WHEN WAS THE
BEGINNING?
"In the beginning...." These are the first three English words in the Bible. But when was this beginning? Did it begin a mere six-thousand years ago with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? What does the Bible tell us? As with all of God's word, there is so much more written just below the surface right there before our eyes, hidden to most but there for the discovery of all. Let's dig it out! We will study what God's Word, The Bible, says about the beginning; the beginning of not only the history of the creation of the world as we now know it today, but also the creation of the world that then was, as well as the world that is to come (Heaven). These are known as Earth Ages, and there are three of them spoken of in the Bible; we will learn of them in this study. We will also read of time-gap in scriptures, a great flood and destruction other than and before Noah's flood; we will even read of dinosaurs in the scriptures. Unfortunately, due to the lack of quality in-depth teaching of God's written Word, many Christians have been led into confusion regarding foundational truths that are so very important to our understanding of the whole of God's Word and His plan. There is a plan and a "theme" to the Bible and it flows from Genesis through Revelation. But how can we understand the ending of God's plan (Revelation) if we don't fully understand the beginning (Genesis)? Today we will study several key scriptures in the Bible that many of us have just read over without fully understanding the deeper truths that were contained within them. Understanding these key fundamental truths is vital to understanding the whole of God's Word. But due to the false teachings and the half truths that we have been exposed to our entire life, often we must first unlearn the untruths, before we can learn the truths of God's most Perfect Word, The Bible. This present topic (the beginning) is so very important because it will shatter a myth that has caused many intelligent well intentioned souls to disregard the Bible because they feel that the Bible goes against good, hard scientific fact; although in reality, nothing could actually be further from the truth. You may have been told at some point by some of the unlearned within the 'religious community' that this earth is only six-thousand years old because of the fact that it is when God formed Adam in the Garden of Eden (4004 BC). And then you go to a museum and see entire skeletal remains of dinosaurs that have been Potassium-Argon dated to millions of years old! Carbon 14 and Potassium-Argon dating are reported by Scientists to be quite accurate, although great care must be used in the testing of the specimen for results to be accurate. But it is only through God's perfect laws of nature and the very science that He gave us to explore and harness; that we are even able to date these items at all. Carbon 14 and Potassium-Argon dating calculate the deterioration or transformation of certain elements. These elements deteriorate or transform at a constant rate and thus allow us to determine the age that a certain organic specimen was alive. The discovery of dinosaur remains that are dated to millions of years old does not go against the truths that God has placed in the Bible for us. In fact, it is scientific discoveries such as that which bears witness to His truths when we competently look at them! It was God that created the science, He created the elements and the laws of nature. It is a gift of God that chemicals and molecules act and deteriorate in a constant fashion, and that we have this scientific means of documenting the past of our planet earth. Near the end of this study, We will see of a place that God mentions the dinosaur in the Bible. This should prove unnerving to those that stake their soul on the fact of the Bible being just the imaginations of some old sheep herders in Jerusalem. For we did not even discover the existence of dinosaurs until the A.D. 1800's, but the latest book written in the Bible was written in approximately A.D. 94 (Revelation). And the book that the dinosaur is mentioned in (Job) is thought to be the first book of the Bible put into writing, it is believed that the book of Job was written even before Moses scribed the book of Genesis sometime around 1490 BC. Let's begin our study at the first verse of the first chapter of the first book in our Bible. Genesis was written by the inspiration of Almighty God through the hand of Moses, for Moses was not yet born when the events recorded in the beginning of the book Genesis transpired. We can determine from the genealogies recorded in the Bible that Moses was born on or about 1571 BC, and Adam was formed in 4004 BC in the Garden of Eden. Thus what we read here is the Divinely inspired account of the creation of the foundation of the world, and we most certainly must reflect on every word, for they are the words of Almighty God Himself. We will now look at [Genesis 1:1 and 1:2]. We will take certain key words and do an in-depth study of the meanings of them in the Hebrew language, which is the language that the Old Testament books of the Bible were originally written in. These below definitions are taken from the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, a must have Bible study tool for the serious student of the Word. Below are the first two verses of the Bible and they say much more than we can see on the surface. Understanding these two verses will unlock the meaning of many of the things in our Bibles that made little of no sense to us before or even seemed contradictory. I assure you, the Bible does not contradict itself, nor does the Bible contradict good objective scientific fact. For first came the Bible then science. Let's begin our study with a prayer for wisdom and understanding from our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.
Zechariah chapter 9, between verses 9 - 10 (First Advent / Second Advent).
So that should explain what it is really saying when we read in Gen 1:2: "And the earth was without form [tohuw], and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." It is important to point out that the separation of Chapters, Verses, Sentences, and even the spaces between words is the work of the Scribes and the Translators. In the ancient Manuscripts, the whole page is written like one long word. The Scribes and Translators only had their interpretation of the meaning of the scripture to use as a guide, when separating Chapters, Verses, Lines, and the words. This happens in our verse 2 above, in the middle of verse two after the period we have the sentence that marks the beginning of the rejuvenation of the world into our present earth age (the second of three): "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." This rejuvenation continues on in the following verses as God creates everything as we know it in our world. So therefore, with the truest meanings of the key defined words in the above scripture explained, we can thus take the first verse and the first half of the second verse, up to the period, and present it as such: 1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And now we will explain the verse, not retranslate it. We will describe it so that it explains not only the Hebrew words in the English language, but also the Hebrew thought into the English understanding. Therefore, it will be better understood if read as:
Then the second sentence of verse 2 marks the start of the rejuvenation of the earth and the commencement of God's Creation on the earth as we know it now in this present second earth age which we now live in. Returning to our Genesis Scripture:
The first earth age was inhabited by us, by our souls in a different form, there were no flesh human bodies then (animals yes). In that first earth age we all had spiritual bodies, in this earth age we have flesh bodies because we were created and formed from the dust of the earth. When God destroyed that first earth age, the souls, the spiritual bodies returned to the Father (God), just as we do when we die in this earth age. But spiritual bodies leave no organic remains. When we die today, only our organic remains (flesh and bone) remain to be buried. Our soul, our spiritual being or spiritual body so to speak, returns instantly to the Father whom gave it. In this present second earth age we have two bodies, one within the other, and they can only be separated by death. In the first earth age we only had the spiritual bodies. You know that when someone dies today we bury their body, but their soul goes back to God that gave it. It is this soul that will be judged either to Heaven or "Hell". But the deceased flesh that we bury simply rots back to the dirt and minerals that they are formed of. Your spirit (your intellect) and your soul will either live forever or will be consumed in the lake of fire (Hell). Just as you will never find or see any physical remains of someone's soul, or spiritual body; neither will you find physical remains of those spiritual bodies that inhabited the earth in the first earth age. You will however, find the remains of their existence; the markings, tools, and the residue of settlements. But the spiritual bodies went back to the Father, and are now in the process of going through this second earth age, in flesh bodies. There is a reason for this (explained further on in this study). Every soul goes through each earth age only one time, but it is the same one soul! Use this as an analogy: At one time we were all infants, then children, and eventually adults, but it was always us, the same one person. OK, now that we can see that there was an earth age before this one, chronologically transpiring between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, let's examine why there had to be the second (our present one). There is very little written of that first earth age, but we will examine a couple of places where it is spoken of. The key to understanding that there was an earth age before this one is in understanding why God destroyed that first earth age and Created this one. God does not do anything without a reason and in understanding why He destroyed that first earth age we can know with a surety that it did in fact once exist. There are to be three earth ages altogether. We know that we live in one and that "Heaven" is another one, so it should not be surprising that there was one before our present one. All Souls, all of us, were present in that first earth age but God does not allow us to retain knowledge of it. He place a veil between that age and this one so that none of us could recollect it. That may have something to do with the fact that Scientists tells us that we only use approximately 9% of our brains (exact percentage disputed). In the eternity (Heaven) we will have full recall of all three earth ages, and full use of our intellect. There is no mental retardation in a spiritual body, nor is there disease and malformation, the spiritual body does not even age. In that first earth age in which
all our souls lived, satan rebelled against God and led one third
of God's children to fight against him - Rev 12:4
"And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the
earth".
Today we are children of men, born of women, but in Heaven (the third age) we shall be children of God, not born of any woman. We shall be "equal unto the angels" which means the same as the angels. Angels have no female gender, and neither shall we in the angel's realm, which is the realm of God, which is eternal; no death, no birth in heaven, thus, no need for the female form (gender). Today we are perishable, liable to die, going to die someday; flesh dies, spirit does not (unless God blots it out in the Lake of Fire after Judgment Day). That brings to mind the absurdity of the feminist's rendition of Almighty God as a female with breasts. The only female gods are the false nonexistent goddesses of pagan idolatry, I hope for the feminist's sake that God winks at their ignorance. This is no knock on the female gender either, females are great, it is just that being male carries no significance if there is no female; just like being single would mean absolutely nothing if no one were married. This also condemns, as errant, the Marian Worship of the Catholics. And the so-called Marian Apparitions are merely demons in disguise. See our Mary Worship. To understand this you cannot think in the flesh of this present male and female gendered second earth age, you have to look at it spiritually. For in Heaven (the third age) we will all be in spiritual bodies and not flesh bodies; and likewise we were all in spiritual bodies in the first earth age. Do not confuse this with reincarnation, reincarnation does not exist, it is just a lie from satan to make the heathen believe that they are not accountable to Almighty God on judgment day for their actions. There 'gonna' reincarnate alright, right into the Lake Of Fire if their not careful! The Reincarnationist New-Age Religionists would do well to absorb 2 Cor 5:10 & 11 (below). Let's learn from Apostle Paul of the flesh body and the Spiritual body:
In this great war in Heaven which brought about the destruction of the first earth age, satan and his misguided bunch of blasphemers of course lost. God destroyed that first earth age. Your best documentation of that first earth age would be in the best account of it's destruction, found in the book of Jeremiah:
So when you understand that God wholly destroyed the earth with water before Noah's Flood, then much difficulty is removed from many Scriptures. The destruction from Noah's Flood was nowhere as complete as the first destruction, as we seen. After Noah's Flood God promised to never destroy the earth with water again "...neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." (Gen 9:11). (Next time he shall use fire). Our Jeremiah Scripture above was the destruction of the first earth age in God's own words through the Prophet Jeremiah. God was very angry at his creation because they had tried to overthrow Him. But he would have had to destroy one third of his children that had joined satan and rebelled against him Rev 12:4, and He did not want to do that. If you had three kids, no matter how much they betrayed you, could you bring yourself to kill one of them? So this second earth age, this flesh earth age, became necessary so as to allow every soul to come through it and make a choice between following God or following satan. Those are the only two choices, and if you do not make a conscious choice to love and follow God through Jesus Christ, then you have made a unconscious choice to follow satan with the ways of this world. God placed a veil between this earth age and the first so that we cannot know what side we were on in that revolt, nor do we posses any memory of it. Once again, I must stress that this is not saying there is any reincarnations; the very concept of re-incarnation is blasphemy to God and Jesus Christ! Each soul can only pass through each earth age one time; just like we live in this earth age but we can also live in the next earth age, referred to as Heaven. Well why would it be so difficult to accept that there was one before this one, that made this one necessary? We are flesh now, but in Heaven we will be spirit, and in the first earth age we were also in spiritual bodies. God also gave this earth age the benefit of a Savior; Jesus Christ. But at the same time He allowed satan an equal chance to deceive us again, or else, what would be the use of this earth age, which itself is nothing more than a proving ground, a place and a time for us to decide whom we will Love and follow? You have free will to follow God or follow satan, you must ASK God to show you the True way. Many people wonder why God lets people become evil and to do harm in this world. As with everything God does there is a very good reason for this; God seeks only your true love for Him, everything else is incidental. The sole reason for our time here on earth is to determine if we will Love God or follow satan. You remember that in the first earth age one third of God's children turned against Him and chose satan? God remembers. And, to have true love for God generate within us, God 'had to' give us free will to make a choice. God also 'had to' allow satan another opportunity to deceive us, otherwise, if God programmed us to love Him and not allow us to be tempted by satan once again then our love really wouldn't mean anything. You can't make someone love you and have it to be true love. And God abiding by His own rules accepts that some will forsake Him and instead turn to satan again; though God desires that none lose themselves "Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (Matt 18:14). He will not interfere with your free will, or it would not be your own free will! So therefore you must ASK God in your prayers to help you find the true path that pleases Him; and why not tell Him that you love Him? He has emotions, you know; we are created in His likeness, and when one of His beloved children, whom He created, tell Him that they love Him, it just makes His day! God is not some cold unfeeling force out there in space, He is our Father, our Heavenly Father, and we are His beloved children. Won't you treat Him as one? In the eternity (Heaven) it shall be so "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." (Rev 21:7). We explained the gender term (son) earlier, for in Heaven we shall all be in our spiritual bodies which have no female gender. Women today shall not have female gender parts in Heaven, but they will be there. Where else in God's word do we see mention of the three separate earth ages? In 2nd Peter 3:5-13 we see all three of the earth ages mentioned. By having them all three spoken of in order, in the same scripture, it would be impossible for someone to think that we are mistaking a complex combination of different scriptures and arriving at an unsound conclusion about three separate earth ages. The below are all given in order without a break.
I mentioned that there were dinosaurs in God's Word, and if you draw the creature that God speaks to Job about, you will find that you are well on your way to drawing one species of dinosaur, perhaps one of the very largest; Brontosaurus or Apatosaurus? It grew up to ninety-eight feet in length and weigh tons. In the Old Testament book of Job, God describes a creature to Job. The only reason God was telling Job about the behemoth (dinosaur), was to humble Job, and to say to him that God is the creator of even the most awesome, gigantic creatures. Some Bible versions substitute the word 'behemoth' with 'hippopotamus', this is an incorrect translation and can be cleared up easily by referring to verse 17; verse 17 describes a tail like a Cedar tree; a hippo has a little 'pig tail'. God states in Job 40:17 "He moveth his tail like a cedar." A Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) has a tail like the mighty Cedar tree, the Brontosaurus' tail grew to some thirty feet long, weighing over five tons. You've all seen the assembled skeletal remains in the museums. The Behemoth, with the description from God in the Scripture:
Explanation and description of Job 40:15-24. Below, in verse number:
Well that's it for this Bible study. Understanding is the key to God's Word, and with what you have just learned about God's creation and His plan from the beginning. Many of the scriptures that made no sense before may now be unlocked to your understanding. The key is first to believe God then to learn what He said. And for any of you that may be a beginning Bible student, don't worry, the bible may seem complicated and confusing a first, but if you stick with it and with the Grace of God it will all come together and flow very smoothly in your mind. Did not Jesus say "But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things." (Mark 13:23)? He tells us all in the book that is written of Him, the Bible "Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God." (Heb 10:7).
The purpose and mission of the Messiah Jesus Christ
But be assured, when you learn to stop listening to the "traditions of man" and follow God's Word, it really does lift such a heavy burden off of ones mind when he understands exactly what God expects from him and exactly what God and Jesus Christ have promised to him! You can have that someday soon if you continue to study in God's Word, The Bible. God will not deny anyone who seeks Him and His promises. When God says: "whosoever believeth" (see below), He means it! And it can apply to you as well.
In the beginning it can be somewhat difficult to understand the Bible; but with the assistance of sound Bible-believing teaching it becomes easier to understand, and eventually you will be able to read and understand on your own. Then perhaps one day God can use you to help someone else. That's how it works. Anyway, you're always welcome to study here with us! The next Bible study in chronological order after this current one is: Mankind, the two separate creation events God bless you and your studies of His Word, in the name of the Messiah Jesus Christ. Below are some reader's questions and/or objections to this study. In answering them we have been able to add further insight and shed greater light from the perfect Scriptures into the matter. Seeing them will aid the reader further in this study. See:
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