The late Herbert W. Armstrong compared most people’s understanding of the Bible to walking in on a movie partway through. It is very confusing to start watching a movie an hour in, without knowing the context and the events that led up to that particular scene. The same principle applies to the Bible. To comprehend its true story, we must go back to the real beginning—which is not found in Genesis 1:1.

Eternal Prehistory

God inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). He has existed with the Word forever, longer than time itself. John takes us back to a time before God created the angels and man, a time when He and the Word dwelled alone in the universe. That is the real beginning.

The real beginning of history can be found in John 1. These verses unlock and reveal so much about the Bible. They are the key to the entire book. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). John begins his epistles and his gospel account the same way: by pointing us back to the beginning, before any spiritual or physical creation, and perhaps millions of years before the re-creation of Earth depicted in Genesis 1:1.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

The Apostle John is the only New Testament writer to refer to Jesus Christ as the Word. He was Christ’s closest companion. Christ gave John a deeper spiritual understanding than the other apostles.

Other Beginnings

The real beginning gives us insight into a plethora of smaller beginnings. “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Ephesians 3 shows that “all things” includes the universe. God created the universe through the Word. This is the beginning of the physical creation.

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:1-7). The angels shouted for joy at the universe’s creation. This is another beginning.

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28:15). The archangel Lucifer rebelled and became Satan, leading a third of the angels astray. This is another beginning that only makes sense if we know about the real beginning.

God had commanded Lucifer and the angels under him to rule the Earth and put the finishing touches on its creation before doing the same throughout the universe. Their rebellion was the greatest crisis ever to that point.

God’s Greatest Creation

“Now came the crowning pinnacle of even God’s unmatched creative power,” wrote Herbert W. Armstrong in a letter to members of the Worldwide Church of God. “Now came the very zenith of all divine accomplishment. Now came a project so incredulously, transcendentally awesome, it is hard for the human mind to grasp! Now God decided after the angels rebelled to re-create Himself in man because it was the only way that the Earth and the universe could be ruled by anybody other than Himself. Only He could be trusted to rule the Earth and the universe, so He decided to re-create Himself in man.”

What a vision! Thousands of years after the Word created the universe, He became the Son of God when God begot Him in the womb of the virgin Mary. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

“And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God” (Revelation 19:13). Once again, John refers to Jesus Christ as the Word. He is showing us how a Being who lived in perfect harmony with the Father for all time became a physical man and died for the sins of the world! Our sins caused the death of God! We must never take sin lightly.

“This is the Word who created all things and was eternal before the angels or the universe were created,” I wrote in my booklet From the Beginning. “The great Being’s vesture was dipped in blood. He became a man and shed His blood for lowly men, for you! Remember the price that was paid for your sins. This is what you need to remember ‘from the beginning.’” You need to understand deeply who died for you. This understanding needs the deepest kind of emphasis in your mind. John is reminding us and himself who this Jesus Christ really was, who He was from the beginning!

The Word—the Godhead Spokesman—became flesh and died. One of two God Beings had to die for you. God the Father directed this whole process.

John called Jesus Christ the Word four times: John 1:1, 14; I John 1:1 and Revelation 19:13. Each of these verses focuses our minds on the real beginning.

First-Century Apostasy

By the time John wrote his gospel account and his epistles, Christ had been resurrected for 30 years. During the time John spent imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos, he pondered the real beginning. He shared this deep vision with his congregations, which endured savage persecution in the latter half of the first century. Dissidents attacked God’s Church from without and within. This is an exact type of what happened to the Church in this end time.

Ninety-five percent of God’s people have cast Him out of the Church in this end time. In John’s day, Diotrephes led the rebellion. Today, God targets one man as the cause of the apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:2-4).

“Little children, it is the last time [hour is a better translation]: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). After Mr. Armstrong’s death in 1986, an antichrist—one man—turned the Church to idolatry. This is a sign that we are in the last hour before Jesus Christ’s return!

A loyal remnant fights for Christ today. A much larger group fights against Christ. God wants to give us eternal life just as He gave to Jesus Christ after He qualified to replace Satan on Earth’s throne. He wants billions of sons! We must remain loyal to attain that reward.

We must understand the real beginning—when God and Christ were all alone out in space. Then we will understand the true story of the Bible and the meaning of world events in this last hour.