“I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given me to do. And now, O Father, glorify me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:4,5).
What are we to make of our Lord’s petition on the eve of his crucifixion? How did he know that he had glory with the Father before the world was, and that it was now right for him to ask for this glory?
We can go a long way toward answering these questions, Biblically, if we first understand what Jesus and the New Testament writers meant when they spoke of the “world” (Greek “kosmos”).
Rocks and trees… or man?
Consider these creative acts of God:
(1) “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).
- “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27).
Which of these two monumental acts of God — the creation of the heavens and earth, or the creation of man — was “the foundation of the world” spoken of in the New Testament?
Almost certainly it is the latter. The “world” in the New Testament is the world of mankind. This is evident in the Gospel of John where the apostle speaks of the “world” (“kosmos”) 80 times! Here are a few examples.
“That was the true Light (Jesus) which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him” (John 1:9,10).
John is effectively declaring that Jesus was a man, born into Adam’s race (he was “in the world” into which “every man” comes); that in some sense God made man through him, and yet men did not know him when he came (also see John 1:1118).
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’ ” (John 1:29).
The sin of the world, of course, is the sin of man. John is hardly thinking about rocks and trees in this context.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16,17).
It is dying man whom God has loved and for whom God provided His Son, that “the world through him might be saved”. The world of the New Testament is the world of mankind.
“The foundation of the world”
“The foundation of the world” is an expression that occurs ten times in the New Testament: Matthew 13:35; 25:34; Luke 11:50; John 17:24; Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 4:3; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8; 17:8. It also occurs in a telling context in one of the earliest extant Christian writings — The Epistle of Barnabas, c. 80-120.2 The widespread and remarkably consistent use of the expression strongly suggests that it had a specific meaning, well known to believers in New Testament times.
Apart from these ten occurrences, there is one other place in the New Testament where the Greek word for “foundation” (“katabole”) is used. Its context is also telling:
“By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive [‘katabole’] seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).
Sarah received strength to conceive seed! Thus, through her, God founded the seed of Abraham! This, too, is about a race of people, established in this case out of the larger stock of mankind. Our thesis is reinforced: “the foundation of the world” was the creation of man (Gen. 1:27).3
This fact gives us a fixed reference point for understanding all New Testament references to “the foundation of the world”. We also have the necessary reference point for understanding the words of Jesus: “before the world was”. Jesus had the creation of man in mind when he prayed these words, not the events of Genesis 1:1. (Incidentally, this in itself says that he was not thinking about pre-existence the same way that Trinitarians tend to think of it.)
This understanding works well in each of the six following contexts:
(1) “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation [‘katabole’] of the world [‘kosmos’]” (Matt. 13:35).
Jesus revealed the mysteries of the kingdom of God to his disciples things that faithful men had longed to understand since the creation of man. See Matthew 13:11,17, and also 1 Peter 1:10-12,18-21.
- “Then the King will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation [“katabole”] of the world [“kosmos”]’ ” (Matt. 25:34).
God prepared a kingdom for righteous men from the foundation of the world. How did Jesus know this? At the very least he could infer it from the Book of Genesis. God placed man in Eden — the primal kingdom of God on earth — immediately after man was created, before sin entered the world (Gen 2:7,8). It follows that God was committed to a holy kingdom on earth from the time man was created.
- “Therefore the wisdom of God also said, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation” (Luke 11:49-51).
Blood shed from the foundation of the world? This clearly refers to the shed blood of righteous men, starting with righteous Abel soon after the fall of man (Gen. 4:8-10).
“The foundation of the world” was the creation of man. “From the foundation of the world” simply means “since man was created”. “Before the foundation of the world” means “before man was created”.
Now let’s consider John 17:5 in this frame of reference.
“Glory before the world was”
“And now, O Father, glorify me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world [‘kosmos’] was” (John 17:5).
This, too, means before man was created; that is, before Genesis 1:27. Given that Jesus knew the Book of Genesis better than anyone who ever lived, it seems very probable to me that in John 17:5 the Lord is telling us how he understood Genesis 1:26. This is, after all, the verse given prior to the creation of man that has direct bearing on man’s glorious destiny.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image…” (Gen. 1:26,27).
In Genesis 1:26 God had the creation of man in prospect: that is, “before the world was”! It is here that God declared His purpose for man to become a living being with His likeness; one who will attain to His sinless, deathless glory. Thus when Jesus read Genesis 1:26, he understood the full implications of God’s declaration and could say, in effect, ‘I am this man! This is the glory that God granted to me before the world was!’
On the eve of his crucifixion, the time had come for Jesus to die a blameless death and rise to glorious life. It was time for him to pray for the glory that God had promised him before the foundation of the world or, simply, before the world was.
Jesus and us
The remaining “foundation of the world” passages take their place against the same fixed reference point: the creation of man. We’ll finish by looking at three more of them. The message becomes wonderfully personal for us.
(4) “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which You have given me; for You loved me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
What a prospect this is! We shall see the glory of God in Christ because we, too, are caught up in the love that God had for him before man was created. The mind goes to 1 John 3:
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (vv. 1-3).
If this is our hope, then John exhorts us to live as Jesus lives. The glory of God must begin to transfigure us even now.
(S) “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:3-6).
We, too, are to see ourselves in Genesis 1:26, “before the foundation of the world”! The Apostle Paul evidently read this passage the same way Jesus did. In Christ each of us becomes “the man” of glorious destiny. On the strength of Paul’s exhilarating words, it follows that we may also pray as Jesus did: ‘And now, O Father, glorify us together with Yourself, with the glory that we too had with You in Christ before the world was!’
(It should go without saying that we may pray like this without claiming a temporal pre-existence for ourselves!)
(6) “He (Christ) indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Pet. 1:20,21).
Genesis 1:26 is about the foreordained purpose of God. By the time we come to John 17, God has brought His purpose nearly to fulfillment in Christ. After John 17, our Lord, who asked for the glory of God in the face of death, was raised from the dead and given the glory that he asked for. The purpose of God for man was achieved. Our salvation in him is sure!
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One