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CHAPTER ONE

GOD'S HISTORY IN ETERNITY PAST

OUTLINE

  1. The name of God:
    1. Jehovah, meaning I Am Who I Am—self-existing and ever-existing—Exo. 3:14.
    2. Elohim (God), implying the faithful strong One—Gen. 1:1; 2:4.
  2. God is eternal:
    1. From eternity to eternity—Psa. 90:2b.
    2. Uncreated (as the creating One)—Gen. 1:1.
    3. Without beginning and without ending—self-existing and ever-existing—Heb. 7:3.
    4. Eternal in His Trinity:
      1. The Father is eternal—Isa. 9:6.
      2. The Son is eternal—Heb. 1:12b; 7:3.
      3. The Spirit is eternal—Heb. 9:14.
  3. God is triune:
    1. Elohim (God—Gen. 1:1) is plural, indicating that God is triune—three-one, as confirmed by the pronouns Us, Our, and He in Gen. 1:26-27; 3:22a; and 11:7.
    2. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—one name implies three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, indicating the Divine Trinity—Matt. 28:19:
      1. The Father as the source of the Triune God.
      2. The Son as the expression of the Triune God— John 1:18.
      3. The Spirit as the reaching, the application, of the Triune God—2 Cor. 13:14.
      4. The three co-exist and coinhere at the same time from eternity to eternity— John 1:1-2; 14:10-11; 8:29; 15:26; Rev. 1:4-5a:
        1. The Son came from with the Father and in the Father's name— John 6:46; 1:14; 5:43a; cf. 1 John 2:23b.
        2. The Spirit was sent from with the Father in the Son's name— John 15:26; 14:26.
      5. Among the three of the Divine Trinity, there is distinction, but there is no separation.
    3. God made an eternal economy—Eph. 3:9-10; 1:10:
      1. The economy of the mystery hidden in God throughout the ages.
      2. To produce the church for the showing of God's multifarious wisdom.
      3. To head up all things in Christ.
    4. God in His Divine Trinity held a council in eternity—Acts 2:23 and note 1:
      1. To make the determination concerning the crucial death of Christ.
      2. For the carrying out of God's eternal economy.
    5. The Second of the Divine Trinity was preparing to carry out His "goings forth" from eternity into time to be born in Bethlehem as a man (Micah 5:2).
    6. God blessed the believers in Christ with the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies before the foundation of the world—Eph. 1:3-6:
      1. Choosing them to be holy, to be sanctified unto Himself with His holy nature—v. 4.
      2. Predestinating them, marking them out, unto sonship, making them sons to Himself with His divine life—v. 5a.
      3. According to the good pleasure of His will—v. 5b.
      4. To the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He graced us in Christ, His Beloved—v. 6.

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