The Narrative – Theology as Story – Part 1

Here I’m holding 3 dandelion stems measuring 2 and a half feet each!  My son Elisha pulled them and we talked about how creative God is.  We are also creative beings.  So in that creative spirit I present theology as story, something I call the Narrative, because I suppose any disciple of Jesus could write one and add their own perspective on the Great Story of God and his people:

 

“What was before the beginning, before the beginning when the first heaven was formed, even before the first heaven was formed?”

“There was the I Am.  The I Am was good.  He fellowshipped within Himself.  The Great Father spoke and His Word was always there, coming from Him, He was Him, His Son, always dancing in His Spirit, who was Him, who also flowed from Him.  Just as He has a Spirit, we also have a spirit.  Do you understand?”

“No, not fully.”

“Indeed it is a mystery.  But can you perceive it as if from afar?”

“Yes, a mystery, I think so.  But was He only good and not evil at all?  Or could He have been both evil and good as some people say?  They call it the balance.”

“The I AM was and is and will be only ever good, since there is no darkness in Him at all.  He is a person within reality, not reality itself, though before time He was the only reality.  When He began creating with time He created something out of nothing and there was more than He, but He is not just an energy or the universe itself, or the feeble consciousness of mankind.  They are because He is, not the other way around.”

“But if He was good, before the beginning, then evil must have existed.  You cannot have good without evil can you?  There was only Him, but did the shadow of Him co-exist somehow?”

“If so, not as a thing of substance, but only as a possibility.  Yet this thing we call good was simply life and there was no other way that was, not in existence, since He alone was and is and will be I AM.  He alone was, and He fellowshipped within Himself.”

“Was He not only like a Father, but like a Mother to his Son?”

“Yes, but more like a Father, a good Father, and a Son, and Spirit.  Those are the best ways to describe Him.  The Elohim, Majesties, yet the One Majesty.”

“With love and wisdom He speaks, His Word creates, His Breath overshadows.  Word would become man, but already was in eternity, in timelessness, the Messenger of I AM.”

“A Messenger to whom?”

“The Great Bride of course; He does not need her, He wants her.  She must want Him also, for it to be love.  He wants a Bride who will love Him of her own free will.  They were made after His image.”

“Who are they?”

“Male and female; they must have free will so that a Bride will come from them for Him, her Husband.”

“How will this come to be?”

“Listen now; first there must be a beginning, a beginning of time, a time for testing.  The first heaven was formed.  The messengers were formed; they were created like the Great Messenger, but not the Messenger Himself, for he was begotten of the Great Father.”

“Messengers to whom?”

“The Great Bride of course, but she does not come yet.  First the messengers must be tested, trained.  In the beginning I AM created the heavens…

“Son of Morning was created best.  He must pass the message on to the Great Bride so that she can surpass him.  Yet the I AM knew that Son of Morning would fail the test.  It must be then.  She must want Him.  It is best.  Let it begin.

“Even in His Presence – there were no secrets then – Son of Morning swelled on account of his own beauty.  He was guard to the garden of the I AM and His Bride.  He walked among the fiery stones and they could not hurt him because he was refined.  He was perfect, yet under the I AM.  Yet when morning dawn became day he looked into his own mirror to behold his own reflection, becoming self-aware, and he swelled.  He said to himself, ‘Just as the Bride will be made to surpass me, so I will surpass I AM.’  He said in his heart, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

“Each messenger held a star, set in the heavens, to declare the glory of the I AM to the Bride, but a third of them joined Son of Morning in battle.  Light set against light, lights set against the Source of light.

“But the one who is like the Great Messenger took the many stars and fought back with I AM’s power shining through them.  Then Son of Morning went from day to night.

“Darkness, darkness was born, but only after the little earth had been formed.  The I AM made light through His Word, Love and Wisdom and called it good.  By doing so He had formed darkness also.  Son of Morning set himself against the I AM, the messengers of light, and the Great Bride thereafter.  He became the adversary.  The adversary wielded darkness and tried to pervert it.  He took from the shadow.  He took from the Abyss, where I Am was not, the great Nothingness and sought to pervert good with it, though he knew it would burn him in the end like an unquenchable fire, he used it to destroy in his rage.  Wanting to become lord of darkness, darkness became lord over him.  He had fallen from good.  Wickedness was found in him and then it dominated him and he crafted his own perverted form of darkness.

“The light thundered with lightning and sent the adversary crashing down to little earth.  Son of Morning would still fulfill his purpose, willing or not.  Adversary then roamed through the fires of earth, seeking to have vengeance.

“But the Breath of I Am began creating earth in its shape and diversity.  Toward the end of his first days creating earth He made the earthling, the little girl who might someday be His Bride.  He separated earthling and made man and woman like Himself.  He wanted many children to be like His Son, a Bride for Him.  But she must want Him also.

(To be continued…)