(Rev 1.6)  This is now Part 2 of a series of advanced lessons on Bible creation.  If you have not read from the beginning, I would recommend that you go back and start with Part 1.  Today, I want to introduce you to a potential new Bible concept.  Maybe this is something that will be totally new to you or maybe not.  In my last lesson I talked about the universe having a starting point with the origination of both time and all matter through the spoken Word of God.   I basically tried to teach you that we do not know when this event occurred based upon the evidence given to us in the Bible.  You cannot find the words “God said Let there be the universe and Let there be the earth in the Bible anywhere”.  Since these events and creative words are not included in the Bible then we must conclude that God omitted them for a purpose and the rest of Genesis 1 is a separate event.  Today, I want to introduce you to a new concept called the “Foundation of the World”.  I think many Bible teachers have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the “Foundation of the World” and the “Beginning” are one in the same events and that they occurred at the exact same time.  But, I think you should reconsider that thought and try to see what else that the Bible actually has to say about both of these separate unique realities.  After studying the Bible on the subject, I am convinced that they are two completely different historical events within the timeline of creation.   Let me ask you a simple question that has a not so simple answer.  Why would God refer to the same event in the Bible using different titles, names, descriptions or characteristics?  If you have ever studied the Bible you should understand that this is a common technique used by God throughout the Bible.  God, calls the same thing, by many different titles, names, descriptions, symbols and other identifying characteristics for some unkown and unstated reason.  The net result of this technique is that it makes it very difficult for anyone to see what God is really talking about.  It also makes it very difficult to associate them together and to relate them to each other correctly.  You many times find yourself asking “Is it the same thing, or is it a different thing?”  How can we tell if two different named things are the same thing or different things?  What if there are two or three different named things, events, times or people and man thinks they are all the same?  Again it makes it very difficult for us to figure out when God is talking about the same thing and when He is not.  So here is our challenge for the day.  Is the “foundation of the earth”,  the “foundation of the world” and the “beginning” all the exact same events within time, just called by different names or are they just God’s way of describing completely different events?

Since we have already looked at verses about the beginning, let’s start today by looking at scriptures in the Old Testament that speak of a “foundation”.

Exo 9:18  Behold, to morrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the foundation thereof even until now.

 2Sa 22:16  And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

Psa 18:15  Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

Job 38:4  Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Psa 18:15  Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.

These are just a few of the examples of verses found in the Bible that speak about the “foundation of the earth”,  “the foundation of the world” and just the “foundation” in terms of an architectural building process.  I hope you understand how houses are built.  A laid foundation is always the beginning of a building process that implies there will come an ending to the process later in the future.  When God provides us information that the earth and the world had a foundation, it means that they also have implied endings.  Furthermore, when God’s builds one building foundation, God is also implying that He can build another building foundation and another and another.   What do people do on the earth?  If they don’t like an old building, they tear it down and start over to build a new one.  This is a Godly principle and characteristic work that man learned from God.   You need to understand what I just said, it was very important.  So we need to go through the Bible now and see if the “beginning” and the “foundation of the world” are the same events.

Mat 13:35  That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

Jesus is described as the God who speaks things that were hidden from man and Satan since the “Foundation of the World”.  This Greek word translated as “foundation” can also mean “conception” or to “conceive”.  This is of course a term that would result in a pregnancy in a natural woman.  The next word to inspect is the Greek word “kosmos” which is translated as “world” in this verse.  This word from the Strong’s means “an orderly arrangement“.   Anything that has this characteristic of a “kosmos” contains organized structure that is free from chaos.  I want you to keep this word in your mind as we continue to discuss the chaos found in Genesis 1:2.  Was the world an orderly arrangement in Genesis 1:2 or was it a ball of confusion, destrution and chaos?  Do you understand what an orderly arrangement means?  Look at my picture and see how the blocks are arranged in an orderly fashion and this is how the world was created according to God.  That is a major Bible clue that God is giving us to correctly interpret the creation account found in Genesis.  I have had some young earth theorists try to tell me that just because the eart was chaos in Genesis 1:2 it ends up as an organized structure by the end of the chapter and thus we are just observing God’s work methods to create our world.  However, I want you to go back and reread Genesis 1 again and you tell me if you ever see God creating any transitional works.  Does God not look at the darkness and say light be and light was in Genesis 1:3.  There is no transitional phases of darkness to light.  What God says happens exactly as stated.  Do you see the major problem developing with a young earth theory?  God would have never created the earth in a chaotic format to begin with.  God is not stupid He know exactly what He wanted and He would have said earth be and there the earth would be formed exactly as envisioned in the mind of God.   This is another key reason why the young earth theory is full of holes.  God never in Genesis 1, not one time says “earth be” and the “earth was”.  Uh oh?  That is a problem isn’t it?  If earth is defined to be dry land as I showed you by God’s definition in Genesis 1:10 then there is no mention of the earth being created other than the reference of Genesis 1:1 that said this occured sometime in the beginning.  I have taught you that the Bible says the worlds were formed by the Word of God.  Since we have no recorded words of God in Genesis 1:1 of God creating the earth we must conclude an implied stated reality that God said “earth be” somewher back in the time of Genesis 1:1.  Then we must also conclude sometime after Genesis 1:2 God has to recreate the dry land again by dividing the waters because something happened to cause the chaos.  I know this is proably some very new things that you have never heard before, but don’t throw them away until you confirm that is really not what the Bible  says.  For now just keep studying and reading.

This Bible verse in Matthew tells us that the world that we now live in also had a beginning.  A foundation in natural building terms represent the start of the construction project.  The foundation is therefore the beginning of the rest of the building.  The current world system was conceived by God and spoken out of His mouth into existence as we have seen in several previous Bible verses.  But, who said the “beginning” and “the foundation of the world” were one in the same events?  God hasn’t told us that, so don’t even try to assume it to be the same events and close your mind to what God wants to teach you.  I want you to read another verse found in the New Testament that also speaks about this “Foundation of the World”:

Heb 9:26  For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

This is a great verse to examine more closely.  It actually has two different Greek words that are both translated as “world”.  The first Greek word translated as “world” is kosmos again and it is still defined to be an “An Orderly Arrangement”, but the second Greek word translated to “world” is aion and it means “an age”.   Here is an example of why English translations suffer grealty.  An age is representative of a period of time.  It almost never is used to describe all of time, but rather only a specific slice of the whole time pie.  You could say that an “age” is a piece of the pie and not the entire pie.  You can see this by science referring to the “Ice Age”, as a time period in past history where ice covered the majority of the earth.  Knowing this we can derive some implied meanings to the term given to us as the “end of the world”.  The “end of the world” in this verse is referring to the termination of a slice of the allotted time period and not the end of all time.  I want you to grasp this concept because it is significantly important.  This verse is referring us to the end of our current world, but that is certainly not the end of all time because we know reading later in Revelation that there will exist a time period of 1000 year where Christ will rule on the earth and then the new heaven and the new earth events take place and that is when time ceases.   In other words we still have a lot more we need to learn.

You can see some very complex works of Christ being described in this verse in Hebrews 9:26.  It declares that Jesus did not come to the earth in the beginning of the current world (age), because He would have had to offer Himself repeatedly for the sins of mankind.  But, then it makes a statement that is also very difficult to comprehend.  If the world (age) had a beginning, then it is also logical to conclude it to have a middle and an end portion.  Like in any natural building project, the foundation is laid first and the roof is one of the last exterior parts of a building to be built.  So as in every building project, it has a beginning, a middle and an end.  This verse says that Jesus came nearer to the end of the world, so that he would only have to offer one sacrifice for all sin.  So how can you say Jesus came at the end, when it has been close to 2000 years since He was here and died and was raised from the dead?   To us and our perspective of time 2000 years is a very long time period, but is this how God views it?  To understand the Bible correctly many times it takes a shift in natural perspectives to a spiritual perspective to see things as God sees them.  Since we can mathematically calculate that it has been approximately 6000 years since Adam was placed on the earth and we know that Jesus came to the earth nearly 2000 years ago and that God said that this was near the end, we can subtract 2000 from 6000 and get 4000.   Using this simple logic to calculate time periods, what would have happened if Jesus came in the year 2000, God would have been able to say that Jesus came near the beginning of the world (age).  If Jesus would have come in the year 3000 it would be in the middle of our world’s history.  But since Jesus came to the earth at year 4000, God calls this nearer to the end of the world (age).  Think about that for a while and let it sink in and you will soon understand what I’m trying to say.  According to young earth theologians all time has been 6000 years since the beginning of creation and here is the problem that starts to emerge.  Why did God call it the end of the age and not just the end.  God does know the difference between an age and the begining of all time why does God use different words to describe these events?

1 Peter 1:5  Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Here is another witness to the fact that during the time of the early church, God considered this to be near the end.  If that was near the end back then, how close do you think we are now to the end?  I think we can begin to see we need to change our perspective of what time is to God.

1Jn 2:18  Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.

Again we see another verse that claims the early church was within the time that was near the end.

Rev 10:6  And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

This verse contains confirmation again of creation having a starting point.  Prior to this starting point this verse implies that time did not exist.  It is also a prophecy that this state of living outside of the dimension of time will come again.  You can see that when it declares that there will be no more time, it also implies a clear ending to the world as we know it now.  There is coming a change and an end to the world that we know.  But, I do not anticipate the end of time for at least another 1000 years.  If you recall from Genesis God created the world in 6 days, but on the 7th day He rested.  We are informed of a coming day of rest and commanded to strive to enter into it (Heb 4:1).  This would imply that there will be another 1000 years of human history on this planet prior to the creation of a New Heaven and a New Earth.  Time would still need to exist and continue like it does today for at least another 1000 years before God eliminates it.  Let me briefly introduce you to the new age that will come:

Heb 6:5  And have tasted the good word of God, and the  powers of the world to come,

Here in this verse in Hebrews there is a reference to a coming aion (age) that has not yet started.  Here is a new concept that is given to us that we are in an aion (age) that is coming to end and there is another aion (age) that will follow that is not the same aion (age) that we are experiencing.   The Greek word translated as “world” is the exact same word “aion” that we have already seen before.  God is teaching you a brand new important concept about ages in the spiritual realm.  If you can have one slice of the pie God is inferring there is potentially many more slices in the pie of time.

I have probably gone long enough in this lesson.  Today I introduced you to two new concepts called the “foundation of the world” and these were the kosmos and the aion.  Are both of these the same as the beginning?  Are there any other worlds (kosmos or aion) either before ours or after our current world described to us in the Bible?  I also showed you scriptures that prophesies an end of time.  An end always implies there was a beginning of time.   A coming ending of the kosmos and aion also implies there will be another new beginning.  We have only scratched the surface to what we need to learn on this subject so we will continue to discuss more Bible verses that reveal the definition of what a world is in relation to the beginning in my next lesson.

If you would like to continue reading in this series please continue with “Part 3“