Midweek Message from the Archive
Introduction to Separation
In the beginning … a great way to start a story. It creates time, beginning and ending, a setting, and eventually characters; that’s how scripture begins in Gen. 1:1. God, the Trinity, had a plan with a purpose: a Bride for His Son. If there was going to be a marriage, then there had to be a place to dwell and the ability to procreate: earth was separated from all other planets to be that place.
However, that chosen place was without form, void, and dark. That’s the lower story. God needed to separate light from darkness. Isn’t that true in the upper story as well? Mankind also begins life in spiritual darkness and moves into light by faith in the Savior of the World.
“… I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
God declared that light was good (Gen. 1:4), therefore, darkness must be bad. It’s not by accident that time passes (vs. 5) from evening (darkness) to morning (light); it’s the upper story.
… God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7
Since light is good and darkness is obviously bad God needed to separate them from each other for His purposes, therefore, separation is a distinction.
When we trust in Christ to cleanse us from our sin we have stepped into the upper story of distinction: light from darkness. We’re no longer living like the world but are spiritually separated from it: not looking like, acting like, or thinking like the world. That’s true separation.
God desired time so He created the rotation and revolution of our planet, on the other hand, He desired a Bride for His Son to last eternally; she would be outside of time. This may seem like a paradox, a contradiction, but as we travel this line of thinking we’ll see that it’s not: it’s the upper story.
A place and eventually a people, that was God’s plan for heaven and earth, and both needed separation:
… ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.
You shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine. Leviticus 20:24, 26
Allow me to stretch you across the face of the deep (Gen.1: 2) in this series as the Holy Spirit gives us the light of revelation (Luke 2:32) in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).
Comments are closed.