As we saw previously, there is an emphatic stamp when using “the” before a noun in Scripture. Consider that Jesus is not “a son of God”, but “the son of God”. There is a greater specificity when using “the”. God did not rest on “a seventh day”, He rested on the seventh day”. Much like the exegetical “law of first mention”, where the first time something is referenced in the Scripture is significant in setting the context by which every mention thereafter can be understood, we can learn a lot about the fine details of the Lord’s craftsmanship by the “filler” words in the Scriptures.
There are certain Scriptures that say things that if we take them for what they say, and realize the implications behind them, our current opinions on how things work would get violently confronted. John 1:1 is one of the Scriptures which has implications to it that are honestly kind of daunting. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This verse first acknowledges that there was a beginning. That makes sense to us because we think about everything as having a beginning and end, limits where one things starts and another thing ends. Two objects cannot be in the same place at the same time. Thirty years ago I did not exist. Thirty months ago, my brother’s marriage didn’t exist. Thirty minutes ago, this sentence didn’t exist. All these things had a beginning.
However, the Word already existed in the beginning. Let’s say, just for arguments sake, that the Word existed exactly at the beginning of the beginning. The curious part about this comes when you look at the nature of words. Words have one purpose, to communicate. They come from someone and are intended for someone. So the Word proceeded from a Source that existed prior to the beginning. This means that the beginning was not really the beginning. But then, how far back does it go? The Source had to have a beginning, right? If you let your mind try to go back and back and back, it can get a little freaky. Realizing that God has been around for eternity past can trip a breaker in your head. Think about the wisest person you know. They are wise because they have either had more birthdays than you or because they have been through more wisdom-giving experiences than you. It is no wonder, then, that when we read Proverbs 8 about the personification of wisdom it sounds like the description of Jesus.
Out of His nature of Divine Wisdom as the Word, the Communication of God, Jesus was already reaching out to us to tell us Who the Father is and who we are to Him. He was crucified before the foundations of the World. His mind was already made up before wood, nails and whips existed. What do you do with Someone who is in no hurry because a millennium and a day feel the same to Him? He doesn’t get bored, He doesn’t get surprised or anxious. And what if this same Person took that eternal nature and stuffed it into us? What changes when we be content in every circumstance because we have no limitation of time because we have become like God, having His nature and likeness? I’ll tell you what changes, we become consciously eternal people that have a perspective that produces peace that doesn’t make sense. We become unoffendable, immoveable, immortal, and confident beyond understanding. Jesus said we are already clean by the Word He has spoken over us. Maybe our greatest need is to hear that Word echo out of eternity and into our innermost being.
*Word of God, reverberate within us and shake everything in us that can be shaken so that we can find discover that which will remain and live from there.
Raw Orthodoxy 
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