As I have studied the Bible over the years, I sometimes want to go back and think about the beginning. We who have been raised in the church know a lot about the Old Testament through the Bible stories that were read to us as children. But I don’t think that we take enough time to really take in what the Bible says about the relationship and interaction of the True God with His creation. I’m going to take time over the next weeks and months to do that for myself to better inform my thinking and teaching.

The Bible starts out with the statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” My mind then wanders to questions like, “What was going on before time?” and “Why did God decide to create the universe at that particular place and time?”

Time itself deserves some attention. Time did not begin until God created it at the beginning. According to 2 Timothy 1:9, God’s purpose and grace were given to us “before time began.” With God there is no “before” or “after.” He just is. He is outside of time. I believe that when God speaks to us in terms of time, such as “before” or “after,” He is accommodating the fact that we as humans live in time.

Colossians 1:7 speaks of Jesus Christ like this: “He is before all things.” I think we would expect the word “was” in that context. Apparently, God is not just present everywhere in the location sense, He is present everywhere in time. That doesn’t just mean that God has always been present. It means that He is present right now at all times. He is as much present with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob now as He is with us. We don’t understand that of course, but the Bible seems to be pretty clear about that. At the time Jesus was walking the streets of the Holy Land with His disciples, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).

Isaiah tells us that God inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). Isaiah also quotes God as saying, “Even from eternity I am He” (Isaiah 43:13). Revelation 4:8 explains that Jesus is the one who “was, is, and is to come.” For God, a day is no different than a 1000 years (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).

But, in my own feeble way, I still want to know what was going on before time began – before “In the beginning”? The Bible does give us some clues. In John 17:24, Jesus acknowledges that God loved Him before the foundation of the world. This means that love existed before there were any people. There was love between the Father and the Son. In Proverbs 8, wisdom is personified and says, “From everlasting I was installed,” and “Before the mountains…I was brought forth” (Proverbs 8:23, 25).

What else was going on “Before”? Titus 1:2 tells us that God promised eternal life before all time. Jesus was foreordained and considered slain before the world was created (1 Peter 1:20, Revelation 13:8). And we know that the kingdom was prepared for God’s people before the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).

So in the mind and heart of God, plans were in place to accomplish the complete work of redemption that would be needed to restore a broken world and broken people to Himself. You should never think that God must have a plan B or C depending on how we respond to events and circumstances. God encompasses it all.

I think I’ll wrap up my thoughts about the “Before” at this point. Next time I have a chance, I’ll write some of my thoughts related to the first few verses of Genesis 1.