 |  |
Phil. 4: 15 it is used once again in its ordinary time sense. While God knows the end
from the beginning, and nothing which He has caused to be written for our learning can
ever be anything but truth, we must nevertheless be prepared to find that much is veiled
in the O.T. until, in the wisdom of God, the time is ripe for fuller teaching.
If we leave Gen. 1: 1 and go straight over to the last book of Scripture, namely the
book of the Revelation, we shall see that the words "In the beginning" acquire a fuller
sense than was possible at the time when they were first written by Moses. Arche occurs
in Revelation four times, as follows:
"I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is,
and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." (Rev. 1: 8).
"These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the
creation of God." (3: 14).
"And He said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." (21: 6).
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (22: 13).
Here, in the last book of the Bible, arche ceases to bear merely a time significance, it
is the title of a Person, a Person in Whom creation and the purpose of the ages find their
meaning and their goal. Paul uses arche eighteen times, the word having the time sense
"beginning" in five occurrences (Phil. 4: 15, the only occurrence with this meaning in
the Prison epistles), once in the earlier epistles (II Thess. 2: 13) and three times in
Hebrews (1: 10; 2: 3; 7: 3). The remaining references save one use arche to indicate
"principalities", "rule" or "principles" (Rom. 8: 38; I Cor; 15: 24; Eph. 1: 21; 3: 10;
6: 12; Col. 1: 16, 18; 2: 10, 15; Titus 3: 1; Heb. 6: 1). The Hebrew word rosh which
gives us the word for "beginning" is translated "head" in Gen. 3: 15 and both
"beginning" and "head" in Exod. 12: 2 & 9 respectively. In Col. 1: 18 Paul uses arche
of Christ in a somewhat similar sense to the usage of the word in the Revelation:
"Who is the Image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for by Him
were all things created . . . . . and He is the head of the Body the church: who IS THE
BEGINNING, the Firstborn from the dead . . . . . in Him should ALL FULNESS
DWELL" (Col. 1: 15-19).
The two phrases "by Him" all things were created, and "in Him" all fullness dwells,
are obviously complementary. It is a fact that the preposition en is translated many times
"by", but it is difficult to understand how it is that in Col. 1: 16 en auto should be
translated "BY Whom" while in Col. 1: 19 en auto should be translated "IN Him".
Moreover the preposition en occurs in the phrases "in heaven", "in all things". Again, the
A.V. reads in verse 17 "By Him all things consist" where the preposition is dia, which
only makes the need more felt that en should not be translated "by" in the same context.
There does not appear any grammatical necessity to depart from the primary meaning of
en "in" in Col. 1: 16, and this is the considered opinion of such exegetes as
Bishop Lightfoot and Dean Alford, and the translators of the R.V.
"In Him" therefore, all things were created (Col. 1: 16). He Himself is "the
Beginning" in the Creation of God (Rev. 3: 14). We therefore return to Gen. 1: 1 and
read with fuller insight and meaning "In the BEGINNING God created the heaven and