And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
(Revelation 13:8) KJV
We have thoroughly hammered our way through the idea that the water referred to as the deep in Genesis 1:2 is the Word of God.
- The Word of God is God’s physical form who was incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. We have equated this with the deep, of Genesis 1:2.
- God is also a Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
- and God is a soul, or mind, which is God the Father.
Creation was made from the deep. Yesterday we looked at several passages that tell us that it was Jesus Christ, the Word, through whom the worlds were made. The deep is Jesus Christ. This is a logical loop of reasoning which has been deduced.
As neat an idea as this may be it does present an issue: in order for the water to bring forth light and life it had to become impure. If Jesus is without sin who was offered as a sacrifice to pay the debt for our sin, through whom we can be made pure and Holy, how can he have a sin nature?
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
(2 Corinthians 5:21) KJV
What this does is it takes the sacrificial act that God had to make, pictured for us in Christ’s suffering on the cross at Calvary, right back to the very beginning of creation. The sacrifice had to take place in order for the creation to be made. Jesus of Nazareth did not actually pay for our sin on the cross, that is the symbolism that we need to be able to understand redemption, the payment was made so that the process of creation could begin.
Our passage today confirms this.
The Lamb is the sacrificial offering that pays for our sin. If the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world what does this mean? Does it mean that the slaying of the Lamb was inevitable from the beginning of the world, but it just happened at the cross of Calvary? Or does it mean that the Lamb was slain AT the foundation of the world? Given the context that we are building, which is that God made the choice to make creation from his physical form in such a way that it will result in impurity, corruption and the inevitable loss of part of Himself, the latter would seem to apply. The payment for our sin is being paid in full as a way of making the creation possible.
An implication of this is that God didn’t create a perfect creation which accidentally went bad and now we are suffering the consequences. In that scenario the story of redemption, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary, is Plan B.
If God knew the consequences of making creation before he created it but he chose to create it anyway, it means that the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary was Plan A.
What is the purpose of creation? God wants sentient companions who have chosen to have fellowship with Him. If God wanted companions who had no choice but to fellowship with Him he could have made a perfect creation. He didn’t. The essential ingredient that God wanted in this creation is free will. Every one of us has a choice of whether we believe God or not, but in order to engineer the manifestation of free will God had to sacrifice part of Himself. This he did through the Word, who is the Lamb who was slain AT the beginning of the world, so that the world could be free to have the choice of loving God or not.
I’m sure that I’m making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but we are gathering up a lot of loose ends and weaving them into a very consistent narrative in which water predates creation, but the water is one aspect of God.
Matty (Headwind) 