In the Beginning

Genesis 1:1; John 1:1; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 2:7; 1 John 2:13‑14; 1 John 3:8  •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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Answer: “In the beginning” in Gen. 1:11In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) is clearly the first recorded action of God in calling the universe into being, the creation of angels (it would seem from Job 38:77When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)) being anterior. It was the beginning of time on the largest scale. But in John 1:11In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1) the phrase goes back into the eternity that preceded, because it expresses the being of the Word Who was God and created all (ver. 3), trace back indefinitely far as you may.
“From the beginning” is always in time, not before it, to whatever epoch or period, person or thing, it may be applied. Take the earliest application, as said of the great angel who fell: “the devil sinneth from the beginning” (1 John 3:88He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:8)). It was not even the beginning of his existence as an angel, but only as a fallen one.
For the angels were all sinless at first, as Adam was. God never is the author of moral evil.
But the phrase “from the beginning” carries the same time-force as to good. It never means “in the beginning,” even though applied to Him Who was the Eternal also. It refers from its own nature to a time relation. So we see in Luke 1:22Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; (Luke 1:2), where “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” can only mean from the manifestation of Christ in the public testimony. It is even distinguished from ἄνωθεν in verse 3, by which the evangelist draws the line between many chroniclers from tradition and his own accurate acquaintance with all things “from the outset” or origin. The phrase therefore does not and can not refer to eternity but to what was before its witnesses in time.
So it is in the all-important use of the phrase in 1 John 1:11That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (1 John 1:1), ὅ ἧν ἀπ’ἀρχῆς....περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς δωῆς
“That which was from the beginning.... concerning the Word of life.” Undoubtedly He Who is thus presented was “in the beginning;” and this is fully implied in ver. 2 that follows, as in John 1:1, 21In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1‑2). But here it is the concrete Person of our Lord, truly subsisting here below, heard, seen, contemplated, and even handled by the hands of chosen witnesses. This therefore can express nothing but the Lord’s manifestation on earth among men.
1 John 2:77Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. (1 John 2:7) is equally conclusive. “An old commandment” which the saints had “from the beginning” cannot refer to the eternal counsels of God as such, but solely to what was enjoined by our Lord when with them here below. They certainly did not hear it from eternity, but in time and at that time solely. This accordingly gives the true bearing of vers. 13 and 14, of course also 24, and 3:11, 2 John 55And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. (2 John 5), 6. “He that is from the beginning” is the very same person “who was in the beginning,” both truths of the highest moment to faith; but they are distinct and in no way to be merged in one another. If I believe in Him that was in the beginning, it is the true faith of His deity and of His personality as the Word; I am not an Arian or a Sabellian assuredly. But this is not to believe in “Him that was from the beginning,” the Word made flesh and tabernacling among us full of grace and truth, Whose glory was contemplated by the apostle John and his fellows, as of an Only-begotten of (or with) a Father. Hence it is the distinctive badge of the father in God’s family here below to know “Him that is from the beginning,” certainly not alone His divine personality and Godhead, however indispensable, but to know Him as He was manifested here, unchangingly divine indeed, but in all the wonders of His life among men in the lowliest, holiest, most familiar love and obedience: Christ Himself as He lived, moved, and had His being with the disciples, not only declaring God but showing the Father. To know Him thus is indeed to be a “father.”