Impossible

Just the concept of God is difficult for many people to grasp hold of mentally, with a real understanding. And then think about what some people say is impossible; that God did not have a beginning. What do I mean some people? It's hard for me to wrap my mind around this statement … God had no beginning. I have to take it by faith … yet today.

In this discourse I want to look at this huge question … "How can anything including God, not have a beginning."

The best resource material to use is the world's best selling book … The Word of God.

Genesis 1:1 … "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." No, we can't start here because this scripture only goes back part of the way, to the beginning of kept time … creation … just a few mere billions of years in the past. We need to go further back into the dateless eternal past.

John 1:1-3 … "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. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."

The first chapter of John a few verses later speaks of the Word of God becoming man … "and the Word was made flesh." That's Jesus.

Both Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 start out with … "In the beginning." But in this verse in John, the words … "the beginning" … do not speak of the same point of measured time in creation as it does in Genesis. John is saying if we go back as far as is possible in our minds, far beyond time into the dateless past and all that had a beginning, Jesus … as the Word … is. Is what? He is there, He is with God, and He is God.

This is the most perfect idea we can form historically of eternity itself and the existence of God … "In the beginning was the Word." This complete phrase is only used to show that even before God … shall we say … revealed Himself as God, Jesus … as the Word … was. Was what? He was whatever God was.

The Gospel of John therefore really begins before Genesis does. The Book of Genesis gives us the history of the world within the measurement of time. John gives us the history of the Word, who existed in eternity before time started, before the world was; who, when man speaks the words … "in the beginning" … already was; and consequently did not begin to exist.

Here a personal existence is ascribed to Him as the Word of God. In His eternal existence, in His distinct personal nature, the spoken Word of God is declared to be the Creator of … all things.

The language of the Bible is as plain as possible, and stands in opposition to the thoughts of human reason which says, that's … impossible … all things, even God had to have a beginning.

There are things which had a beginning; but they all had their origin from Him. "All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made." With precise, positive, and absolute distinction … if anything has been made … it was made by the Word of God.

Colossians 1:16-17 … "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

If God was or is before all things … doesn't that mean that at one time, before He created anything there was nothing except Him … therefore He was by Himself.

Psalm 90:2 … "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."

Isaiah 40:28 … "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."

The everlasting God? From everlasting to everlasting. I could be wrong, but doesn't that mean forever, both directions, backwards and forward with no beginning and no end?

Isaiah 44:6 … "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

God declares in Exodus 3:14 … "I am that I am." The Vulgate translates this … "I am who am." The Septuagint reads … "I am he who exists." The Arabic paraphrases them … "The Eternal, who passes not away."

This signifies the real being of God, His self-existence, His eternity and includes all time, past, present and future. The sense is, not only … I am what I am at present, but I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I am. So God is saying … "I am He that was, is and shall be."

God is also saying that He is self-existent; He has His being of Himself, and has no dependence upon any other. And being self-existent He cannot be but self-sufficient, and therefore all sufficient. He is eternal and unchangeable, always the same; He is what He is.

Why is it so hard for some educated people to accept that God had no beginning when many believe that the universe came into being … from nothing.

Now I may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but if I still remember basic math; "0" plus "0" is still "0" right? Likewise "0" multiplied by "0" is still "0."

"Nothing" is like darkness. Darkness in reality is nothing. It's just the absence of light. Likewise, nothing is just the absence of something. There's nothing there.

So, if … "nothing" … not even a speck or a sub-atomic particle, the absence of any substance, tries to become something else, how can it? There's nothing there. Nothing is nothing … forever.

But man seems to accept the theory that one day, out of nothing … puff … we have everything. Wasn't that easy to believe. Nothing becomes something.

No … it took God to make something from nothing. That's why God is God. It takes a being who always was and who always will be; one who had no beginning and will never cease to be.

Can I prove that God had no beginning? No.

God was not created by some force in the universe. The universe wasn't there yet. If He had a beginning then He could someday have an end and that cannot be. He didn't just happen to come into existence one day. There was never a time when God did not exist. No one made Him.

God just is. That's why He is God.

I take it by faith, just like I believe that … God's love is greater than all my sin.

It can be no other way.


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