God's Divine Plan of the Ages
Proclaiming Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour!
God's Plan Of The Aions
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THE FIVE AGES. Have you ever considered that God is above and outside our time? That God never ages one second and that God sees everything during history at one and the same moment?
Dazzling isn't it?
He did not only create the times, but He also controls them! From A to Z! God sees the beginning and the completion of His creation, although many thousands of years separate them, at one and the same moment!
Nothing surprises Him!
He therefore has no need to adjust anything He made! Finally everything will, in all ways, end up at His feet!
God created from His timelessness five ages. Within these ages history is fulfilled. In the Greek language such an age is called:Aiõn, in translations of the Bible written as: 'century', 'eternity', 'eternities' etc.
Do you know why?
Because in the early christian church, ordered by the protector of the church,emperor Justinianus, the meaning of the word aiõn was changed!
From those days the meaning of the word aiõn was given as endless eternity.
One did not understand that in 'God's Plan of the Aiõns' the history of men is an interruption of timelessness. This timelessness is only valid before and after this interruption.
Could emperor Justinianus ever really have understood what damage he created with the changes in understanding the word Aiõn before God and men?
He meant to inculcate: believers have to become endlessly blessed and non-believers must become endlessly doomed!
God meant with His 'Plan of the Aiõns' as will be shown later, that He, as Creator and Saviour of all men, will become All In All in five 'ages'.
(1Cor.15:28; 1Tim.4:9-12).
GOD IS SPIRIT. GOD(Gr.:theos) means: He Who arranges, He Who shows everything its place.
That agrees with the most important meaning of the Hebrew "Elohim", that means arranger, referee. With that God is indicated in His relation with space and force.The name "Jahweh" indicates God in His relation with time!
GOD IS SPIRIT. Spirit (Gr.:pneuma) can also mean "gust of wind" or "breath".
The word comes from the verb "pneõ" and indicates "air in a forceful movement".Used figuratively as "Spirit" it is used to express the invisible force of motion, of life and thinking. The Divine force that reveals itself in God's invisible acts.
In the Greek language "Spirit" is not a "he" or "she", but has no gender. "Spirit" is the joint principle of life of men(Gen.6:17) and beast(Eccl.3.21).Do not entangle this with "soul"!! The "soul" comes into existence by the union of a body and spirit/breath. Because of the breath of life man became a "living soul". This enables men to observe his surroundings sensorially(Gen.2:5-7)
When the Bible says:"God is Spirit", then that is literally true. When the Bible says:"God is love" or "God is light" then that is not literally true, but meant in a comparing way and means: God is like love; God is like light, because no one knows what God is in Himself!
GOD's PLAN: from ALL in Himself to ALL in ALL!
IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD. Do you know who and what the Lord Jesus was, before He was born from Mary in Bethlehem, some 2000 years ago?
Then He was:
"the Image of the invisible God, the firstborn of the whole creation, because in Him all things are created,... the visible and the invisible.... all things are created by Him and unto Him".
Isn't that something?
In that "stature of God" He called Abram and made a covenant with him. He revealed Himself as "I am, who I am" to Moses. He liberated His people from the slavery in Egypt and gave them the Law on Mount Sinai. He brought them to the Land that He had promised.
It was NOT the Father, but the Son in the "stature of God".
As the "Word of God" He spoke what the Father had to say, until He did lay down this "stature of God" and took up the "stature of a servant" (Fil.2:5-11)!
Out of the timelessness the Father placed Him, as the man Jesus, in time.
Of Him John truthfully says:
"In the Word was life and the light was the light of men". "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth".
Maybe you will understand it even better when I say: In the "stature of God" did the "Image of the invisible God" give a.o. the Law to His people, to fulfill it later Himself, in the "stature of a servant"!
When Jesus askes His disciples:
"But you, who do you say that I am?"
Peter answers:
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"
But that surprising answer doesn't have to surprise you anymore!
AIÕN 1.
From the original Creation to the downcast of the first World. The first aiõn(Gen1:1).
Kosmos became Chaos.
The downcast of the World.
With the creation of the first age, the first aiõn the Creator begins to interrupt the timelessness. This is not the "In the beginning",but deals with a indefinite begin. No one knows exactly when the kosmos was created. We do know when this first aiõn ended: with the downcast of the world. Because of that the world "became empty and void". Most of the time this "downcast" is incorrectly translated with "foundation", as if the Greek has "themelios" instead of"katabolê". This is not only an error in translation, but also an error in thought!
How long the first aiõn lasted is not known. Because, how glorious this first era/age must have been, Adam and Eve were not there when it happened! They were not created at the "In the beginning", but after the downcast of the world, in the re-creation, which started the second aiõn.
AIÕN 2.
From downthrow to the Flood. The second aiõn. (Gen.1:2-Gen.7:10)
Re-Creation
Garden of Eden
Adam & Eve
Noah.
This age starts with the RE-creation of the world in six days. The sixth day:
"...God formed man of the dust of the ground;and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".(Gen.2:7)
By eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Adam and Eve became mortals; and they were removed from the Garden of Eden.
Some 1650 years later the Lord saw
"..that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his hearts was only evil continually".
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
God closes the second age with a Flood. When Noah and his sons, his wive and the wives of his sons, set foot on dry land again, the age we still live in starts: the third aiõn.
AIÕN 3.
From Flood to the return of Christ. The third aiõn.
The Cross at Calvary.
Israel set aside (temporarily).
Calling of Paul.
The church: the body of Christ.
Rapture of the church.
This age runs from the Flood (Gen.8:15) till the visible coming of the Son of Men on the Mount of Olives(Matt.24:27-51).
The centerpoint of this age is the cross at Calvary and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus on the third day! There God reconciled
"in Christ the world unto Himself"(2Cor.5:14-21).
For the time being Israel is set aside. But only temporarily!!
Paul is called to become "apostle of the nations" and until the rapture of the church not the law, but grace rules!
The church, the body of Christ, called out by Paul through his gospel, has a sooner/earlier expectation then Israel! The church is being called out of the gentile nations and will be taken "up" at the sound of a trumpet of God(1Thess.4:15-18) and will go to meet the Lord::
"To the intent that now(litt: from now on) unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God"(Eph. 3:10).
After this, at the visible coming of Christ for Israel, the"day of the Lord" will start with great judgements. About that day the spoke the prophets and also spoke the Lord Jesus. That day will last till the "Son of Men" will put His feet on the Mount of Olives and the promised Kingdom of the Heavens will break through here on Earth!
Then the fourth aiõn will start!!
AIÕN 4.
From the return of Christ
till the burning of Heaven and Earth The fourth aiõn.
Restoration of Israel.
Satan tied for 1000 years.
At the end: the Great White Throne.The second death.
In this age, that will last 1000 years, the Law will go out from Sion.Then Israel will, at last, be a "royal priesthood, an holy nation,a peculiar people; that ye should forth the praises of Him Who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: Which in time past where nota people, now the people of God" (1Peter2:9+10).
Israel will perform the mission, to which the Lord already had called them in Ex.19:6! Then will the nations of the Gentiles
"..glorify God for His mercy; as it is written"(Rom.15:9).
The Lord Jesus says about this 4th aiõn:
"..that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob..."(Matt.8:11).
Looking at this age Ezekiel had foretold:
"and my servant David shall be king over them"(Ezek.37:24).
Satan will be tied for 1000 years, but will be released at the end of the fourth aiõn and will again go out to seduce the nations on the four corners of the world and they will come from all over the world to besiege the beloved city(Jerusalem). Then God will act! The devil will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also his false prophet and the beast will be, to be tormented in all eternities (litt.: in the aiõns of the aiõns, that is: the remaining part of the 4th and 5th aiõn).
The fourth aiõn will end with the burning of heaven and earth.Then will come the judgement before the Great White Throne. The dead will rise and be judged. Death and the kingdom of death will be thrown into the lake of fire, that is called the second death..
With this the second death will become the last enemy!
AIÕN 5.
From the burning of Heaven and Earth till the end of Time. The Fifth Aiõn.
A new Heaven and a New Earth.
The New Jerusalem.
The second death stopped as last enemy.
John saw:
"...the holy city , new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband"(Rev.21:2).
That city does not float, but has a solid foundation. There will be no more night. The sun and the moon will not be necessary anymore! The Lord god will be its light. Nothing cursed will be there! The description of this new creation is indeed impressive!
Yet, all this glory of the new creation is still imperfect!
Because the
"lake , that burns of fire and brimstone: this is the second death"
still exists and casts a dark shadow over the perfection of the new creation.
In that lake are the
"fearful and the unbelieving, and the abominable,and the murderers, and whoremongers, and idolaters, and and all liars..."(Rev.21:8).
A lot of believers who read this will say:"See!". But they do not see that God's Word calls that burning lake twice: "the second death". "Death" does not mean "another way of living", but a situation of non-awareness. All those who have been cast into the second death do not have any conscious observation.
Did you know what else is cast in that lake of fire? Death and the kingdom of death! That makes the second death the last enemy!
John does not say a word about what will happen to this last enemy. That is why so many believers do not know that! The Lord did not let him (John), but Paul speak the last and revealing word.
Not in the book of Revelation -even if it is the last book in our Bible,but in the chapter about resurrection, in the fifteenth chapter off the first letter to the Corinthians. There the end is told about God'sPlan of the aiõns. When Christ will hand over the kingdom to God the Father!! Then He will have de-throned all ruling, all power and all force. The last enemy that will de-throned will be death. You're glad to know now which death that is! Not the first, but the second death, the lake of fire!
After this de-throning of the last enemy, the Son will submit to Him Who has submitted everything, so God will be All in All!.
What a great end to the interruption of timelessness, "God's Plan of the Aiõns"!
Wonderful isn't it?
After this the restored glory for all creatures will become, in all aspects, endless!
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This article was written and published earlier as a booklet by:
Gemeente Eben Haëzer, Postbus 85111, 3009MC Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
ISBN 90-6992-106-5
The consent for this publication on the internet was given by the publisher.
