The Creation drama, which is reflected in the great year-rites all over the ancient world, does not take place in a vacuum but “in the presence of God,” seated in the midst of “His holy ones” with whom he takes counsel, they being his mind and mouth on the occasion as he is theirs.14 Though the plan from first to last is entirely God’s own, he discusses it with others, “consulting the souls of the righteous before deciding to create the world,” not because he needs their advice, but because the plan concerns them and requires their maximum participation in it. The discussion was a lively one—apart from those rebellious angels who rejected it entirely, there was a general protest that the plan would be too painful for some parties and too risky for all; it was the generous voluntary offering of the Son of God that settled the question.15 Those who embrace the plan wholeheartedly on this earth are the Elect, “the people of the Plan,” chosen “from the foundation of the world”;16 they form on earth a community dedicated to “the faithful working out of God’s plan” in close cooperation with the heavenly hosts;17 they alone have access to the heavenly hidden treasure, because they alone covet and seek it.
What most thrills the psalmist of Qumran as he sings of the bounteous fountain of God’s hidden treasures is the thought that he is not only a beneficiary of God’s plan, but was actually taken into his confidence in the making of it —he was there!19 When Clement of Alexandria recalls that “God knew us before the foundation of the world, and chose us for our faithfulness,” he is attesting a well-known teaching of the early Church.20 The recurring phrase “Blessed is he who is before he came into being” is not a paradox but refers to two states of being: 21 if (following Baruch) “we have by no means been from the beginning what we are now,” it does not follow that we did not exist, for it is equally true that “what we now are we shall not afterwards remain.” 22 We are dealing here not with existence and nonexistence but with a passing from one state to another, sometimes explained as a passing from one type of visibility to another.23 It is common to speak of the Creation as a renewing, 24 even as a reorganizing of old matter, nay as the building of a world from materials taken from the dismantling of older worlds.
The Premortal Christ
Before the world was, the Son was chosen: the Word with God, the Lamb foreordained from the foundation.
The life of Christ does not begin in a manger. Before the world was, the Son stood with the Father; He was the Beloved, chosen and foreordained from the beginning to be the Redeemer. The scriptures the Restoration recovered open this earlier scene to view: the Son known to heaven, the plan accepted, the Lamb appointed before ever the foundation of the world was laid.
These passages are gathered to set the Gospels in their true frame. The One who came into the world in the meridian of time was not a new figure but the Word who was with God from the beginning, come at last to keep a promise older than the earth.
And the Lord said unto me, These two facts do exist — that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they. I am the Lord, your God; I am more intelligent than they all. … I dwell in the midst of them all. I now therefore have come down unto you to deliver unto you the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excels them all; for I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences your eyes have seen from the beginning. I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences you have seen.Read in the Covenant Christian Edition ↗
Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. … The glory of God is intelligence, or in other words, light and truth.Read in the Covenant Christian Edition ↗
And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him, We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell. … And the Lord said, Who shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man, Here am I, send me. And another answered and said, Here am I, send me. And the Lord said, I will send the first.Read in the Covenant Christian Edition ↗
My Beloved Son, who was my beloved and chosen from the beginning, said unto me, Father, your will be done, and the glory be yours for ever.Read in the Covenant Christian Edition ↗
…him who he declared should come in the meridian of time, who was prepared from before the foundation of the world. And thus the gospel began to be preached from the beginning, being declared by holy angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice, and by the gift of the holy ghost.Read in the Covenant Christian Edition ↗
The last passage says the gospel “began to be preached from the beginning.” For what that gospel is, and how Joseph restored it, read the essay The Gospel from the Beginning.
Passages are quoted verbatim from the Covenant Christian Edition (Old Covenants) on scriptures.info; numbering is given traditional-first with the CCE reference in parentheses.
The Morning-Song of Creation
From the early Christian and Jewish writings Nibley drew the same premortal council the Restoration describes: a plan debated by the hosts, settled by the Son’s free offering of himself, and greeted with the first of all hymns.
When the plan was announced to the assembled hosts, and the full scope and magnanimity of it dawned upon them, they burst into spontaneous shouts of joy and joined in a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, the Morning-song of Creation, which remains to this day the archetype of hymns, the great acclamatio, the primordial nucleus of all liturgy.
The Son Born in Eternity, in the Holy of Holies
For Barker the Holy of Holies was “Day One,” the state before the visible creation. Jesus the high priest prayed to return to the glory he had there “before the world was made”: his place of origin.
In the great high priestly prayer—Jesus prays, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world was made” (John 17:5 [John 9:19])—a reference to the glory in the Holy of Holies as the state before the visible creation. Jesus the high priest was returning to his place of origin.
Since the Christians were the restored high priests, the knowledge on the holy of holies was the secret of the kingdom of God that Jesus taught privately to his disciples (Mark 4.11 [Mark 2:13]). Matthew, Mark and Luke do not reveal by name and in detail what this knowledge was, but once you recognise the teachings of the holy of holies from other sources, it becomes easier to see where they underlie the word of Jesus.
St John, both in the Book of revelation and in his gospel, gives the fullest account of the holy of holies. Most of the Book of Revelation is set there, and in his gospel he records Jesus’ temple theology. The great high priestly prayer in chapter 17 sums up the secrets of the holy of holies: the unity of Father and Son, the unity of Son and disciples, and the fact that unity is proof of divine origin. ‘I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me’ (John 17.23 [John 9:21]).
The prologue tells of the One who came forth from the holy of holies, the true light, and how the transforming glory of the holy of holies became incarnate and brought to earth the most holiness that transformed people into angels and holy ones: ‘But to all who received him, who believed in his Name, he gave the power to become children of God’ (John 1.12 [John 1:2]).
Jesus knew he was returning to the pre-created light. He prayed: ‘Father, glorify thou me in thy own presence, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was made.’ He had come from Day One, the holy of holies, and he was returning.