ACT THREE: THE FALL

“Redemption is big enough, wonderful enough, to occupy a very large place in our vision. But God is saying that we should not make redemption to be everything, as though man were created to be redeemed. The Fall is indeed a tragic dip downwards in that line of purpose, and the atonement a blessed recovery whereby our sins are blotted out and we are restored. But when it is accomplished, there yet remains a work to be done to bring us into possession of that which Adam never possessed, and to give God that which His heart desires. For God has never forsaken the purpose which is represented by that straight line.” God’s Ultimate Intention, DeVern Fromke

"On the one hand, the church has never seen the Fall.  She has been in Christ from before time. Just as Eve existed in Adam before the Fall, so too the church has eternally been in Christ. On the other hand, the church is made up of very fallen people.  Now that's quite a paradox."  God's Ultimate Passion, Frank Viola

ACT THREE/INTRO
THE FALL

What a glorious beginning, but all was not right in paradise. God’s plan to multiply His image on earth would be challenged by what theologians commonly call "the Fall.” God’s remedy would be the sending of His beloved Son to bridge the awful chasm the Fall produced between God and the man He created in His own Image.

And this remedial plan would be called “Redemption!”

But this “redemption” is not the whole story that some of us have made it. God’s purpose for you is not only heaven. God’s purpose is that He, the God of very God, would have a place on this earth that would multiply His image and fill it with His glory! His desire is to live in His people, to be their God. God has never wavered from His eternal plan to have His Triune Fellowship breathed in-to His vessel that would contain His life on this planet.

Again I say, God never wavered from His plan--but we know man did. It was man who fell from the plan, not God. And God would see to it that man would not only be restored as in a Paradise Regained, but this plan of restoration would contain within itself a seed of even greater glory and wonder than the first. The New Creation would not only bear the Image of God, but would become His Bride, joint-participants in the Son Place!

ACT THREE
THE FALL

Two trees planted in the Garden of God…Two trees!
The Tree of Life, as God has Life in Himself, the “Grace” tree.
The second tree, inferior to the first, "the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” the “Law” tree.

By Grace, man lives from the inside out.
By Law, man lives from the outside in.

By Grace, Christ’s life is written on the tablets of the heart.
By Law, God’s will is written on tablets of stone.

By Grace, man lives by Christ’s resources.
By Law, man lives by human resources.

By Grace, each moment of life is a victory.
By Law, each moment of life is a defeat.

By Grace, we live by what Christ does in us.
By Law, we live by what we do for God.

By Grace, we are the righteousness of God in Christ.
By Law, our righteousness is as filthy rags.

The Tree of Life speaks of living an
Exchanged Life!
an Abiding Life!
a Victorious Life!
a Holy Life!
by and through the One Life
the Life of Christ!.

God’s passion is to live in His people...
to be their very life...to...

Empower
Invigorate
Infuse and
Saturate
His people...

not just with a distant knowledge of Himself,
but to be
the very content of their lives, their
Center and Circumference!
Apogee and Perigee!
Alpha and Omega!
the very Breath they breathe!
the Sustainer and Strength of their existence. 

But the Usurper whispered into the ears of our first parents
and told them lies.....
"Has God said?" 
"Surely, you won't die!"

Then doubt and suspicion crept into their hearts
unholy
evil
virulent...
that God wasn't Who He said He was...
and...
self-exaltation usurped the throne
meant for God's presence alone. 

Yes! Man came to the ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”
and there he did eat!
and there he died to the Grace of God and
the God of Grace...
beating in His very heart and now...
His presence within them was...
Put out utterly!
Extinguished by the deceit...
of self-will.

Now the darkness of human history begins.
Thorns belch from the earth!
The very animals that lived in harmony now battle for supremacy
by Tooth and Claw! Blood and Bone!

Rather than God’s presence and character living in the heart of man...
Hatred!
Lust!
Strife!
Pride!
War!
Reign supreme and unchallenged.
And the shimmerinig God-Image that dwelt in man
succumbs to a shadow of its former self.

But in the Fall,
there is also a promise.
A promise at the very beginning that would lead to a new beginning…
a promise that One would come to set things right.
The God that created the human race
because of His passion to expand and express, to magnify and multiply the fellowship
would enter the human race and would take another role.  The Creator would become
The Redeemer!

And here is the first promise:
"I will put enmity between you (the Usurper) and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers.
He (the Messiah) will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15).

Many more promises of this Deliverer would come.
Many more descriptions of what He would do would follow...
of His suffering
of His humility
of His crushing
for the sins of the world and that...
He wold come again to this planet in
the CLOUDS OF GLORY!
Not as the Lamb of God
but THE LION!

But this first promise shows the universe
and the demonic powers
that God is on top of things!
Nothing has taken Him by surprise!

The Redeemer would come and His heel would
be crushed (in crucifixion) by the Usurper but
The Redeemer would crush the Usurper's head...
a final blow! in Resurrection! In Ascension! And most of all...
by living in His people, walking in them,
expressing His
Resurrected
Ascended
Radiant!
Incorruptible Life!
In multi-splendored ways!

He would have
His Bride!
His Ekklesia!
His Expression of Himself!
The Fellowship that existed before time!
And He Himself would
Pay the Price!
Suffer the Penalty!
That was our Due!

What a Savior!
What a Lord!
What a Redeemer
is Christ our Lord!


God, we praise Thee for Thy mercy,
  'Tis so great and so profound!
In our weakness and our failures;
  With its greatness it abounds.
We adoreThee! we adore Thee!
  With such mercy we've been crowned!

How we marvel at this mercy
  So far-reaching and so vast!
It has reached us, e'en the sinners,
  And will ever hold us fast.
From this mercy, from this mercy,
  What can cause us to be cast?

For Thy mercy we are grateful,
  'Tis so rich, so plenteous!
Thru Thy mercy in redemption,
  Thou hast richly favored us.
If without this, if without this,
  How could we be favored thus?

ACT TWO: THE PLAN

Thine own purpose gave us being,
When in Christ, in that vast plan,
Thou in Christ didst choose Thy people
E’en before the world began.
Oh, what love Thou, Father, bore us!
Oh, how precious in thy sight!
When to thine own Son Thou gav’st us,
To Thy Son, Thy soul’s delight.

“If you had one son in whom you found unspeakable delight, would it not be normal as a father to want many more? It is exactly so with the eternal Father, Who by nature and choice, has desired and proposed to have a vast family of human-divine sons who are just like His only begotten Son.

“Further, as we view from His heart, it seems evident that the Father makes all His plans with His eternal Son in view. In the unfolding ages ahead, Jesus Christ might have a glorious Body in which to express His very life, and a family of brothers with whom He might enjoy fellowship.

“That as we understand the innermost purpose of the Son, we see how in turn He dedicates Himself to helping the Father realize His intention for Himself, that His Father might have a family of sons in whom HE can have paternal honor, glory, pleasure and delight. The Father plans for His son, whereas the Son lives unto the Father.

“So it is in the Godhead. In a sense no member lives for or unto Himself, but Each for and unto the Other. The Father intends that in all things the Son might have pre-eminence. The Son in turn lives to reveal the Father and thus brings glory and pleasure to Him. Likewise the Spirit speaks not of Himself (not for Himself) but dedicates His activity to reveal the Son and to realize the purpose and goal of both the Father and Son.” God’s Ultimate Intention, DeVern Fromke

ACT TWO/INTRO

THE PLAN

And now we come to the “first” beginning as God the Father and God the Son begin their work of expanding and multiplying the fellowship that existed in their dance, their fellowship of love before time, before the foundation of the world.

This plan stretches the bounds of our imagination, but in a way it all makes perfect sense. I mean, think about it. Have you ever had something that was so wonderful, so good, so utterly delightful that you just had to share it with others? Has your heart ever over-flowed and over-glowed in such a way that it wanted to just spill out all over the place?  The joy of God in His fellowship with the Son, and the Son for His Father,  would "go viral." Like a wind-swept prairie fire, no corner of the universe could hide from the Love of God.

I think this must be how it was with God before time. I think “the plan” they conceived grew out of their joy unspeakable and full of glory! That explosive joy flooded out of their joint love as a River of Life! Now the fellowship sought equal partners and participants in the dance that existed before time, even before the foundation of the world. They not only desired to expand the fellowship, but their desire was to give it the characteristic of a spiritual explosion, to multiply it a thousand fold, to fill a universe of their own design, where God would be “All in All" as it was "before the foundation of the world."

ACT TWO

THE PLAN

In The Heart Of This Celestial Dance
This River Of Life And Glory
The Eternal Life
The Zoe Life that existed in the Godhead
Flowing from the dual-thrones
Of God and the Lamb
This Celestial Fire Of Joy And Endless Rapture…
A plan was conceived in the Godhead before time to

EXPAND!
EXPRESS!
MAGNIFY! and
MULTIPLY!

The fellowship of the Father and the Son
That existed before time
In the divine US...

The L O V E! of God would be
SHED ABROAD
From the
Heart of God…
Into a lowly vessel of earth…
So that the praise would be of God and not of men…(II Cor. 4:6-7).

A vessel would be created that would CONTAIN God's life
Even in its fullness…
The fullness of Him Who fills
All in All (Eph. 1:23).

A PLAN SUPERNAL!
WONDERFUL BEYOND ALL TELLING!
BREATH TAKING!

And their plan was inaugurated by seven words—
Seven words spoken in the passion of the Three-Personned Life of God—

And thus God spoke out of the fullness of HIS Heart the Hidden Treasure of His Heart…Priceless beyond measure…

“LET US MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE!”

The implications of this plan were breathtaking!
The Godhead would EXPAND and EXPRESS...
MAGNIFY and MULTIPLY the fellowship
That existed before TIME
in lowly CONTAINERS of earth.

Now somewhere,
before this plan was conceived in eternity past,
God created beings called “angels”
and when they heard this “plan”
they held their breath and were filled with awe and wonder.
For the angels knew
they weren’t created in God’s image.

Oh yes! They knew
that whatever God was planning
was a secret beyond imagination...
even the imagination of angels.

And the angels were filled with awe and
desired greatly to look into these things (I Pet. 1:12) .

So God began “the work” to fulfill His plan…
Conceived Before Time.

The Divine Father,
through the Son,
then created all that is
by the command of His mouth
in order to have a habitation suitable
and worthy of “the vessel”
that would CONTAIN the fellowship,
in its FULLNESS, as joint participants,

With God,
In God
By God and
For God.

He Spoke and...
Galaxies were spun out.
Universes came into being.
Stars to guide man's nights.
A Sun to warm his days.

And then the earth….
And creatures on the earth
of innumerable species
with SEED WITHIN ITSELF
That would multiply
AFTER THEIR KIND. ..

And every desirable tree with fruit
With seed WITHIN ITSELF
That would multiply
AFTER THEIR KIND.

And then God did something beyond belief!
He stooped down...Oh so very low
And by hand, tenderly crafted His “vessel”
The vessel that would CONTAIN Him…in His fullness…
With SACRED SEED WITHIN ITSELF
That would multiply
AFTER ITS KIND.

So God made man—male and female—out of the lowest
elements on earth…of mud and clay.
And when He finished building His man—by hand—He did something extraordinary…
something that caused the angels to gasp in disbelief!

He placed His mouth over the nostrils of His earthen vessel
and He breathed in-to it…

THE BREATH OF LIFE!
SUPERNAL LIE!
HOLY LIFE!
ZOE* LIFE...
This was the Community of Love! Life!and Glory!
The Life of...
CELESTIAL FIRE!
That existed in the Godhead
Before Time!

For the first time from all eternity, there was a new species in time
who CONTAINED not only biological life but CONTAINED God-Life, IN itself…
that could reproduce after its own kind.

And God said...

"Be fruitful and...
MULTIPLY!...
(the LIFE I have planted within you)

The Fellowship...
the Celestial Fire that existed from Eternity Past now lives IN this new man just like it lived IN God.

Out of the inner-most being of God...His deepest self...
was breathed in-to man...in-to his deepest self...
God’s own Community of life!

And God was so well-pleased because
The fellowship that existed IN Him,
in Eternity Past,
was now out of Him...in Time
in a vessel made of clay and God said...

"This is VERY good!"

GOD'S FELLOWSHIP
That existed in Eternity Past
Is now

ON THE EARTH!

Now the divine dance!
The Celestial Fire! of the Father and the Son
would multiply and fill the earth with its glory!
And the Passion and Pleasure Of God
In expanding and expressing their fellowship
In bringing it to earth and planting it in the CONTAINER of Adam
and his beloved Eve
Would bring to the Godhead great pleasure...
And this they called their

“HOPE OF GLORY!”

But we know that all things were not right in Paradise!
The plan conceived in the heart of God before time
Would suffer an "interruption" by the Usurper!
who was lurking in the shadows...scheming...
plotting...in his cunning hatred of "God's plan."

But God knew what would happen
and had a plan
to restore
"the plan"
conceived "before the foundation of the world".

He would "send His Very Own Son" to be...
the "Son of Man"
the "New Man"
the "Second Man"
the "Glorified Man"

Who would contain "the Life"
In Himself...Full of Grace and Truth!
that would again "reproduce after HIS own Kind."
The Life of the Fellowship in God.

And it would cost God
EVERYTHING!

God's eternal purpose
Is to join with man;
Causing man, His vessel,
To be born again,
His own life imparting,
Filling to the brim;
Man may thus express Him,
And be one with Him.

God in His own image
Hath created man,
That he may be able
To fulfill His plan;
That he may receive Him
As the tree of life
To become His fulness
As to man the wife.

*"Zoe" Life, or the Life as God has in Himself, incorruptible, holy, eternal, divine.

ACT ONE: THE FELLOWSHIP BEFORE TIME

“God is love” (I John 4:8) and this means that He is a community of loving Persons. His very being, His existence is to love. For God, to be is to love. This means that God is constantly leaving Himself to give Himself to and to exist in Another. Each person of the Trinity exists in relationship toward Another. God is Father in relationship to the Son. The Son exists and lives only in and for the Father to whom He gives Himself entirely. Their mutual love expresses itself in a procession of Personified love, the Holy Spirit. To pray in the heart is to experience this immense circulation of love among the Persons within the divine family, drawing us into that same community of love.” George A. Maloney S.J,, Invaded by God: Mysticism and the Indwelling Trinity

“When we encounter God there is no individual to confront. For we encounter and are drawn into relationship, reciprocity, the dynamism of mutual love and self-giving going on within God. Utterly unlike the splendid isolation of the “Supreme Being” of conventional monotheism, the life of the Trinity known in Christian worship and prayer has within itself the fullness of what we experience in community, intimacy and sacrificial love!

“Prayer is already going on in God. In the love the All-embracing Father has for the Son, and in the love the Son has for the Father, in the issuing of the Spirit from the Father and the Spirit’s return in the love of the Son, there is everything we mean by prayer—intimacy, adoration, self-offering, love, desire, crucifyingly acute sympathy for a world torn by pain and joy. Our prayer is not making conversation with God. It is joining the conversation that is already going on in God. It is being invited to participate in the relationships of intimacy between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is an eternal dance already in full swing, and we are caught up in to it. Prayer is allowing ourselves to join the dance and experience the movements, the constant interplay of the Persons of the Trinity.” Martin L. Smith, The Word is Very Near You: A Guide to Praying with Scripture

“The Great Dance has been from all eternity and first and foremost in the Love that has always been going on between the Father and the Son. Lewis (C.S.) says, ‘What grows out of the joint life of he Father and the Son is a real Person, is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God.’ To enter into the Dance, then, is to enter the Holy Spirit and to enter the living, dynamic activity of Love that has always been between the Father and the Son.” Leanne Payne, Real Presence: The Glory of Christ with Us and Within Us

ACT ONE/INTRO

THE FELLOWSHIP BEFORE TIME

There is only one way to begin this journey and it is by first turning our attention to Paul’s glorious words of praise and proclamation in his opening remarks in his letter to the Ephesian ekklesia ( 1:3):

"Blessed be the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him in love."

A.C. Gaebelein writes of this passage in Ephesians (“God’s Masterpiece"):

"...this is without doubt the greatest doxology in the entire Word of God” and “is the key to the great revelation which follows in this chapter…the bud which the Holy Spirit gradually unfolds.”

Everything in the Christian life flows out of this revelation given to Paul. In order to know, to appreciate, what the spiritual blessings are in the heavenly realms, we must step back before time, before the foundation of the world, a time so hidden from us by our mortal frame and yet from where we derive “all spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ…before the foundation of the world.”

This place before time in the joint life of the enthroned Father and the Son is the headwaters of the Christian life. In that place, the heavenly realm, before time, there was only One who was before the Father “holy and without blemish” and that was Christ, the Son of God.

In this place before time, there was a fellowship in the Godhead, between the Father and the Son. John writes of this fellowship in rhapsodic prose in his first epistle (1:1-4):

“We are writing to you about something which has always existed yet which we ourselves actually saw and heard: something which we had an opportunity to observe closely and even to hold in our hands, and yet, as we know now, was something of the very Word of life himself! For it was life which appeared before us: we saw it, we are eye-witnesses of it, and are now writing to you about it. It was the very life of all ages, the life that has always existed with the Father, which actually became visible in person to us mortal men.

"We repeat, we really saw and heard what we are now writing to you about. We want you to be with us in this—in this fellowship with the Father and Jesus Christ his Son. We must write and tell you about it, because the more that fellowship extends the greater the joy it brings to us who are already in it.”

The life the apostles saw was the life of the Father and the Son that always existed, before time, before the foundation of the world. This life became visible in the person of Jesus Christ, which always existed with the Father.

“We want you to be with us in this—in this fellowship with the father and Jesus Christ His Son (that always existed in the eternals). We must write and tell you about it, because the more that fellowship extends the greater the joy it brings to us who are already in it.”

“The more THAT fellowship extends the greater the joy it brings to us WHO ARE ALREADY IN IT.” It is the fellowship of the Father and the Son that Jesus came to bring us and to extend on this planet. John is not writing about a future heaven but of the fellowship with the Father and Jesus Christ His Son RIGHT NOW! to those of “us who are already in it.”

"I will continue to speak of Yourname Father, in order that Your love, which was poured out on Me, will be in them, and I will be in them."  John 17:26

ACT ONE
THE FELLOWSHIP BEFORE TIME

WHILE SOME STORIES BEGIN
“Once upon a time,”

NOT THIS STORY.

You must realize that this story,
THE STORY OF ALL STORIES,

Begins……………………….before time,

before ALL beginnings or endings or anything in be tween.

In Eternity Past,

Before Time existed…
or Space
or Matter

There was God and God was…

“ALL IN ALL!”

There were no heavens or firmament to contain HIM

for HE was EVERYTHING.

There were no...
Angels
Cherubs
Or Seraphim.

No Devils
Or Fallen Angels.

No Sun, Moon or Stars.
No Galaxies or Supernovas.
No Rainbows or Rainstorms.
No Mountains or Oceans.

No Men or Children of Men.
And certainly...there Were no holy "things.”

NO HOLY…
Temples
Churches.
Synagogues.
Cathedrals.
Kingdom Halls.
NO HOLY…
Steeples.
Stained Glass.
Sermons.
NO HOLY..
Clergy.
Bishops.
Archbishops.
Priests.
NO HOLY…
Choirs.
Masses.
Orders of Service.
Hierarchies.
Liturgies.
NO HOLY…
Sacraments.
Vestments.
Altars
Pulpits
T.V. Preachers

No-THING existed because God
Who is infinite personality…

This Triune community of
Father,
Son and
Spirit

Was…(And this bears repeating)

“ALL IN ALL!”

Yes, Beloved. There was ONLY GOD
and GOD was EVERYTHING!
And while nothing else existed,
The most staggering thing of all…
This God…Who was EVERYTHING…
And ALL that existed was…
and still is…
and always shall be…

L O V E!

You see…there was a communion, A fellowship of L O V E!
IN God and TOWARD God…
In the L O V E of the FATHER for the SON
and the Son for the Father
and this L O V E was the Height and Depth
The Breadth and Width
of ALL that God was
Who Was Everything!

GOD WAS “IN-LOVE” WITH GOD
And this L O V E was IN God and Could be found
Nowhere else.

At least…Not yet!

THIS CELESTIAL DANCE
EXISTED IN THE GODHEAD
BEFORE TIME!

The FATHER and the SON
delighted in each other’s company…in each other’s hearts…
and especially…in beholding each other’s faces.
And this rhapsody of L O V E was the

PASSION and PLEASURE Of God’s heart
Flowing like a torrential river.

And this rhapsody of L O V E had a name—
and its name was...

S P I R I T!

The Comforter
The Helper
The Spirit was the Outflow,
The Music of the Dance going on in the Godhead
Before Time.
Before the Foundation of the World.

The Outpouring of their L O V E!
Bursting forth as a fountain of
JOY UNSPEAKABLE
Out of the Throne of their Heart
One-toward-the-Other.

And it looked like…

C E L E S T I A L F I R E!

The Father delighted IN HIS Son.

He called HIS Son—

“THE BELOVED.”

The Son lived IN the bosom of the Father,
beholding HIS Father’s face.
The Son delighted IN the Father
and called HIS Father—

“ABBA.”

Behold! How They Loved Each Other!

Only The Father Sees And Knows The Son.
Only The Son Sees And Knows The Father. (Mat. 11:25-27).
Hear now the Son speak of
All that existed before Time,
When there was nothing but God
and God’s L O V E toward and in God was
ALL IN ALL:

“Father…You loved Me before the foundation of the world…yea, when You established the heavens, I was there…beside You, like a Master Workman, and I was daily Your delight, rejoicing before You always” (John 17:24, Proverbs 8:267, 30).

Hear now the Father speak of
All that existed before Time,
When there was nothing else but God
and God’s L O V E toward and in God was
ALL IN ALL:

“This is my Beloved Son in Whom my soul delights.
I loved HIM before the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 12:18-20).

And in their love for one another
And out of their love they conceived a plan...
A staggering plan
Beyond all comprehension…
To expand their fellowship
On a planet they would call
“earth.”

Glory, glory, glory, praise and adoration!
Hear the anthems swelling out thro' all eternity!
Father, Son, and Spirit--God in revelation--
  Prostrate each soul before the Deity!

Father, source of glory, naming every fam'ly;
And the Son upholding all by His almighty power;
Holy Spirit, filling the vast scene of glory--
  O glorious Fulness, let our hearts adore!

God supreme, we worship now in holy splendor,
Head of the vast scene of bliss, before Thy face
  we fall!
Majesty and greatness, glory, praise and power
  To Thee belong, eternal Source of all!