The Matchless Mystery: Part One

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1).

Who doesn’t like a good mystery? There is no single verse in the Bible consisting of more mystery than John 1: 1. It even surpasses Genesis 1: 1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

This pulls back the curtain and reveals the production: “the heavens and the earth.” The earth is comparable. The heavens are incomparable. The vastness of the created universe is beyond human understanding.

An even more incomparable factor regards how or rather who created all of this.

To explain this the English Bible utilizes a known title with a glorious meaning. That word is “the Word,” which translates the word “Logos.”

In the Jewish mind the phrase “the word of God” was used to refer to God Himself.

In Greek thought the logos was the “Ultimate Reason” that controlled all things. To them the logos brought the orderly world into existence.

Hence, these two cultures formed a glossary interpreting who was meant by Logos. It was God. They didn’t equivocate about how the heavens and earth came into existence. To them it simply was the act of the ever not so simple God. God created the heavens and earth.

Pause now and clear your mind before the beginning of act two of this mystery.

This happened “in the beginning.” A modern English version renders the verse, “Before time began to begin the Word was.” Another, “When the beginning began, the Word was already there.” The idea is that the Word existed before creation which included time, space, and matter.

Here is a classical part of the mystery. Once there was nothing, nothing, not even space before the heavens were created. There was no time and no matter. There was nothing, just our timeless God. That is an intriguing part of the mystery of the beginning. This was just the beginning of the beginning.

Fast forward once more. The Logos, in the person of Jesus Christ, slipped into an even more remarkable role and stepped on stage, planet earth. His was an even more remarkable role. He came to seek and to save the highest form of His creation, human beings, who had spoiled His creation physically and even more incredibly, spiritually.

These compounded principles just hint at the nature of our  incomprehensible, eternal, and all powerful God. Just think He loves you. You are so important. He did this just for you. That is the matchless mystery.