Above All by Michael W. Smith

[Verse 1] Above all powers, above all kings Above all nature and all created things. Above all wisdom and all the ways of man You were here before the world began.

[Verse 2] Above all kingdoms, above all thrones Above all wonders the world has ever known.  Above all wealth and treasures of the earth There’s no way to measure what You’re worth.

[Chorus] Crucified, laid behind a stone You lived to die, rejected and alone. Like a rose, trampled on the ground You took the fall and thought of me. Above all

Genesis 1:1a and John 1:1a: In the beginning

The words “In the beginning” echo Genesis 1:1, especially to Jewish Christians; however, these words in John 1:1 do not refer to the act of creating but to the one who existed and who was present when creation took place, that is, the Word.

One might expect to read “In the beginning … God,” but instead is surprised to read In the beginning was the Word,¹ and this title is more fitting here than the titles “the Christ,” “the Son of Man,” “the Son of God,” etc. John’s prologue seems specially composed to introduce and to summarize the person and work of Jesus who is the Christian’s gospel.^[1]

It is possible also that the words “In the beginning” are meant to recall the opening of the Gospel according to Mark.²

Each of the four evangelists opens his Gospel by pushing the activity of Jesus back to the beginning: Mark to the ministry of John with its baptism of Jesus, the descent of the Spirit, and God’s acknowledgment of Jesus’ sonship.

Mark 1:6–8 (ESV) — Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Mark 1:13 (ESV) — And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Matthew and Luke open with the conception and virgin birth of Jesus. John begins in a stunning way –with God in eternity. Not many books so begin!^[2]

Strategic to John’s background and setting is the fact that according to tradition John was aware of the Synoptic Gospels. Apparently, he wrote his Gospel in order to make a unique contribution to the record of the Lord’s life (a spiritual Gospel) and, in part, to be supplementary as well as complementary to Matthew, Mark, and Luke.^[3]

Redemption Planned

What was happening before God spoke the universe into existence? That may seem like an impractical hypothetical question, like “How many angels can stand on the point of a pin?” but it isn’t.

After all, God doesn’t act arbitrarily; and the fact that He created something suggests that He must have had some magnificent purposes in mind.

God existed in sublime glory. God is eternal; He has neither beginning nor ending. Therefore, He is totally self-sufficient and needs nothing more than Himself in order to exist or to act.

“God has a voluntary relation to everything He has made,” wrote A.W. Tozer, “but He has no necessary relation to anything outside of Himself.”

God needs nothing, neither the material universe nor the human race, and yet He created both.

If you want something to boggle your mind, meditate on the concept of the eternal, that which has neither beginning nor ending.

As creatures of time, you and I can easily focus on the transient things around us; but it’s difficult if not impossible to conceive of that which is eternal.

Contemplating the nature and character of the Triune God who always was, always is, and always will be, and who never changes, is a task that overwhelms us. “In the beginning God.”

Moses wrote, “Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God” (Ps. 90:2, niv).

Frederick Faber expressed it like this: “Timeless, spaceless, single, lonely, Yet sublimely Three, Thou art grandly, always, only God in unity!

The God of the Bible is eternal and had no beginning. He is infinite and knows no limitations in either time or space. He is perfect and cannot “improve,” and is immutable and cannot change.

The God that Abraham worshiped is the eternal God (Gen. 21:33), and Moses told the Israelites, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deut. 33:27, niv).

Habakkuk said that God was “from everlasting” (Hab. 1:12, and see 3:6), and Paul called Him “the everlasting [eternal] God” (Rom. 16:26; see 1 Tim. 1:17).

The divine Trinity was in loving communion. “In the beginning” would be a startling statement to a citizen of Ur of the Chaldees where Abraham came from, because the Chaldeans and all their neighbors worshiped a galaxy of greater and lesser gods and goddesses.

But the God of Genesis is the only true God and has no “rival gods” to contend with, such as you read about in the myths and fables from the ancient world. (See Ex. 15:1; 20:3; Deut. 6:4; 1 Kings 8:60; 2 Kings 19:15; Ps. 18:31.)

This one true God exists as three Persons: God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. (See Matt. 3:16-17; 28:18-20; John 3:34-35; 14:15-17; Acts 2:32-33, 38-39; 10:36-38; 1 Cor. 12:1-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 1:3-14; 4:1-6; 2 Thes. 2:13-14; Titus 3:4-6; 1 Peter 1:1-2.)

This doesn’t mean that one God manifests Himself in three different forms, or that there are three gods; it means that one God exists in three Persons who are equal in their attributes and yet individual and distinct in their offices and ministries.

As the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) states it, “We believe in one God—And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father—And in the Holy Ghost.”

The doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t clearly revealed in the Old Testament, because the emphasis in the Old Testament is that the God of Israel is one God, uncreated and unique, the only true God.

Worshiping the false gods of their neighbors was the great temptation and repeated sin of Israel, so Moses and the prophets hammered away on the unity and uniqueness of Israel’s God.

Even today, the faithful Jewish worshiper recites “The Shema” each day: “Hear [shema], O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5, nkjv).

The God revealed in Scripture has no peers and no rivals.

But the Old Testament does give glimpses and hints of the wonderful truth of the Trinity, a truth that would later be clearly revealed in the New Testament by Christ and the apostles.

The “let us” statements in Genesis (Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; see also Isa. 6:8) suggest that the Persons of the Godhead worked together in conference; and the many instances when “the angel of the Lord” appeared on the scene indicate the presence of the Son of God. (See Gen. 16:7-11; 21:17; 22:11, 15; 24:7; 40; 31:11; 32:24-30; Ex. 3:1-4 with Acts 7:30-34; 14:19; 23:11; 32:33-33:17; Josh. 5:13ff; Judges 2:1-5 and 6:11ff.)

Messiah (God the Son) speaks about Himself, the Spirit, and the Lord (Father) in Isaiah 48:16-17 and 61:1-3; and Psalm 2:7 states that Jehovah has a son. Jesus applied verse 7 to Himself when He challenged His enemies who did not accept Him as the Son of God (Matt. 22:41-46).

In Genesis 1:2 and 6:3, the Spirit of God is distinguished from the Lord (Father), and this same distinction is found in Numbers 27:18; Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 40:13; 48:16; and Haggai 2:4-5.

Though the word “trinity” is nowhere used in the Bible, the doctrine is certainly there, hidden in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament.

Does this profound and mysterious doctrine have any practical meaning for the believer today? Yes, because the three Persons of the Godhead are all involved in planning and executing the divine will for the universe, including the plan of salvation.

The divine Trinity planned redemption. The wonderful plan of redemption wasn’t a divine afterthought, for God’s people were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4; Rev. 17:8) and given by the Father to the Son both to belong to His kingdom (Matt. 25:34) and to share His glory (John 17:2, 6, 9, 11-12, 24).

The sacrificial death of the Son wasn’t an accident, it was an appointment:  Acts 2:23 (ESV) — 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Acts 4:27–28 (ESV) — 27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

He was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

In the counsels of eternity, the Godhead determined to create a world that would include humans made in the image of God.

The Father was involved in Creation (Gen. 1:1; 2 Kings 19:15; Acts 4:24), but so were the Son (John 1:1-3, 10; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2) and the Holy Spirit (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:30).

God didn’t create a world because He needed anything but that He might share His love with creatures who, unlike the angels, are made in the image of God and can respond willingly to His love.

The Godhead determined that the Son would come to earth and die for the sins of the world, and Jesus came to do the Father’s will (John 10:17-18; Heb. 10:7).

The words Jesus spoke were from the Father (John 14:24), and the works He did were commissioned by the Father (5:17-21, 36; Acts 2:22) and empowered by the Spirit (10:38).

The Son glorifies the Father:

John 14:13 (ESV) — 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 17:1 (ESV) — 1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,

John 17:4 (ESV) — 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

The Spirit glorifies the Son:

John 16:14 (ESV) — 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. The Persons of the Holy Trinity work together to accomplish the divine will.

According to Ephesians 1:3-14, the plan of salvation is Trinitarian: we are chosen by the Father (vv. 3-6), purchased by the Son (vv. 7-12), and sealed by the Spirit (vv. 13-14), and all of this is to the praise of God’s glory (vv. 6, 12, 14).

The Father has given authority to the Son to give eternal life to those He has given to the Son:

John 17:1–3 (ESV) — When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

All of this was planned before there was ever a world!

When you seek to fathom the depths of the divine eternal counsels, you will be overwhelmed. But don’t be discouraged, for over the centuries, good and godly scholars have disagreed in their speculations and conclusions.

Moses said it best: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29, nkjv).

Summarizing some of the points of continuity between the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation may be helpful:

• In the Gospel of John, John begins with Jesus at creation, as the Creator. He begins, as it were, in Genesis, at the beginning of recorded biblical history. In Revelation, John focuses on the close, the consummation of history.
• In Genesis, we have the fall; in the Gospels, we have a new Genesis, a new beginning, where a new faithful “son” comes in the image of God, and where sin is dealt with by His sacrificial death. In Revelation, this salvation is fully realized with a return to the Garden, but now it is a perfect Garden.
• In John, we have God coming down from heaven to earth, not to condemn, but to save men. In Revelation, we have God coming down from heaven, to take saints to heaven, and to judge the wicked.
• In John, we have John leaning on Jesus’ breast; in Revelation, we have John fallen at the feet of Jesus as a dead man.
• In John, we have God tabernacling among men, with His glory veiled. In Revelation, we have God seen in Christ, unveiled, in all His glory and splendor, so great that the sun is no longer needed, for the light of the glory of the Father and the Son.
• In the Book of Revelation, John writes of the difficult times ahead and the need for perseverance and endurance, followed by a description of the blessings which come to those who overcome. There is a “river of the water of life” (22:1), and a “tree of life” (22:2). There is no temple, nor is there any sun or moon, because the Father and the Son are the temple, and the “Lamb” is its “light” (21:23).

The very things John has highlighted in the first chapter of his Gospel are also highlighted in the closing chapters of his last work—Revelation.

¹ E. Haenchen, A Commentary on the Gospel of John. Hermeneia, German edition, 1980 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 116.

^[1] Beauford H. Bryant and Mark S. Krause, John, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., 1998), Jn 1:1.

² C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (New York: Macmillan, 1955), p. 131.

^[2] Beauford H. Bryant and Mark S. Krause, John, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press Pub. Co., 1998), Jn 1:1.

^[3] John MacArthur, John: Jesus—The Word, the Messiah, the Son of God, MacArthur Bible Studies (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2000), 2–3.