Acting on a New Year’s resolution, I was sorting through a drawer of cards and correspondences that had been collecting dust. Among them, I found cards from friends and family as well as from a few special friends. As I sorted, I read the old cards and couldn’t help but notice a developing pattern. While the happy-birthday and merry-Christmas kind from friends and family typically ended with the word love, those cards from special friends typically ended with “love always” or “all my love always.” What made it more interesting was that of those special friends, none were special friends anymore. For whatever reason, the friendship or relationship had ended, and I’d had no ongoing contact with these people. That seemed odd, since at the time their love for me and mine for them was for “always.”
Amid my memories of times past and replaced friends and lost relationships, I began to think of new and old—beginnings and endings. And being a minister, my wandering thoughts turned to the Scriptures and the various beginnings of all things biblical.
Creation: beginning
The Bible says that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).* At some point before time began, God decided that there would be a beginning of some sort—the beginning of all things known to us as humans, including time, space, matter, the universe, solar systems, stars, and planets. The climax of the Creation event recorded in Genesis was God’s creation of the Sabbath. It was to be a holy time that would help us to always love and never forget the Creator who made all things.
The Bible says that God “formed the man from the dust of the ground” and “breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Genesis 2:7). God the “took out one of the man’s ribs” (verse 21) and from it “made a woman” (verse 22), symbolizing an equality of relationship. They did live for a time in a loving relationship with each other and with God. However, through a desire t “be like God” (Genesis 3:5), our first parents chose to break their relationship with Him and believe a lie told to them by the devil. As a consequence of this fateful decision, God removed them from the Garden and placed them under a curse (verses 16–24). Never again could they eat from the tree of life (verse 22). No longer would they always “be,” for death, ironically, had become part of the cycle of life.
Out of the Garden, a beginning. So began a new existence outside of the Garden, where thorns and thistles grew, where it was laborious to find and cultivate food, where it was painful to bear children, and where their bodies decayed, eventually turning back into the dust from which they came.
Out of the Garden, an ending. After many years, whe “the people began to multiply on the earth” (Genesis 6:1), God “observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil” (verse 5). It “broke his heart” (verse 6) to see this. None, it seemed, remembered Him as the God of love. No one remembered Him as the true Creator God—the One who had made all things, the One who had created the Sabbath as a reminder so that no one would forget Him. And so God said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. . . . I am sorry I ever made them” (verse 7).
New creation, beginning. But wait! There was one man who was a good man, who “walked in close fellowship with God” (verse 9). He and his family would be spared when water, out of which the world was created (see 2 Peter 3:5, 6), was sent to cleanse the earth. Just as the world in the beginning was formless and empty with darkness covering the waters, so it became again. But because Noah remembered God, God “remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1) and saved him. When the Flood receded and the animals were released, there began a new earth. God gave Noah the same blessing he had given to Adam: “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1). And God made a new covenant, a new relationship with Noah and his offspring. He promised that never again would He destroy the earth by flood (verses 8–11).
Tower of Babel, an ending. The offspring of Noah produced offspring until, once again, many tribes and clans occupied the earth. However, as time passed, they in turn forgot the promise God had given to Noah, although they did recall the Flood. So talking among themselves, they said, “Let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world” (Genesis 11:4). This was similar to the desire of Adam and Eve to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5). God confused the one language they all spoke so that they couldn’t communicate with each other, which forced them to abandon their building project and leave, spreading out across the earth as different language groups.
Nation, a beginning. After many generations had passed, in order to fulfill His promises, God chose to create a special nation of people from among those occupying the region of Mesopotamia, which means “between the rivers,” that is, between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
He began that nation with a man called Abram. God blessed Abram just as He had blessed Adam and Noah. He promised Abram and Sarai, his wife, that despite their advanced years, they would have a child from which a nation would arise (Genesis 17:1, 2). And as a sign of this new special relationship, God requested that “each male among [them] must be circumcised,” including Abram (verse 10). Also, as a constant reminder of this special relationship, Abram and Sarai were given new names, Abraham, meaning “father of many,” and Sarah, meaning “princess.”
Nation, an ending. Many years passed, and the offspring of Abraham and Sarah did become the nation God had promised. By the time of Jesus Christ, a number of people groups were able to look back in time and call Abraham the father of their nation. One such group was the Jewish nation. It was from them that Jesus, the Son of God, was born in Bethlehem. The sacrificial death of Jesus, the God-man who came to bring eternal life to humankind, marked a new age. No longer was a physical sign (circumcision) required to represent a special relationship with God.
Spiritual nation, a beginning. Now a new sign of the relationship between God and His people was given. The apostle Paul said that it is through faith that all people may claim to have a special relationship with God, whether circumcised or not, whether male or female, Jew or non-Jew. Through faith in God and the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, anyone can have a special relationship with Him (Romans 4:9–17; Galatians 3:28, 29). So just as death entered the world through one man, Adam, and his mistake, so the opportunity for eternal life and a new and special relationship with God is made possible through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:18, 19).
World, an ending. The Bible teaches that just as this world had a beginning, so this age and this world have an ending. The end of our world will not be the result of humankind’s activities and destructiveness. Rather, God will determine when our world ends.
New world, a beginning. At the end of this age, there will be a new beginning (Revelation 21:1–4). Just like the first “in the beginning” of Genesis, God’s home will once again be “among his people” (verse 3). And the bad stuff that is so familiar to us in this world will be gone forever. There will be “no more death or sorrow or crying or pain” (verse 4). According to Revelation 22:2, 3, there will no longer be language barriers, cultural barriers, class distinction, or the human “noise” that inhibits good communication. The curses of Genesis 3:16–19 will have been removed from the earth, and the new earth will be as God intended it in the very beginning.
The end
As I threw the last of the cards into the trash, it reminded me that human relationships will end. Whether by distance, divorce, or death, there is no “always” in this life. However, a relationship with God now means that the end called death is only temporary. One day, God will wake the dead, as if from sleeping, and life will begin again.
Therefore, there will also come a time when human relationships will again be never ending. “All my love always” in the new earth will mean exactly that—“All my love, always, forever, and ever and ever.”
