than a body. You are more than just your body. You have another dimension to your being. And that's the spirit. And God created that in us.

[17:23] And not sure exactly at what point in time, but it is there. So in Genesis 1-1, Elohim created space and time. When they conjointly created the heavens and earth, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all active in creation.

[17:39] And the Son assumed a human appearance and himself constituted the model from which the first man, Adam, was made, image and likeness. The text does not say that.

[17:50] It is a supposition that I am making. And I think it is valid because I give real serious consideration to man being made in the image and likeness of God.

[18:04] And out of all that God created, man is the only being of all God's creation that is said to be created.

[18:16] In fact, the text says in Genesis, in Hebrew, it says, we were created and made. Both. And I do not think the Spirit of God just loosely throws terms around.

[18:31] I think words mean things. And the words yatsar and bara in Hebrew mean two different things. One means to make something from preexistent material.

[18:44] So man was made. He was formed. He was formed. He was fashioned from the dust of the ground and made into this physical being.

[18:56] And I think the model that was used for Adam was the very one who made him, who was the pre-incarnate Christ, a Christophany, long before Bethlehem.

[19:10] And he assumed this human form. This is not the same as the incarnation. The incarnation gives him real humanity. His assuming a human form gives him a like appearance to a human.

[19:25] Same as those who appeared to Abraham in the cool of the day in Genesis 19. So if this be the case, and I'm not ready to go to the mat for this, but I think this is what it means, that we are not only made physically, but we are created spiritually.

[19:44] And that means we were made. Our first parent, Adam, was made out of pre-existing material, and that was the earth. The earth.

[19:55] We are called humans. The word human comes from the Latin word humus, and it means decayed vegetable matter.

[20:08] Did you know that's what you are? We are decayed vegetable matter. We are humans. So in our physicality, we are made. But then the text goes on to say that we were created in the image.

[20:24] That means to look like. And I think that when God fashioned Adam, he made him to look like himself.

[20:35] Two arms, two legs, a head, and so on. I think that's the form that the deity took when he created him. And he used himself as a model or a pattern, and he made Adam after that.

[20:46] And then when it says that we are created, we are made in the image and likeness of God, that's the image. And the likeness is we have a spirit.

[20:58] And that's what makes man. He has the touch of God in him in that he possesses a human spirit, and God is spirit, and it is in this spirit part of our being that we are able to connect with the creator, and it is our spirit that is regenerated at salvation.

[21:17] Your body is not. Your spirit is. The inside of you, where you are. And when you die, it is that spirit that exits the body and goes to be present with the Lord.

[21:31] The pre-incarnate Christ, not to be confused with the incarnation. That comes later. The pre-incarnate Christ continued to relate to Adam and Eve, and it was he who issued the prohibition not to eat of the fruit from the forbidden tree.

[21:48] It was likewise the Christophany that appeared to Noah with instructions about the ark. It was he, the Christophany. I've always wondered about this.

[22:02] Who closed the door. Think of that. We won't go to the text, but you can check it out if you want to. It's in Genesis 7, 16. But when God told Adam, or told Noah, okay, get your families and all the animals on board.

[22:20] It's going to rain. And Noah got everybody on board. And the text, and I think this is just priceless. This is just priceless. The text says, God, the Lord, closed the door.

[22:41] I don't know what I was ever thinking about before, but I remember reading that. And I remember we spent five years in Genesis, decades ago, when we went through it. And I just, it went right over my head.

[22:52] I didn't see that. I didn't get that. God closed the door. What did I think? I don't, maybe, maybe I was thinking that God had a genie garage door opener, and he closed it from heaven by remote control.

[23:05] But the text gives every indication that the Christophany, the pre-incarnate Lord, was there on that ark.

[23:19] And he talked face to face with Noah, just like he talked face to face with Moses. And God physically closed the door of that ark.

[23:33] And I don't know how else to take it. Sure, he could have done it by remote control. He could have just thought that he wanted the door closed, and it would have been closed. But I want to remind you about something. While God is spirit, he is very much committed to the physical.

[23:47] And it was likewise the Christophany that appeared regarding Sodom and its doom. And if you read the text, it's a very bitter thing to read.

[24:00] But it is all there. And he is one of the visiting angels. And he makes statements indicating that he possesses authority and power, etc., such as an angel would not have.

[24:15] So it is all there. In Genesis 17, the Lord appeared to Abraham and to Sarah as three men. And you read the account, and we've considered it a little bit earlier.

[24:28] Now, let's fast forward 4,000 years. And we arrive at Bethlehem. Now, this was different. This is not a Christophany, but this is an actual enfleshment.

[24:43] This spirit son of God who existed in eternity with the Father and with the Holy Spirit is going to become enfleshed.

[24:59] And here's a thought to ponder. We have no reason to believe that he will be anything other than that throughout all eternity.

[25:11] The Son of God that you see in eternity will be the glorified body of the Son of God who was crucified and rose again from the dead.

[25:27] He will be the same one that Peter, James, and John, and the others, and the 500 brethren at once looked upon after his resurrection.

[25:40] He is ever going to be housed in a physical body, a human body. And I take it that, and I don't understand this, but I tend to think that in a glorified body, in a glorified body, there won't be any limbs missing.

[26:05] There won't be any eyesight missing. There won't be any deafness in a glorified body. And I don't know how it is or why it is that the wounds that Christ sustained in the crucifixion are not going to be thoroughly removed, totally healed, restored, or whatever.

[26:23] But maybe they're just going to be there as a permanent reminder all throughout eternity. I don't know. That may be the case. So the death, burial, and resurrection ensued some 30 years after his incarnation and was followed by his ascension back to the Father with a promise that he would come again.

[26:48] And this is where it takes us to now. It is Matthew chapter 24. And if you would be so kind as to turn to that, we will look at what the event will be when our Lord returns.

[27:02] And this, by the way, is not to be confused with the rapture of the church when he comes to call away the body of Christ to himself, as indicated in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and also in 1 Corinthians 15.

[27:19] This is the second coming. And the second coming is going to be radically, radically different from the rapture of the church. And we read here in Matthew 24, and we'll just have to jump into the middle of the Olivet Discourse, which is just a tremendous thing.

[27:38] But Christ is speaking. And this is the discourse he gave. In verse 29, Jesus said, But immediately, after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky.

[27:57] Now, I don't know about this darkening and the moon, etc. I don't think the sun is going out, and I don't think the moon is going to quit. But I think it means that what is transpiring on earth is going to be of such a cataclysmic nature that it is going to engulf the globe with a kind of darkness that the sun and the moon will not penetrate.

[28:25] It could be a super kind of fallout from some kind of nuclear activity. We don't know. That's just a possibility. It could be some kind of massive corruption in the atmosphere that will involve who knows what.

[28:47] We've got volcanoes and volcanic action that is apparently going to come into play during this tribulation period in connection with numerous earthquakes that are going to happen.

[29:02] And if you know anything or have been in an area where there has been an eruption of an earthquake or an eruption, I'm sorry, a volcano blowing its top, the ash that it spews out and the coverage of it.

[29:18] We saw this in just Mount St. Helens not too long ago. And it can be just absolutely debilitating. You cannot penetrate the haze and the smog and the dust, the ash that is in the air.

[29:32] We are told that Yellowstone Lake, which is in Lake Yellowstone out in the west, it's actually the cone of a huge extinct volcano that blew several hundred years ago.

[29:53] And we are told that if this thing, which is now Lake Yellowstone, if it ever blew again in a major way, it would make Mount St. Helens look like a firecracker, and it would cover Atlanta, Georgia in a foot and a half of ash.

[30:16] Can you imagine what it would do to everything in between? These are the kind of activities that's going to be taking place during this tribulation period. And one needn't wonder why it is that the sun won't seem to shine or the moon will not be seen.

[30:31] If this is what's taking place, it can easily explain that. The powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then the sign of the Son of Man, which is the favorite designation Christ used of himself, will appear in the sky.

[30:47] And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

[30:59] Why are they mourning? Why aren't they rejoicing? There's nothing to rejoice about. They are mourning because this is payback time.

[31:12] This is judgment. And they're going to look upon this scene with an, oh, no. The body of Christ will have been off the scene, long removed.

[31:26] Those who remain behind are those who are attached to this earth. And this earth is all they want. And they are the ones who are going to mourn. And when that time comes, he will send forth his angels, verse 31, with a great trumpet, and they will gather together his elect.

[31:45] These are people who came to Christ during the time of tribulation when the 144,000 are proclaiming the gospel. And multitudes are being saved and multitudes are being martyred at the same time.

[32:02] It will be an incredible time. It's a time that Christ himself described as a time such as the world has never seen before and will never see again.

[32:13] And this world has seen some pretty ugly scenes, but nothing that will compare with this. So this is Christ before and after Bethlehem.

[32:25] And for a little more cogent picture, let's go back to the Revelation, the last book in the Bible. With this, I will conclude in Revelation 19. And this is the way it's going to be.

[32:37] This is a takeoff on Matthew 24. And in Revelation 19 and verse 11, John is speaking. And we read, That's a wonderful expression.

[33:36] The word of God. What is a word? A word is the essence of communication.

[33:47] You cannot communicate without words. Even if you use sign language, you're reflecting words.

[33:57] I dare you to try to think of anything without using a word. Try it right now. Just try to make your mind blank and think of nothing without using a word.

[34:16] And I'm trying, but all I can think of is blank. And that's a word. So you can't escape it. What it means, why Jesus Christ is called the word of God, means that he is the essence of communication.

[34:34] The word was made flesh. In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

[34:46] All things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made. He's the logos, the word of God. And the word in the Greek is logos. It's a word from which we get the word logic.

[34:58] It means that Jesus Christ is the logic of God. Wow. And he is the essence of communication from God.

[35:09] And as I've put it before, God had something that he wanted his creation to know. So he took what he wanted us to know and he wrapped it all up in a human body and sent it down to this earth.

[35:25] The word became flesh. And dwelt among us, John says, and we beheld his glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

[35:37] This is Christ before and after Bethlehem. And I suspect that we have engendered a lot of questions and some controversy.

[35:47] And I would be happy to entertain any suggestions, thoughts, questions, comments, disagreements, whatever.

[36:00] I'd be glad to hear from you now. And I've allowed you a full ten minutes to do so. So if you don't take advantage of it, you just see if I do this again. Anybody? Got a roving microphone out there somewhere?

[36:12] Okay. Okay. We will now hear from our little Greek, Marvis.

[36:27] Okay, Marvis. Okay. I've got a question about, you just spoke about Matthew 24.

[36:38] And it says, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Okay. What is the sign? And it must be important to be there because God wouldn't have put it there if it wasn't.

[36:55] Well, I think that the sign is the Son. I think he is the sign. Okay. Yeah. I think that's what the text is indicating. Okay.

[37:06] And then I had one more question about Revelation that you just talked about. And it says in there, he'll have a name written on him that no one knows.

[37:17] That's another thing. Why is it there? It must be important. What could be a name that no one knows? Well, if no one knows it, I can assure you I don't.

[37:29] You don't know it either. I didn't ask you what it was. I don't know. I'm sorry to say I don't. Okay. But, you know, there is something fascinating. Talking about a name.

[37:42] Words, in case you haven't discovered it, I get excited about words sometimes. Words, it's just wonderful.

[37:54] Words are a gift from God. Communication is a gift from God. A name and the prominence that is placed upon a name is all throughout Scripture.

[38:08] And it's found way back in Genesis. And among other things, it implies this. When someone is able to name something or name someone, it is a tacit admission or acknowledgement that the one who is bestowing the name is exercising power or authority over that entity or that individual.

[38:39] And remember when God first came to Abraham? Remember reading in your Bible, his name wasn't Abraham.

[38:52] His name was Abram. Remember that? And then later, his name was changed to Abraham. Now, there's a reason for that.

[39:05] And Sarah didn't start out with Sarah. She started out with Sarai. And her name is later changed to Sarah. And the reason is because of what these two parties experienced in their connection with Jehovah.

[39:21] Because he made promises to Abraham and Sarah that are absolutely astronomical in their importance.

[39:31] And it all has to do with the coming of the Messiah. Because designating Abraham as the father of the faithful and as the one from whom Isaac and Jacob and the twelve sons would come and ultimately the Messiah, that is just a terrific consequence.

[39:52] And it's just impossible to illustrate the importance of this. And later, when Jacob wrestled with the angel at Peniel, and his name was changed from Jacob to what?

[40:14] If I remember? Israel. Jacob became Israel. And that means prince of God. And it was because of that experience that he had there at Peniel that his whole life and future was radically changed.

[40:31] And so was his name. And so it was with Simon Peter. Remember? His name was Cephas. And Jesus said, I'm going to call you Simon Peter, Simon's son of Jonah.

[40:49] And he gave him a new name. And Saul. Saul of Tarsus became Paul, the apostle.

[41:03] Indicating that he is now under the authority and dominion of the one who named him or who changed his name. And God changed his name from Saul to Paul.

[41:16] It's a beautiful thing. Remember when John the Baptist was born and it came time for his circumcision and all the Jewish people, all the family, relatives, aunts and uncles would get together and they're going to have a big celebration.

[41:30] It was the day of the circumcision. And it's kind of like the equivalent of Christian christening. It was a circumcision when they circumcised this little baby and he was eight days old. And and and in connection with the circumcision, that would be the day that the baby would get his name.

[41:47] So John or Zacharias, the father, had earlier been smitten with with muteness and wasn't able to speak because he rejected the angel's message that he was going to be a father.

[41:59] And he had to serve nine months as a as a mute during the time that his wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant. And now it's time to time to circumcise this little baby, John the Baptist.

[42:12] He's eight days old and they get ready with the knife. The fellow who's going to do the job, who just goes around circumcising these babies. And he says he looks at looks at the mother.

[42:24] He doesn't expect doesn't expect Zacharias to say anything because he can't talk. And he says, what's his name? And Elizabeth doesn't answer. And the very first words out of Zacharias's mouth after nine months of not being able to talk.

[42:41] His name is John, John, John. And John was his name. And relatives says, John, Yohanan.

[42:54] Nobody in your family with that name. And they thought maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he didn't mean that because they very often selected a name from some family member or grandparent or an uncle or somebody like that.

[43:07] But there wasn't anybody in his family with that name. And he reaffirmed it. And he says, no, his name is John. And we all know what John the Baptist turned out to be by way of an incredible prophet, martyr prophet, too.

[43:22] The study of names is fascinating. It's a study in itself. It's wonderful. So it ties in with this name here, the name given to him that no one knows. And I'm satisfied that it's connected with what we've been talking about.

[43:35] But I just don't know the real significance of it. Ron, right up here in front. Wait for the microphone. I need to get you some rollerblades, Roger.

[43:48] That'd be dangerous. In eternity, there's no time, space, or matter. Is that correct? That's my understanding, yes. Okay, that's mine. But how then does the glorified physical body that we're going to have fit into eternity?

[44:06] I have no idea. But if you want to know anything, you have to ask questions. So don't hesitate. Now, seriously, I don't know.

[44:17] I've puzzled with that. I don't know. I know we are going to have glorified bodies. But a glorified body is capable of assuming a physical form or not.

[44:31] And Christ had a body that was supernatural, that was able to pass through materiality. And the scientists tell us that's very simple.

[44:43] It's just a simple matter of molecular displacement. Yeah, well, it's easy for you to say. But I still don't know how a solid object can pass through a solid object. But with molecular displacement, I guess it's possible.

[44:55] I don't know. I don't know. That's just one thing in many that I don't know about. But it's fascinating to contemplate this. And all these things that we don't know about just separate us and our knowledge and our wisdom more and more from the only one who does know.

[45:13] And if you ever get the feeling sometimes like you're just an insignificant little speck on a speck on a speck, you got it just about right.

[45:23] And yet, this God who created everything has an incredible love affair with these little specks. That's mind-blowing.

[45:35] Mind-blowing. Anybody else comment or question? Yes. I'm confused.

[45:47] If God is spirit only, how did he make man in his image as a human being?

[45:58] Well, I think in Genesis, I think he assumed a human form before there ever was a human form. I think he took upon himself a human form, not to be confused with the incarnation.

[46:13] Because in the incarnation, the son became a real human being while remaining really God. But in the, what I call a Christophany that is thousands of years before Bethlehem, I think, and is there a place in scripture that says this?

[46:35] No. No, there isn't. But this is what I say. This is my opinion. This is my idea. If I had chapter and verse for it, I'd give it to you. But I'm maybe reading between the lines something that isn't there, but this is the way I see it.

[46:49] You have these three spirit beings dwelling in eternity. And one of them steps out of this eternity when he creates matter and time and he creates the universe.

[47:05] He creates the stars, the heavens. He creates the planets. He creates everything. He creates the seven-day, six-day week of creation. And he did so in this form as a human from which he patterned man or used himself as a pattern.

[47:29] How did God decide to make man as he is with the arms and legs and eyes and teeth and feet and all the rest?

[47:41] How did he decide? Well, if you're God, the possibilities of what you want to create are utterly limitless. But this is what he came up with.

[47:54] And entertain this for a moment, if you will. When God created the heavens and the earth, and then he created our first parents, Adam and Eve.

[48:08] I don't mean to discount this in any way, and I certainly don't mean to be irreverent, but I really believe this.

[48:20] Now, get ready for this. God did the best he could with his creation. Can you think in terms of God being able to improve upon anything that he has done?

[48:40] I can't. That just escapes me. I can't imagine God looking at earth or anything else that he created and said, Doggone it, you know what?

[48:53] I should have done this instead of that. I should have done this differently. I shouldn't have made this that color. I shouldn't have made this that big. I should have made it small.

[49:04] When God pronounces something, as he did creation, when he pronounces it, very good. Each day that he creates, he says, it's good.

[49:18] It's good. It's good. And at the end of the six days, he says, it's very good. Very good. I'll tell you something. There aren't very many artists who are in their heart of hearts completely pleased with what they have done.

[49:36] They always think they could have done a little better or a little different. And we're often never really fully satisfied with our own work. But I think God was. And when God made the human body and fashioned it as it is, I don't think he could have done you any better.

[49:57] Than he did. Now, what has changed all of that is our fallenness. Because when Adam and Eve fell, they took upon their person an ingredient that God didn't create.

[50:17] They took upon their person a kind of moral infection that God did not place there. But God did place the potential for it to occur there.

[50:32] And he did that by giving us volition. The power of choice. And some think that God could have done better if he had made man in such a way that he couldn't mess up.

[50:44] That he couldn't sin. That he couldn't disobey. But that would be a very cheap kind of obedience. You would be getting obedience from a robot. And that's not worth very much.

[50:57] God wants us to love him because we choose to love him. Not because we have to love him. Nobody wants to be loved because the one loving you has no choice.

[51:09] They're programmed to love you. They can't do anything else. What kind of love is that? God wants volitional love. And he wants volitional obedience. And all of this is part and parcel of the package of creation.

[51:23] And I'm five minutes over and I apologize again. May we stand please. We'll be dismissed. Loving Father, you are all in the best that you could ever be.

[51:38] And there is no room for improvement with you or with anything about you. But we eagerly confess that that is not true of us. But we look forward to the day when because of that price that you paid for us, we will one day have a body that is fashioned like unto your glorious body because you said so.

[52:02] And we look forward to that time when we recognize that we live and move and have our being in you. And even while we live in a fallen world, we do so at your pleasure. And we do so with ongoing dependence upon you.

[52:16] We wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you for being the God that we fail to fully understand. In Christ's wonderful name. Amen.