Big Things of God

This transcript was generated automatically. Its accuracy may vary

Short Summary
The discourse presents a broad overview of God’s creative purpose, emphasizing His desire to form an intimate, immortal family through a careful and tested process involving free will, love, and justice. It explains the creation of the Logos as God’s first direct creation to carry out His plan, the necessity of allowing free will despite risks of rebellion, and the role of Jesus as the first of the new immortal creation who enables restoration for humanity. The permission of evil is framed as a divine teaching method preparing both angels and humans, culminating in a future resurrection and restoration under God’s kingdom.

Long Summary
Format and Approach of the Discourse
– The discourse is intentionally different, focusing on telling a story rather than citing specific Bible verses.
– It aims to present the “big picture” of divine purpose and creation rather than dissecting individual doctrines.
– Doctrines such as the sin offering, ransom, creation, high calling, restitution, covenants, permission of evil, and love are included but not explicitly named.

God’s Nature and Initial State
– Initially, there was only God, who was completely self-sufficient and had no needs beyond Himself.
– This self-sufficiency is a defining trait of divinity; God’s actions did not arise from lack but from His wisdom and love.
– God’s attributes—wisdom, love (agape), justice, and power—are foundational in creation.

Agape Love
– Agape is a unique, selfless love that has an insatiable desire to give but only in ways beneficial to the recipients.
– God’s desire to create was motivated by agape—to share joy and blessings with intelligent beings.

Creation Begins: The Logos (Michael)
– God’s creative process began with the creation of one being, the Logos, also known as Michael (meaning “one who is like God”).
– The Logos embodied all of God’s plans and purposes—it was the “all embodying” information about God’s creative intentions.
– The Logos was God’s direct creation and the agent through whom all other spirit beings, humanity, and animals were made and supervised.
– This made God no longer alone; the Logos managed the created universe on God’s behalf but was not a substitute for God.

Visible and Invisible Creation
– Creation was divided into visible (to humans) and invisible realms.
– The Logos created spirit beings (angels) and used them to assist in the formation of the rest of creation.

God’s First Priority: An Intimate Personal Family
– God’s chief aim in creation was to have a personal, intimate family of beings on His level—companions who share His nature.
– This family would possess immortality or divinity, a quality only God initially had.
– The creation of this divine family was planned before the world’s foundation but delayed because immortality could only be safely granted after beings were proven beyond failure.
– These beings must be tested before they exist, which is a profound divine challenge.

Free Will and Its Implications
– God would never create robots or programmed beings; intelligent creatures had to have free will to reason and choose.
– Free will inherently includes the possibility of rebellion, a major problem God accepted to preserve genuine love.
– Because of free will, God does not know who will ultimately choose salvation, although He knows the end result of the plan will succeed.
– Education and learning are crucial for free will beings to understand and choose obedience.

Permission of Evil
– God allowed the permission of evil as a necessary teaching method since obedience cannot be learned without experiencing and observing disobedience.
– Evil and death entered through Adam’s disobedience; humans inherit death because Adam lost the right to pass on life.
– Angels who rebel do not die but are aware of the consequences of disobedience.
– Rebellious beings who refuse to learn are justly exterminated (death), not subjected to eternal torment.

The Ransom and Jesus’ Role
– God’s wisdom devised a ransom plan to resolve sin without compromising justice but through love.
– Jesus, the Logos who created all things, became a man and sacrificed His humanity as a substitute for Adam.
– Jesus’ sacrifice was necessary to remove the problem of death inherited from Adam.
– Jesus died permanently in Adam’s place, allowing redemption for all intelligent beings.

The New Creation and Resurrection
– At Jesus’ baptism, God begot a new creation in Jesus—an immortal divine being distinct from Jesus the man.
– This new creation was tested for 3½ years, culminating in Jesus’ resurrection, which is described as a “birth” (Acts 13:33: “This day have I brought you to the birth”).
– The new creation marks the beginning of God’s intimate family, the spiritual “little flock” or ecclesia (called-out ones), numbering 144,000 over approximately 2,000 years.
– This divine family is created through this Gospel age by the same process of testing and proving.

Restoration and God’s Ultimate Purpose for Humanity
– God never intended to take humans to heaven but planned an age of restoration (restitution) for humans and fallen angels.
– Resurrection is a process of restoring the human race, culminating when Jesus hands over the kingdom to God the Father after His 1,000-year reign.
– The history of evil’s permission is seen as a 7,000-year period, with the last 1,000 years being a sabbath rest to eliminate the old order and fully restore creation.

Heavenly Mansions and God’s Household Illustration
– Jesus spoke of many mansions in His Father’s house (John 14:2), representing different levels of heavenly dwelling:
– Top floor: God’s personal family—immortal spiritual beings being prepared.
– Middle floor: Mortal spiritual assistants such as angels and the great company.
– Bottom floor: Billions of restored humans who will be mortal but no longer die.

Summary of Core Biblical Concepts Mentioned
Acts 13:33 – “This day have I brought you to the birth” (correcting the mistranslation of “begotten”).
John 14:2 – Jesus’ promise of many mansions in His Father’s house.
– The ransom and substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus (implicit references to the ransom doctrine).
– The concept of resurrection as a process, not merely awakening.
– The free will of humans and angels as a foundational biblical teaching.
– The divine permission of evil and its role in testing and education.

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Overall, the discourse presents a comprehensive, interconnected overview of God’s plan from eternity past through creation, the permission of evil, the ransom sacrifice of Jesus, and the ultimate restoration of humanity and angels. It emphasizes God’s wisdom, love, justice, and the centrality of free will, culminating in the intimate eternal family God desires.

Transcript

This is going to be kind of different from the way I usually give a discourse. You probably won’t hear me cite a specific text. That in itself is unusual. But I think you’ll hear some excerpts that you’ll recognize. I just want to tell a story today just because sometimes we lose sight of the totality.

And second, I’m making adjustment here.

Sometimes we lose sight of the totality because we talk about all the little pieces, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with talking about all the little pieces, but. But I’m sure you know what a jigsaw puzzle is, and all the little pieces don’t give much joy. But when you put them together and you get the whole picture, it’s quite wonderful.

So that’s what I’d like to do this afternoon, is just talk about the big picture, which we all know. So I don’t think you’re going to learn anything new. Well, maybe you will. Who knows? But even though I’m not going to cite scriptures and talk about specific doctrines, et cetera, it will contain doctrine and prophecies and character, but they’ll remain basically unnamed even.

It will include things like the sin offering and the ransom and creation and the high calling and restitution and covenants, the permission of evil, love. There’ll be a lot in here, and you’ll recognize them as they go by, as the doctrines we have come to love and study as separate things.

All right, let’s transport ourselves. Let’s go way back to some remote period in the distant past when there was nothing but God.

The first thing we need to say for ourselves, because it’s important, is that is sufficient.

God didn’t have any needs beyond Himself.

So as far back as we’re going before, there’s nothing but God Himself. He doesn’t have any needs other than what is in Himself, and that’s kind of a definition of divinity, of the immortal nature, and it’s going to help us understand that which he is pleased to give to us.

When he eventually does things, it won’t be to supply lack, because he doesn’t have lacks, but because his vast wisdom thought it good to do certain things at certain times and in certain ways. Now, why he picked the moment he did to change the fact that he was alone, I don’t know. None of us knows.

So let’s go on to that creative period.

His attributes of wisdom, love, justice and power do find expression in what we ultimately call creation.

And among those four is one of supreme importance to everyone, and that’s agape it’s a kind of love which is very unique.

Among other things, it has an insatiable desire to give.

But it gives in such a way as to do nothing that would not be in the best interests of the recipients.

That’s agape. Everything it does is ultimately for the best interests of its recipients.

So this desire that God had to give was not indiscriminate. It was focused and it was wise, and it ultimately resulted in God’s creating intelligent beings to whom he could give things that would delight and profit him and his creatures. So there’s the beginning of the whole creative scenario.

So this takes us to when all of a sudden God is not alone.

He had begun a lengthy, complicated and flawless plan for creating.

And how did he start?

He started by making only one being.

Sounds like a small star. But it wasn’t.

It was his only direct creation, and of course we call that creation the Logos.

I’d like to try to define that. For us, the Logos was an all embodying being.

Probably important to know that we use that word in our English language at the end of words. Biology, that’s everything you know about life. Geology, that’s everything you know about the earth. Psychology, that’s everything you know about the mind. That everything you know part is the important part about Logos.

I know we say, well, it translates word that doesn’t come anywhere near its meaning. It is the all inclusive, all embodying body of information about something, and with the Logos it was the all inclusive, all embodying information about everything that God was about to do. I don’t want us to underestimate this initial creation of God who eventually becomes our Lord.

God began with only one being, his only direct creation. We call it the Logos, the all embodying one. Why was he given that name? Because he embodied everything that God wanted to accomplish. Why?

Because he was going to do the accomplishing. He had to know everything that God had planned because he was going to carry it out.

The magnificence and the size of this creation is beyond our capacity. But we won’t state it anyway.

Well, the Logos, that’s a descriptive name because it says what he is. He is the all embodying one.

But he has a given name in Scripture and that name is Michael.

And that means one who as God.

And he was given that name because he was the one who did and still does speak and act as the one who as God runs the created universe. You don’t want to say a substitute for God because there is none.

But instead of God in a direct presence. The Logos was the one who, as God did and still does, direct it all. His importance is monumental.

So God was no longer alone. There were now two beings in the universe.

But all spirit beings, all humanity, all the lower animals in the physical universe are the work of of the Logos craftsmanship and the charges of his supervision. Next to God, no being was or is so great and exalted.

Let’s go back to why God created when his wisdom dictated that the time for creation had come.

God determined that creation would be comprised of things visible to humans and things not visible to humans.

We’ll see why shortly. But just as a generalization, creation was divided into the visible for humans and the invisible for humans.

And the Logos was commissioned to bring all of this about. So once he created spirit beings, angels, he used them to work with him to make everything else. Now we as humans want to know how all this affects us because we’re human centered. But we need to wait for that. Here in our discussion, we would like first to understand and discuss God’s priorities when creation began.

Besides the priority of the Logos, there was something in his mind that was first and foremost and above all, first in his mind for the outcome of creation was to have an intimate personal family of his own.

God wanted and intended to have beings on his own level of being companions to God.

Now note, the Logos had not even achieved that status yet. So we’re talking about something greater than the Logos. A whole family of beings that will be God’s intimate family. That was his first priority in creation.

It’s God’s masterpiece, and it was planned before the foundation of the world.

Everything else was going to be in service to this desire of His. But God could not create his masterpiece then. He merely conceived of it then in his own mind as his first creative priority. Why couldn’t he do it then? Why is it delayed?

It’s delayed because these beings were to possess a quality which only God possessed. Immortality, or if you will, divinity.

This family was going to be just like God without displacing Him.

And until two millennia ago, no one had been given this immortal quality. So the first priority in creation was set on the shelf, so to speak, until other things happened.

Because immortality or divinity cannot safely bestowed unless the recipient has been proven beyond all possibility of failure. You can understand that these beings, since they will be like God, cannot be eliminated. They must be proven beyond all possibility of failure for an eternity. God will not permit anything in his entire universe which would taint the eternal peace that he has planned. Thus, this first priority creation.

Now catch this. This first priority creation must be tested before it exists. Now that is a true test of God’s wisdom and ability. How do you test something before it’s there?

Back to that in a moment.

Let’s mention the primary element of agape, and that is it gives.

We already pointed out that God didn’t need creation, but his inherent attribute of love makes him want to give.

Therefore, you have to have recipients before you can give.

And his magnificent wisdom and love considered having other beings God created because God is agape.

He wanted to give.

Remember our initial proposition? He had no need of anything, but he wanted to share.

Now, there are some inherent problems in creating.

First of all, for God, creating is not a problem.

What is a problem is all of the decisions that have to be made when you are creating.

Only God’s wisdom attribute could anticipate and solve those problems.

The primary problem has something to do with his nature.

He would never create intelligent beings which were not free to reason and to choose. He would never create intelligent beings that could not freely think. I think you can see that’s a problem.

That’s a big problem.

How do you grant this freedom and have a good outcome? You know, freedom has built into it the possibility, even the likelihood of rebellion.

When you have free beings, they can rebel.

But God insisted no robots. He will not program his intelligent creatures.

Robots can’t receive love, and the whole objective in creation was giving love. So making robots would make no sense.

God insisted on free will. This is an enormous doctrine. Never lose sight of it. Free will, despite the fact that it had major problems involved.

This understanding is so basic, it eliminates some of the weirdly strange questions that come up among us. You’ve probably heard this one. Does God know who will be successful when he calls them? Well, the answer is an obvious no, because free will is involved. We’re not saying that God can’t know things, but he’s got categories of knowing things.

He knows the end from the beginning, that his creation is going to work out just perfectly. But he does not know who will succeed in being a part of it. He does not. Who know who, when they are called, will make their calling election. Sure, there’s a certain absurdity in that concept.

And this is the importance of the big picture. Free will is gigantic in the divine plane. Well, how do you learn the necessary things? You know, if you’ve made free will creatures, they’ve got to learn to make free will work or you’ll have rebellion.

The only way to make free will work is a good education.

When free will beings understand, they will choose by free will to conform. That’s God’s intent.

And that should be the course of most. When they finally learn that, they will make the right choice. But God foreknew that not all would conform in the end.

But he made necessary provision for that. What do you do if they remain rebellious? The answer is easy. You exterminate. We call that death.

That lesson had to be made impenetrably in the minds of all intelligent beings, by the way. That’s just.

It would be unjust to allow chaos for the rest of his creatures. So it is just to exterminate those who refuse in the education process to make the right choices.

In the end, the single provider for continuing for eternity is that no being can create a problem by disobedience. That’s it. Only fiends would dream up eternal torment.

God simply eliminates.

Now how could God ensure the best outcome? How could he instruct all intelligent beings? We know you can learn by observation and information and experience, and even the world has stated experience is the best teacher, and God knows that.

But God does use all three.

Learning is a process and it takes time, especially with free will people and beings.

But in order to learn the importance of obedience, disobedience had to happen somewhere.

Just stating that you’ll die if you don’t isn’t going to do it.

Observing it can do it. But there was nothing to observe while everything was still obedient.

Disobedience had to happen somewhere, and why did it happen here? Because we are visible. If disobedience had happened in the spirit world, humans couldn’t learn from it. We can’t observe.

It would be a waste. So God had disobedience allowed, permitted here, because it’s visible to people as well as to spirit beings. Now, God did not create disobedience. Free will created disobedience as he knew it would. He permitted evil as the only possible teaching method.

Pretty severe. But look what’s at stake. An eternity in the universe. The lesson has to be secure.

Adam disobeyed. His life rights were terminated. He could not pass on life to his progeny.

So the permission of evil while we are dying has been teaching ever since Eden. It’s been teaching men, it’s been teaching angels. Everyone will remember it when the time to choose comes. Now, angels, if they disobey, by the way, don’t die. You may have noticed that.

Not by observation, but by information. But they are learning that they will die because they know that what God permitted here on the earth will apply to them.

All right, how do we get out of this mess?

We usually use two words on how we get out of this mess. The Ransom wisdom calculated a way out without denying justice, but using love. There were no excusings. God could not say, that’s okay, Adam. You goofed once.

Let’s just forget that. Let’s try again. Because no one would ever trust God, and trust in God is imperative for an eternity in this universe. Now, you may not have thought about this, but spirit beings don’t procreate.

Human beings do.

Why, God could have just as well made 21 billion beings like he made hundreds of millions of angels. Why did he decide on procreation?

Humans have this peculiarity of procreation because it allows them to experience death with the possibility of a release from it. Only one individual carried the responsibility for death. That’s Adam. No human is dying for his own disobedience. That’s a wow statement.

People are not dying because they’re disobedient. They are dying because Adam was, and procreation has not allowed him to pass on life. So we’re dying because of him.

So God arranged to take away his sin by having a substitute, singular life given in Exchange for Adam. 1. Either Adam or the substitute must remain in death forever.

That brings us back to the beginning, when there was only God in the Logos.

Let’s return to the Logos. You remember he made it all. You remember the magnitude of his character and abilities. But he willingly became a man in order to sacrifice for humanity. Sacrifice his humanity for humanity.

He became Jesus, and his name means Savior. How obvious. He became the Savior for the whole problem of the universe.

He died forever in Adam’s place in order to save every intelligent being that he created.

Can’t even go into the depths of that kind of love.

Particularly when you remember the magnificence of his stature.

But somebody’s going to say, wait a minute here. There’s a problem. Jesus didn’t stay dead. His sacrifice must be null and void.

But let’s go back to creation’s beginnings again, before the Logos even existed. Remember, God intended to make a new creation, but he couldn’t do it then because testing that which didn’t exist had to happen. So let’s start talking about the new creation. First, Jesus as a man did die, and that released Adam from his problem, not the race from its problems.

That’s what restitution is for. But it erased the underlying problem that we are all dying.

The new creation. God’s original purpose in creation. You remember, he has to test it before it exists. This all starts in the man Jesus.

God knew he was going to sacrifice his humanity and end up dead.

So God at Jesus baptism had begotten in him a new creature.

This important now.

That which was begotten in him was not Jesus the man. This was literally a new being, a new kind of being which had never existed before. The very first of God’s attempt to make his immortal divine family his first priority in creation.

That which was begotten is not Jesus is a totally new creation. The first of the priority of creation. God’s intimate family. God used Jesus human body as an incubator carrier or womb for this new creature.

The new creature was tested for three and a half years and then it was born.

That was not Jesus anymore. This was the new creature which took on the same name. Because of his identity with Jesus, the new creation had been started. You remember, thou art my son. This day have I brought you to the birth.

That statement in Acts 13:33 is probably the center of God’s incredible joy that his intimate family had begun on the day that Jesus was raised from the dead. Wrongly translated, not this day have I begotten thee. There was no begettal involved then. Jesus was born. This day have I brought thee to the birth.

All else, all the way back to when there was only God was prelude to that moment in history.

Mankind’s permission with evil became the perfect testing ground for that new creature, and God intends the remainder of the divine family to be created in the same way during the same age which we call the Gospel age, and with the same results. There will be 144,001 chosen. That’s 72 people a year.

Basically over the last 2,000 years. No wonder it’s called a little flock. But it’s also called an ecclesia, which means called out. You can see how these are called out of a prior creation to become a new one. To use the words of Daniel, they were cut out of Satan’s mountain without hands.

Brethren, if we are faithful, that’s us.

So the permission of evil thus teaches the old creation, men and angels, as it too develops a new creation, which is God’s priority. The permission of evil is a divine doctrine. All right. What about everybody else? God has intense love for all of his creation, but including humanity.

So much so he gave the Logos to die for it.

God never intended to take man to heaven. Indeed, he provides an age for its Restoration for the restoration of man and fallen angels.

And that age is important enough that all of God’s holy prophets have spoken of it.

And that restoration will be done by the new creation, because they all will have been humans, Jesus and all 144,000 with him. The restored condition is called resurrection. That’s a process, by the way. Resurrection is not awakening.

And it will be completed when the race is turned over to the Father at the end. Jesus thousand years.

The history of evil’s permission is encapsulated into 7,000 years. The last thousand is the sabbath of rest. It has begun. Its first years are to eliminate the old order, which hinders any progress.

Then be still and know that I am God. What a moment. That proclamation will be the mediation, the awakening, the restoring and the full resurrection process will begin at that moment.

Jesus kind of summarizes it all in that text in John. In my Father’s house are many mansions. Well, they’d all been provided for likely except one, because at that point Jesus said, one’s not there, I’ve got to go prepare it for you, and that was that divinity, part of the mansions dwelling places.

Brother Wes Kramer made a little illustration that I really appreciated here. He said, let’s make it simple. My Father’s house has three floors. The top floor is his personal family, his spiritual task force, the immortal beings that had not yet been prepared for at the first adventure. Jesus had to go and prepare the place.

The middle floor are all the spiritual assistants who are mortal. There would be angels eventually throwing the great company in there, etc, and the bottom floor, the billions of restored humans who will also be mortal but never die. May the Lord and his blessing.

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