(tm) The Two Beginnings
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In the beginning God through Jesus Christ created the spirit world and all its inhabitants, the sky, the earth, and all its inhabitants. Satan, apparently, was one of two cherubim who guarded the Throne of God in Heaven.
Then rebellion entered the creation, commencing with Satan.
Satan and the angels who followed him were removed from their places of authority in Heaven, and many of them of high rank, it seems, appear to have occupied thrones in the air above the earth.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, and through His death on the cross made an atonement for the sins of mankind. When the Lord Jesus Christ cried out on the cross, "It is finished," the end of the first creation had arrived. For all intents and purposes, the entire first creation is dead and ready to pass away.
Then God raised Christ from the dead. Now a new creation has come into view. Every person who is baptized in water is stating that his first, adamic life has been concluded and he now has risen with Christ to walk in the life of the new creation.
One of the greatest errors in Christian thinking is the perception of Christianity as a religion whereby people who follow the rules will go to Heaven when they die. This is not what the Christian salvation is. The Christian salvation asks us to renounce our first life, to count it crucified, to regard it as having died with the first creation. Now we are to count that we are alive in and with the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God.
The mainspring of our salvation is crucifixion and resurrection. All of our personality must be brought down to the death of the cross. The Life of Jesus Christ must enter us. We must live by His body and blood. We must become as much a part of Him as He is of the Father. This union with Christ is the Kingdom of God.
Eventually all things in the heavens and upon the earth shall be brought under one Head, under Christ. All things in the heavens and upon the earth shall find their meaning in Christ. This is the new creation, the Kingdom of God.
Thus there have been two beginnings of two distinctly separate creations. Christ is the Beginning of both creations, the old and the new. It is essential to our life as a Christian that we understand clearly that God is not going to save any aspect of the old creation. God is making all things new in Jesus Christ.
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