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The purpose of the ages opens with Gen. 1: 1 in the creation of the heaven and the
earth, but between the attainment of the purpose for which heaven and earth were created
"in the beginning", and the day when God shall be "all in all" lies a great gulf, a gulf
caused by a moral catastrophe and not merely by a physical land-slide, a gap that is
"filled" by a series of wheels within wheels, Adam and his world, Noah and his world,
Israel and their inheritance, and at last that church which is itself "the fullness of Him that
filleth all in all". The two extremes therefore of the purpose are found in the following
passages which are themselves separated in the sacred volume by the rest of the
Scriptures. The first occurring in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, the last in
Revelation, the last book of the Bible.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1: 1).
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21: 1).
The gap in the outworking of the purpose is expressed in Gen. 1: 2 "The earth was
without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep" and in Rev. 21: 1
by the added words:
"For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more
sea" (Rev. 21: 1).
This feature may be visualized as follows:
CREATION
In the purpose of the ages.
The first all-comprehensive gap.
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Gen. 1: 1
The deep
No more sea
Rev. 21: 1
Let us consider in fuller detail some of the terms that are here employed to set before
us this opening and closing feature of the purpose of the ages.
"In the beginning", B're-shith; Septuagint Greek, En arche.
While the fact must not be unduly stressed, it should be observed that neither in the
Hebrew nor in the Greek is the article "the" actually used. Moreover, it is certain that
b're-shith denotes the commencement of a point in time as Jer. 26: 1; 21: 1; 28: 1
will show. But it is also very certain that the self same word denotes something more
than a point of departure in time, for it is used by Jeremiah in 2: 3 for "the first fruits"
even as it is used in Lev. 2: 12 and 23: 10, which are "beginnings" in that they
anticipate the harvest at the end, the "fullness of seasons" (Eph. 1: 10). The same can be
said of the Greek arche. While it most certainly means "beginning", it is noteworthy
that in Gen. 1: 16, where the next occurrences are found it means "rule", even as in
Eph. 1: 21; 3: 10 and 6: 12 arche in the plural is translated "principalities", while in