PJ54
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Thursday, August 4 2022God . . . gives to all people life and breath.—Acts 17:24, 25.
Oxygen is a life-sustaining gas that is used by some living things, including us. It has been estimated that living creatures breathe in a hundred billion tons of oxygen in a year. These same creatures breathe out a waste product called carbon dioxide. Yet, these living creatures never consume all the oxygen, and the atmosphere never becomes choked with the “waste” gas, carbon dioxide. Why not? Because Jehovah also created organisms—from large trees to tiny algae—that take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. In a very literal way, the oxygen cycle confirms the words of today’s text. How can we develop appreciation for our amazing planet and all that it supplies? (Ps. 115:16) One way is by meditating on the things Jehovah has made. That will motivate us to thank Jehovah each day for the good things he gives us. And we show that we appreciate the earth by keeping the part of it where we live as clean as possible. w20.05 22 ¶5, 7
Examining the Scriptures Daily—2022
In the Beginning
This article appears in BELIEFS of Jehovah's Witnesses category. Although it is utterly beyond the capacity of humans to comprehend, there is a Being who has always existed. He had no beginning. He is the only person who was never born. He is not a creature. He will never
e-watchman.com
In the Beginning
This article appears in BELIEFS of Jehovah's Witnesses category. Although it is utterly beyond the capacity of humans to comprehend, there is a Being who has always existed. He had no beginning. He is the only person who was never born. He is not a creature. He will never
e-watchman.com
In the Beginning Part 1
July 5th, 2016
This article appears in BELIEFS of Jehovah’s Witnesses category.
Although it is utterly beyond the capacity of humans to comprehend, there is a Being who has always existed. He had no beginning. He is the only person who was never born. He is not a creature. He will never have an end either. He simply exists. For good reason he is called the King of eternity. God.
It is impossible to wrap your mind around —to use the common jargon —how someone could just Be. But just because we cannot fathom the unfathomable or comprehend the incomprehensible does not mean that it cannot be true.
To illustrate the point, a few generations ago it would have been deemed impossible for men to walk on the moon or to transmit sound and images by means of invisible waves of energy, and many, many other things that are now commonplace were once beyond the imagination of most people.
Rather than stumbling over what we cannot understand though, consider what we know.
Everything and everyone in our physical realm had a beginning. Scientists now believe that the universe, in all its vastness and complexity, began from a tiny point of origin. Some say the entire cosmos originated from a super dense, teaspoon-size, dollop of matter and exploded in what is euphemistically called the Big Bang.
Whether or not scientists want to admit it the modern theory of the origin of the universe basically confirms the truthfulness of the opening words of the Bible – “In the beginning…”
So, that’s a start in our consideration of the truth.
But here is where it gets a little tricky. The beginning described in the book of Origin, or Genesis, was not the only beginning, or even the first. Genesis 1:1 is merely in reference to the beginning of the material universe of the heavens and earth — the material being atoms and all sorts of sub-atomic particles that make up the cosmos of which we are a part. But prior to that beginning there was another beginning —the beginning of the creation in the superior, non material realm —a world inhabited by a variety of spirit persons. The creation of the invisible world preceded the making of the material heavens and earth. That beginning is what the opening words of the New Testament book of John is referring to, which states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god. This one was in the beginning with God.”
In regards to the inhabitants of the invisible realm the Creator once posed a question to a man, asking him: “Brace yourself, please, like a man; I will question you, and you inform me. Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you think you understand. Who set its measurements, in case you know, or who stretched a measuring line across it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars joyfully cried out together, and all the sons of God began shouting in applause?” —Job 38
The sons of God who witnessed the creation of the earth obviously were not humans. The reference to the “morning stars” is intended to convey that the sons of God are heavenly persons, otherwise known as angels. So, when did they come into existence? Was there a very first heavenly son of God? Surely, there must have been.
Although the casual reader and those indoctrinated in trinitarianism may not grasp it, John 1:1 could not possibly apply to the King of eternity, since he had no beginning. The beginning is in relation to an entity called the Word. His apostle John wrote concerning him at 1John 1:1: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have felt, concerning the word of life…”
Since God had no beginning “in the beginning” is meaningless in relation to him. As is obviously the case in connection to the creation of the heavens and the earth “in the beginning,” the same phrase in connection to the Word must relate to a starting point of reference to God’s ungraspable eternal existence. To better grasp the intended meaning of the beginning, consider Revelation 3:14. It states, simply: “These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God.”
The Amen is a title given to Jesus, similar to his title “the Word.” And the context of Revelation 3:14 clearly indicates Jesus to be the one spoken of as “the faithful and true witness” and “the beginning of the creation by God.”
In Greek the phrase “the beginning” used in Revelation is the same phrase used at John 1:1 and translated “in the beginning.” With no ambiguity Revelation reveals that not only did Jesus have a pre-human existence he was the very first creation of God. Thus, the expression the Word “was in the beginning with God” should be understood to mean the Word was the beginning of God’s creative endeavors, which have continued from that beginning to the present.
Since God has always existed and there are no other non-created persons, that means he was alone forever prior to his becoming the Creator. Again, it is impossible to comprehend how someone could simply exist as an uncreated Being, but setting that aside, we can understand that God did begin creating; hence, “in the beginning.”
The Christian letter to the Colossians harmonizes with this understanding. Paul explained that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him.”
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