Thru the Bible - Questions & Answers

Guest (Male): If Jesus is the creator of all things, why does the Bible call him the beginning of creation or the firstborn of all creation? Well, stay with us and find out.

Guest (Male): You're listening to the Question and Answer program, a ministry of the Thru the Bible Radio Network with our Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, who for over 30 years answered the many questions of his listeners. Our first question comes to us from a listener in Dallas, Oregon, and she writes: Is there any truth to the claim that the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine originated in 1830 in Scotland by the Plymouth Brethren?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: No, there really is not. It is a false charge in this sense that at different periods in the history of the church from the very beginning, there was a tremendous interest in prophecy just as there is today. And there arose a group of people back in 1830 that put a great emphasis on the pre-trib position, the premillennial and pre-trib position. It wasn't new with them at all. This is something that they got, I think, from the Word of God.

Frankly, I never heard of them myself until a big emphasis was placed upon them. I was raised in the South. The first man that I ever heard teach the premillennial, pre-trib viewpoint was a Presbyterian preacher. He was my pastor. He's the one who led me to Christ. He didn't get it from the Plymouth Brethren at all. They have put a big emphasis on it, and they have put a great emphasis on Bible study, by the way.

I think that if you tell the real truth about the Plymouth Brethren, they were a group of people that were raised up that put an emphasis on the study of the Word of God. In the study of the Word of God, they come to the pre-trib viewpoint. Now, personally, my experience has been with ministers and theologians and seminaries that the place that puts the emphasis on the Word of God are premillennial and pre-trib.

I can well understand that a hundred years from today, it may be somebody will dig up some of the tapes that I have made, and they'll be premillennial, pre-trib. They'll say this fellow McGee, he started this premillennial, pre-trib. They will say nothing about the fact that I emphasized the entire Word of God and that I went from Genesis to Revelation. You see, it's so easy for historians to lie, and an outstanding historian made that statement. It is so easy today for these people to make that charge.

I consider it nothing in the world but propaganda because the big question is not did it originate in 1830 or not, but does the Bible teach that? The very interesting thing is I can't get these folks that are post-trib and postmillennial or amillennial—most of the postmillennial didn't have a post to hide behind, so they became amillennialists. That has happened in my lifetime. When I started out, my entire denomination was postmillennial. Well, you'd have a difficulty finding a postmillennialist today.

The fact of the matter is that they have never put an emphasis on Bible teaching, this group. Never have. Today we attempt to put an emphasis upon it. I'd like for them, instead of spending their time making an attack on the premillennial, pre-trib viewpoint, why don't they present Bible teaching? I have never heard of a prophetic conference—I'll have to take that back. I heard of one. I never heard of a prophetic conference where the speakers were post-trib and amillennial.

I said I had heard of one. I was invited back to Wheaton, Illinois, several years ago for a prophetic conference. It was stated that at the end of our conference, they were going to have an amillennial post-trib conference in order to follow up to give what they said was the truth. Well, I do not know what really happened. I was told that it went one day and there was nobody to hear their position, so they called it quits.

The fact of the matter is that these brethren spend their time, therefore, attacking the premillennial, pre-trib viewpoint, and this is one of the arguments they use. Sure, these people put a great emphasis on prophecy, but they put a great emphasis on Bible teaching. If you want to find out in the Pentateuch the wonderful development that was made in the study of the Pentateuch, get some of the Plymouth Brethren's books. They're good. They did a lot of study, but you see, they don't emphasize that at all. I spent time with that because this is quite a discussion today.

Guest (Male): Our next question comes from a listener in Linton, Indiana, who writes: Should the following passages be taken literally? Genesis 2:1–2, John 5:28–29, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 26b, and 2nd Peter 3:8.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: And I'm going to take all four. Genesis 2:1–2: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made." Now, the question is how literally shall I take these passages, and this is the first one. May I say to you that I take it—that's all that I can say to you is how I take it. I take it quite literally. I think that God created the heavens and the earth on six literal 24-hour days, and that on the seventh day he rested.

The rest here is not a rest because he was tired. The rest was it was finished. There wasn't anything to add to it, and I accept that as being a literal, to be taken very literally. That is my viewpoint of it. Now I think there's a great spiritual message here for us. It has an application for us today. That seventh day belongs to the old creation. We're told that today if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Today we belong to a new creation that began on the Day of Pentecost.

It denoted the finished work of Christ because you will recall that when he died on the cross, he said, "It is finished." When he prayed that great high priestly prayer, he said, "I finished the work thou gavest me to do." Obviously, there was some other work besides creation to be done, and it was the work of redemption. On the cross, he handed in that report to the Father that it's finished.

So we have now here a great truth for us today. The Lord Jesus, then, after his resurrection appeared for 40 days, then ascended into heaven. On the Day of Pentecost, he made it clear he'd arrived in heaven because he said, "If I go, I will send him unto you, the Holy Spirit." He came on the Day of Pentecost. We're told that when the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven, he sat down on the right hand of God. Doesn't that indicate to you resting? He's resting now from redemption.

The Lord Jesus came to this earth and over a period of 33 years, he worked out for you and me a plan of redemption whereby we could be saved. That work was the bared arm work. When he created the heavens and the earth, we're told the finger work. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork." Just the finger work of God.

But when he worked out redemption, in the 53rd of Isaiah, he says, "To whom is the bared arm of the Lord revealed?" Well, after he finished that, he came to this earth born of a virgin and he rose again from the dead, appeared for 40 days, ascended to heaven, and now he sat down. The work is completed. Nothing more for him to do, and nothing more for you to do because the writer to the Hebrews tells us that we've entered into his rest.

What rest? The rest of redemption so that you're not under any legal restrictions today. You actually are not called upon to worship God on any day that you don't want to. If Sunday doesn't work out for you, try another. I don't object to these people that want to worship on the Sabbath day and that's Saturday. That's all right. I just don't like them to tell me what day I'm to worship on because Paul has told me that one man observes one day and one another day.

We observe, the church has observed from the beginning the first day. Why? Because on the seventh day, he was dead inside the tomb. On the first day, he came back from the dead, and may I say that that's when the new creation begins. We're joined today to a glorified Christ. We hear so much about the man of Galilee, but it is the man that's gone into heaven. That's the glorified man. Not the man of Galilee, but the man of glory, and he's the one we're united to today. So this is a great spiritual truth that is here, but that's by way of application. The interpretation is just as literal as it possibly can be.

Now let me continue to move through these passages that this brother has given me from Linton, Indiana. The next passage of Scripture that I'm turning to he gave is John 5:28–29: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."

Again, this is to be taken literally, and this is the literal overall picture. The hour is coming when everyone in the graves is going to hear the voice of the Son of God, but they're not coming forth all of them at the same time. There are two resurrections. In the first resurrection, those that have done good. Well, how did they do good? By their works? No. They obeyed God. They believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and they was saved, and there was made unto them the righteousness of God.

They were clothed in the righteousness of Christ. What a glorious, wonderful, beautiful picture that we have here. As Paul puts it, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. So when you trust Christ, you're clothed with his righteousness and you're made good in God's sight. God sees you as he sees Christ. Therefore, I think it's to be taken quite literally.

Then there's a second resurrection, and that's the resurrection of the lost. We have that given in Revelation, the Great White Throne judgment. Many of the truths, the great truths about Christian faith that are developed in the Epistles and book of Revelation, you will find that the Lord Jesus gave that great truth in a nutshell somewhere along the line. I think every great truth he mentioned, and this is when he mentioned the question of resurrection.

I want to take the next verse that he has given, and that's found in Hebrews 9:26b. Let me read the whole verse: "For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the age," not world, but end of the age. The world is not coming to an end. All we're going to do is just trade this old earth we live on in on a new model. The Lord's going to give a new heavens and a new earth, but we're going to have the earth. We're going to have this world that we live in, but it's going to be traded in on a new model.

But now once in the end of the age, now this age we're living in is coming to an end, "hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Now, he came at the end of the Old Testament dispensation. That's what he meant about the harvest. A harvest is at always at the end of a dispensation, and planting takes place during the dispensation. You and I today are to plant or sow the seed, which is the Word of God.

We're not harvesting today. He'll do that at the end of the age. Read Matthew 13; you'll find he'll do that at the end of the age. But now at the end of the age of that Old Testament age, he appeared and he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now, that is to be translated literally. That's what he did, literally. That is the way that I think that passage of Scripture should be taken, and then from it, great truths flow just like a river flows from a spring and a fountain, and that's what you will find.

Now I want to take the next scripture, in fact, it's the last scripture, and that's 2nd Peter 3:8: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." That one I think is to be taken literally, but let's understand what literally Peter meant when he said that. He didn't say that a day is a thousand years for us today. Some of them seem like it sometimes, but they're not. They're 24-hour days, and that's quite literal.

But to God, this matter of time, it is not something he measures. You and I measure time, and all of us know today we're sensible people. Many of us are getting along in years, and we don't have many days left. I can remember as a young man I thought that out yonder that I'd be here a thousand years, but I find out now I'm not going to be here that long.

I think that's true of many of you. What Peter is saying here is that far as the Lord is concerned, a day or a thousand years are the same because he's dwelling in eternity. But for you and me, a day is 24 hours, and a thousand years is a whole lot of days and a whole lot of hours. He's making that kind of a contrast in the context of how God looks at it.

Doesn't mean that it's that way. So many people pick this up and run back to the account in Genesis of creation and say, "Well then, the day there could have been a thousand years." That's not what he's saying. He's talking about 24-hour days and the word "day" the context will indicate to you what it means. He's talking about a day here that can be measured by hours or by years that so many days make a year. That's the way he's measuring it here.

There is a way, an expression, "the Day of the Lord." That's a period of time, but that is so clear that the context makes it clear, and that there's a day of judgment coming. Now, that is a period of judgment. That's an expression. But in a passage like this, you can pretty well understand, I think, that we ought to learn to treat the Bible with as much intelligence as we treat other books. If you found this in a book, you wouldn't draw the absurd conclusion that a thousand years and a day were equal. He's not making them synonymous; he's drawing a tremendous contrast here. There's as much difference as the day and night could be.

Guest (Male): Our final question today comes to us from a listener in Six Lakes, Michigan. She writes: How can Jesus be the beginning of the creation of God as indicated in Revelation chapter 1:5 and chapter 3:14? Also in Colossians 1:15, if he is the incarnate God?

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: And let me begin actually with the last one that you gave, and we'll take a look at these others also. But in Colossians 1:15, it says, "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature," and it really is the firstborn of the creation. But the interesting thing about that passage and the others that you've given me are in an area that teach the deity of Christ.

You can be sure of one thing, that in this passage here, he is spoken of as the creator. "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers." All of that in a series of things that pertain to Christ. This one is drawn out and made to mean he's a creature. Well, it says very definitely in this passage that he is the creator.

Now Paul is the one who wrote this, and Paul is also the one who preached a wonderful sermon over in Antioch of Pisidia. Dr. Luke records that sermon for us, and I think I probably ought to go over there and read just one verse to you because it says back in the second Psalm, it says, "This day have I begotten thee," and it refers to what Christ is saying, that "the Lord said unto my Lord, sit on my right hand."

"This day have I begotten thee." Well, when was he begotten? Paul makes it clear when in this sermon. He says, "God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." Has no reference to Bethlehem and his birth; it has reference to his resurrection from the dead in Joseph's tomb. That's what he's talking about.

Now he is the firstborn here in the sense that he's the creator. The next verse clarifies that, "For by him were all things created." Now he can't be a creature and be the creator at the same time. That would put you back under the first heresy of the church where it was taught that there were these different gradations of creation, which today is utterly ridiculous, and even the cults don't use that anymore because it was very ridiculous.

Now let me turn to one or two of these passages. In fact, I see no reason why I shouldn't turn to both of them that you have given to me. The first one is here in Revelation, and it's Revelation 1:5: "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead." He's the first one that's ever been raised in a glorified body, and is in that body today. He's the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins.

He is the firstbegotten of the dead. That is the thing that you need to recognize. He's begotten from the dead. The passage makes it clear what he's talking about. Not his birth at Bethlehem; has no reference to that at all. This is in that exalted passage here in the first chapter of Revelation that shows him as the glorified Christ, the one in all of his glory.

And then in Revelation 3:14, you give me that verse. It says, "And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God." Well, what does it mean by the beginning? Well, the one who is the beginner is the beginning. He's the one that teed it off. He's the one that started it. He is the one that began that.

It's perfectly ridiculous to take these scriptures and try to build from it a doctrine against the deity of Christ. These scriptures actually teach the deity of Christ, reveal him as that. And of course, these are the scriptures that the cults would have to answer, and they try to answer by boldly saying they mean something else, which of course they do not.

Guest (Male): Well, with that answer, we must come to the end of our program today. If you've been inspired to look into these issues further, we have a number of resources that are available for your study of God's Word. So contact us today for our resource catalog. You can reach us anytime by calling 1-800-65-BIBLE and just leave a voicemail with your request.

Now, be sure to join us this week during the Thru the Bible radio program as we continue Dr. McGee's five-year journey through the whole Word of God. Notes and outlines and the catalog can be requested when you call 1-800-65-BIBLE or write to us at Questions and Answers in the US: Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada: Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1.

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