Back to the beginning

Many Christians have the hope that the whole church of the Lord will return to the beginning, as it was in the early church. The Lord shows us in the letters to the churches of Revelation that, at his return, he will find Christians in four different situations: Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. The Lord lets us know that the church will no longer enjoy that unity of all Christians as in the beginning. So much so that the Lord calls overcomers in each of them. He says: "To him that overcometh...".

Because of the fall, the Lord speaks to us about its restoration, and all restoration has to be done in its entirety. Many of us have restored some visible things in our means, but the Lord will do a complete restoration of all things (Acts 3:21). If we restore up to 50 or 70%, this action will not be complete. This teaches us that the Lord will restore the purest expression of His fellowship with man on this earth: the testimony of the Lord seen in the beginning, in the early church.

The early church is the purest water; it is the simplest expression of the Lord's communion with man on this earth in times of the fall. That Jesus who had been dead, God raised him up and made him Lord and Christ. Never had men enjoyed anything so tremendous: the Father and Christ dwelling in them by His Spirit.

When the Lord speaks to us in Revelation 1, verses 17 and 18, that he is the first, he is not referring to the beginning of creation, but to the beginning after his resurrection. He says: "I am the first and the last, and the living, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive...". It is not by chance that the Lord sends to the Ephesians the first of the letters to the churches of the Apocalypse, to bring them back to the first love. There is the first, the beginning, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the purest expression of his person.

Many look to the signs and wonders and works that the brethren did in the early church, when they distributed their goods to those who had none; but this is not the beginning, but the consequence. The principle is love: "But I have this against thee, that thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works..." (Rev. 2:4-5).

Some claim that today the signs that were done in the beginning are not seen. There is a necessary way for this restoration, and even more excellent, which has been taught by the Spirit: "Love one another". We may say that we have everything, but if we have not love, we are nothing. We are blind, naked and miserable, and ready to be vomited out of His mouth. Let our love be not of lips as poetry, nor of words as expressing knowledge, but by works and in truth.

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