His-Story and Our-Story

     God’s story (His-story) is completely told within the first chapter of Genesis. God finished (completed) His work and rested (ceased) in the Seventh day. The seventh day is the day of completeness. Therefore, throughout the Bible, the number seven is the number of completeness or perfection. Man's story (history) is all contained within the sixth day of creation, which is presently playing out. In order to understand just how this can be true we need to understand more about TIME and ETERNITY.
     Time was created when all the stuff of the heavens and the earth were created. Mankind dwells in time. Before and after creation God was and is and is now. The revealed name of God to Moses and the children of Israel is YHWH. Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton.” The exact pronunciation of the name YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the name to be so sacred that God’s name should never be uttered out loud. The name means “I AM.” In other words, God is eternal! God is an eternal NOW. God is!
     Man lives within the confines of creation where time unfolds—this is man’s history. Man’s history lives within the confines of God the creator—His-story. How do these relate to one another? How do these work together? I heard a preacher give what I consider to be an apt illustration of this that may help in our understanding. Please keep in mind that when it comes to God no earthly analogy is perfect.
     The preacher likened man’s time to that of a parade marching down main street. Imagine, if you will, each one of us sitting on the curbside watching the parade go by, band after band, young ladies twirling their batons, and floats with young men and women waving to us. Each according to their time they pass by on-by-one. We see only what is in front of us, not knowing what will come next. Off in the distance we hear suggestive sounds of what may come, but we still do not know for certain. We must wait for time to pass by. This is time from man’s view vantage point. Now imagine, if you will, that God is resting on the top of the tallest building in town overlooking the whole parade. God sees both the beginning and the end of the parade all at the same time. God can look at individual parts of the parade or look at the whole—whatever He chooses. Add to this, that since God is the Creator of that parade, He is in control of it. The whole parade will go just as God has planned. God exists in an “eternal now.”
     Yes, the baton twirler might drop her baton, yes the drummer might skip a beat, but the parade as a whole WILL indeed unfold as planned. Mankind’s imperfections and God’s will work together. The whole parade is described in the seven days of creation in Genesis chapter one (His-Story); the actual marching out of this parade is the rest of man’s story (history) as told from Genesis 2:4 until the end of the book of Revelation.
     Throughout history (man’s story) God spoke through His prophets and revealed to us insights into God’s-Story. Prophets were seers into God’s completed work. When God looks upon mankind, He always sees His completed work from start to finish. We only see in part in our now.
     Examples of this are throughout scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments.

EXAMPLE ONE:   (Old Testament)

Exodus 6:6–8 (ESV) "Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord [YHWH—I AM], and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord [YHWH—I AM] your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord [YHWH—I AM].'"

     This passage is all about Israel’s exodus from slavery in Egypt. Notice the eight “I Will” passages emboldened in this passage. God is speaking. The Hebrew verbs are in the “perfect” aspect form of the verb. This means that the action is complete, viewed as a whole (parade) from the speaker’s (God’s) portrayal of the event described.[1] Mankind’s portrayal of this same event would be to describe it either in real time, that is, as it unfolds moment-by-moment through the passage of time or as a hopeful futuristic event still yet to be or as a moment-by moment retelling of a past event. God instructs Moses to inform the Israelites that it is done—believe it! What we see as “not yet” God sees as “already.” God speaks from the Seventh Day (the completed day).

EXAMPLE TWO:   (New Testament)

Romans 6:5–6 (ESV)  “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”

Galatians 2:20 (ESV)  “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

     The apostle Paul speaks of already “having been crucified” in both of these passages of scripture. This is the perfect tense in the Greek. This denotes completion or viewed as “ALREADY” complete. This action is not viewed as a past event, but rather as a completed certainty in the mind of the speaker. Paul would never say that he is perfectly dead to his old-nature (mankind’s nature) in real time. He is saying that in God’s time and according to God’s promise Paul’s sinful nature will certainly be totally dead and crucified. Yet he also speaks of the “NOT YET” future when he states, “we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:5).” This is not completed either—it is the ongoing certain hope of the one who believes (embraces God’s certain realities).
     What does this mean to you and me? It means that we should believe God! God and His REALITY must be our REALITY! In God our hope is certain and will be complete as God is already complete. This is the reality of God’s rest (Sabbath). We rest in Him. What is expected from us is to declare, like Paul, the “AMEN” or the “so be it.” We give God our “Yes” to His perfect plan and it WILL BE DONE. This is living in God’s Story (His-story).
     Does this truth actually play out in scripture? Some examples might help at this point.
     Adam was told that the day he ate of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” that he would surely die. Well, Adam ate of this tree and he did not IMMEDIATELY die. In fact, Adam lived to the grand old age of 930 (Genesis 5:5). Adam must have wondered if God lied or did not really mean what He had said. Adam may have lived for hundreds of years wondering. Yet at the age of 930 Adam died! What God revealed through His Apostle Peter is important here:

2 Peter 3:8–9 (ESV)  "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

     Noah was told by God that He was going to destroy all the living on the face of the earth with a flood. Noah believed God and began building the Ark (container) according to God’s specifications. After a long 100 years of building the ark, Noah finished the work and seven days later God brought forth the rains—exactly what God said would happen.
     Abraham was promised a son that would be born from his wife Sarah. God did not bring forth the son until Abraham was 100 and his wife Sarah was 90, far beyond the age of child bearing (Geneses 17:17). God even revealed to Abraham that the multitudes of son and daughters that would be born from them would eventually be enslaved in Egypt and freed to take the promised land that God had shown to Abraham.

Genesis 15:13–16 (ESV)  "Then the Lord said to Abram, 'Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land [Egypt] that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment [the plagues] on the nation [Egypt] that they serve, and afterward they shall come out [Passover and Red Sea] with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age [175]. 16 And they shall come back here [promised land—Canaan] in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites [Canaanites] is not yet complete.'" 

      All of man’s history (man’s story) is God’s eternal now and will play out just as God has revealed. This is what is behind the words, “Know for certain” in the above scripture. Abraham, indeed, received a son, Isaac, from his wife Sarah. The Israelites, indeed, were enslaved four hundred years in the Egypt and by God’s outstretched mighty arm brought out the Israelites from this slavery. Joshua and the Israelites, indeed, inherited the promised land, Canaan. These are the facts of history now (according to our history).
     Jesus promised that we would be born again and receive eternal life to all that believed in Him.

John 3:3 (ESV)  "Jesus answered him, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'"

John 3:16 (ESV)  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

     Although many of us have believed in His name and do not yet feel the full effects of that new birth and do not yet feel very eternal at this time, know for certain:

Philippians 1:6 (ESV)  "And I am sure of this [know for certain], that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)  "Now may the God of peace himself sanctify [set apart—qadosh] you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept [watched over, guarded, protected, shielded] blameless [faultless, innocent, lily white] at the coming [parousia—name for the Holy Spirit—also means presence] of our Lord Jesus Christ."

     For you see, God sees as complete what we see as unfolding. What we experience in time is metered out to us in what the scripture says is “in season[2]” or “the proper time.[3]” or “made manifest.[4]” Therefore, what we see as imperfect (ourselves) is actually already made perfect in God’s time. God sees His finished work and we see only what He is doing in us in our time. We are to see what God sees (faith—“believing is seeing”) as already complete from His vantage point, not what we see (sight—“seeing is believing”), that is, our present imperfections, our incomplete state. When we believe God and His finished work we enter into God’s Sabbath rest (the seventh day) spoken of in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 4:1–3 (ESV)  “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest. . . .”


This is living in God’s camp!


REALITY CHECK  “Knowing for certain” is how to believe in God.

Matthew 4:4 (ESV)   But he [Jesus] answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live [reality] by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”




[1] Aspect (Perfectivity): Verbal aspect is a way of portraying an event (it ‘reflects the subjective conception or portrayal by the speaker’—Fanning 1990:31). A basic division is between imperfective and perfective aspects. When imperfective aspect is used to describe an event, the event is portrayed as not completed. The verbal participle in Hebrew has imperfective aspect because it portrays events as in process or as not completed at the point of reference . . . .  When perfective aspect is used to describe an event, the event is portrayed as a whole (‘a complete and undifferentiated process’—Porter 1992:21 . . . .

Fanning, Buist M. 1990. Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

[2] Ecclesiastes 3:1 (ESV) “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:”
[3] 1 Peter 5:6 (ESV) “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,” 
[4] 1 Peter 1:20 (ESV) “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.”