When was before the foundation of the world?

But what lies beyond that border-line of creation's beginning, when God was all? What was "before the foundation of the world?" What took place when the Deity was Absolute, and unrelated to the non-existent universe? An answer can be found only in the disclosures God has been pleased to make in His word. And from His revelations we learn of His love, of His foreknowledge, His election, and His promise of eternal life; and we know, therefore, that these plannings of infinite love were formulated before the foundation of the world. The counsels of grace existed in the Godhead from eternity, but the fact of their existence then was revealed to man in time.

The phrase, "before the foundation of the world," occurs three times in the New Testament (John 17:24; Eph. 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20) , and the kindred phrase, "before the ages of time," twice (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2, N. Tr.). Let us with unaffected humility of mind look at these five passages, remembering the sacred and profound nature of their communications, proceeding, as they do, from "the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity" (Isa. 57:15). Let our hearts be as the "weaned child" that the Lord alone may be exalted in our eyes as we receive His word.

The “foundation of the world” is frequently mentioned in scripture as the extreme border-line of the past "from" which human history is reckoned (Matt. 13:35; 25:34; Luke 11:50; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; Rev. 13:8; 17:8). For instance, the names found in the book of life were written “from the foundation of the world," as the two passages in the Revelation (N. Tr.) declare. The divine record of these elect persons began at that point.

But what lies beyond that border-line of creation's beginning, when God was all? What was “before the foundation of the world?” What took place when the Deity was Absolute, and unrelated to the non-existent universe? An answer can be found only in the disclosures God has been pleased to make in His word. And from His revelations we learn of His love, of His foreknowledge, of His election, and of His promise of eternal life; and we know, therefore, that these plannings of infinite love were formulated before the foundation of the world. The counsels of grace existed in the Godhead from eternity, but the fact of their existence then was necessarily revealed to man in time.

The phrase, “before the foundation of the world," occurs three times in the New Testament (John 17:24; Eph. 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20), and the kindred phrase, " before the ages of time," twice (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2, N. Tr.). Let us with unaffected humility of mind look at these five passages, remembering the sacred and profound nature of their communications, proceeding, as they do, from "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" (Isa. 57:15). Let our hearts be as the “weaned child” that the Lord alone may be exalted in our eyes as we receive His word.

Coming to the end of this chapter we can see that it moves on beyond the thoughts of that glory to which these verses undoubtedly take us. Verse 24, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." There we have absolutely explicitly what there was in that inaccessible, eternal world. A world that would never have been reached by human power or understanding at all, except the Son who knows that love came to make it known. He came from that eternal home, the place where there was love between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world and, in the earlier verse, where there was glory that the Son shared with the Father before the foundation of the world. In the earlier part of the Gospel we trace the love that the Father had for the Son, but it becomes absolutely clear here that the Lord Jesus Christ is thinking above all things of the fact that: "Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." All crowns and kingdoms are conferred upon Jesus but they are all as nothing compared with the fact of His Father's love. And in such a prayer as this that explicitly gets to the root of the matter, He desired nothing but to be again in that unclouded home where the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world.

We must remember, while speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ as subsisting now in glory in abiding Manhood in the relationship of Son of God, that His Sonship did not commence with His Incarnation. Scripture teaches us the Incarnation of the Son, NOT Sonship by Incarnation. He brought into Manhood that relationship in which He had eternally subsisted. There were relationships, with the affections proper to them, in the Godhead before time began, and which shall continue when time has ceased to be. Those relationships and affections are eternal. The Scripture which has helped to confirm me in the truth of the eternal Sonship of our Lord Jesus is John 17:24, "Father … Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world." This is the love of the Father for the Son; He speaks of that love being set on Him before the world was brought into being. It seems almost superfluous to have to say that we cannot have the love of relationship without the relationship.

You can ask what is deeper and more glorious, the fact that He is light or the fact that He is love. His love was there just as was His light from eternity. There is no beginning to that love of God. He always had and has a worthy object for His love. The Lord Jesus as the Son in this world at the end of His pathway could say to His Father, “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). We are brought back into a past eternity (if one may say so) and we see in light inaccessible the Eternal Son, the Only-Begotten of the Father, in the bosom of the Father, who could say “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. This was a perfect love. Perfect in the sense that there was a perfect response to that love. Who could say that? As we know the Lord Jesus and by Him the Father, we all know a little bit of His love. What a wonderful thing this is! There is one who always appreciated this love of the Father and was in His bosom as His equal. “Thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”. This was ever so and was still the case when He went to the cross of Calvary though in an even higher form because the Lord Jesus said when He went to the cross, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life” (John 10:17). He gave as it were, an additional reason to the Father to love Him, in His going to Calvary. Ever worthy of this love the Lord Jesus came into this world.

But in blessing us after this wonderful fashion God has wrought in keeping with an act of His mind in a bygone eternity. Before the foundation of the world He chose us in Christ. Let those two words, "in Him," be noted, for again and again they, or their equivalents, occur in this chapter. As a matter of history we each were in Adam before we were in Christ, but before Adam was created, God saw us as in Christ, and on that basis we were chosen. What was in view in His choice was that we might be holy and blameless before Himself in love.

But it is an error often made to confound what is here annexed with the statement in Rev. 13:8. For this scripture teaches no more than our text that the Lamb was slain from the founding of the world, a meaning only made possible by a mystical imagination. The comparison however of what is said in Rev. 17:8 affords plain evidence that the name written in the book of life of the Lamb slain is the true connection with the world's founding, not that the Lamb was then slain. For the later scripture referring to the same truth omits "of the slain Lamb," but affirms the writing in the book of life from that time.

Nor is this all. "From" the world's founding is not of the same import as "before" it. Let us respect and learn from the very words of God. Those saints who are preserved from yielding to the Beast at the close of the age had their name written from the foundation of the world in the slain Lamb's book of life. With this we may compare the King's language to the blessed from all the nations, severed like sheep from the goats, to inherit the kingdom prepared for them "from" the world's foundation. But the phrase used in Eph. 1:4 as in 1 Peter 1:20 is pointedly different. As Christ was foreknown and loved by the Father (John 17:24) "before" then, so did God choose in Christ us who now believe "before" the world's foundation, that we should be holy and unblemished before Him in love. It is easy for a Christian to understand Christ foreknown before time began; but how wondrous the grace that God chose us to such an association and for such a purpose! He was known before creation, as He had a glory in personal right above it; we by grace are objects of divine counsel which His work suite in order that we may enjoy all where He is, and with Him.

The epistle opens with a lovely doxology: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Eph. 1:3-4). There is the elective choice of God. The Church was the thought of God in eternity, before the foundation of the world; but the individual relationships are treated of first before the corporate are unfolded. You will never learn the truth corporately till you have learned it individually. God thinks of the individual believer first. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. Long before there was a world, upon which the first man sinned, the believer was chosen in Him to be "holy and without blame before him in love." You say, I am not holy. But look — is not He holy, and without blame, and in love before God? Oh yes. Well, I am in Him, that is the point.

And now nothing can be more important for our apprehension of them, than to seek to get hold of the point of view at which they are presented to us. Verse 4, "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Observe that we are carried back before the history of man opened; before even the foundation of the world that God had yet to fit for his habitation, was laid; before time itself began; to learn what the choice of God was in eternity. There is no activity of counsel yet, but simply what He chose, as suited to His own nature. How astonishing to learn by the next words that it was "us, in him" as seen in the perfection of Christ "holy and without blame before him in love." Time is not taken into account. But if it was in Christ God had us thus before Him in eternity, it is when Christ was here that it became manifested what God's choice was. And so it was in Matthew 3:16-17, when the heavens were opened to Him and the Father's voice proclaimed "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." As we behold Him there, was He not holy, and without blame, and in love, the cherished object of the Father's delight, out before His own gaze? That is what we were chosen in Him to be.

We will now turn to another epistle, where the church of God is especially revealed; and that, not only what it will be, but what it is even now, seen in its heavenly character. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." (Eph. 1:3.) What a rebuke to unbelief is this statement! How clear, present, and certain! What a bright contrast with the dark human thought that we shall only get to know at the day of judgment whether we shall obtain such heavenly blessings! Yes, it is all ours now. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us thus in the heavenlies in Him. And mark, all this is according to plan and purpose. "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Have you ever thought of these words? How far do they take us back? Are we chosen in Christ because of something in our own history or circumstances? No, farther back. We were chosen in Him before the formation of this world in its present state, and before the introduction of sin. Farther back still. When were the foundations of the world laid? We read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." What vast ages this may have been before the six days' formation of this earth for man, we know not. Men, with all their learning, can only measure time; they have no language to explain eternity: that laying of the foundations — that creation of the heaven and the earth — in that vast unknown, "in the beginning." Yet the heavenly blessing of the church is, "according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." Men love to speculate about past ages, but here is no room for speculation, but the distinct revelation, that the church, that we who have redemption in Christ through His blood, were chosen in Him before those ages began.