The Jesus Book: From Before Alpha to Omega

By Paul Van Fossan

The Jesus Book: From Before Alpha to Omega is a chronological account of Jesus. It begins in heaven before Jesus came to earth. It covers Jesuss birth through his death, resurrection, and ascension back into heaven. It also proceeds through his Second Coming and into eternity.

The author has found many books on Jesus that primarily cover his ministry or his many words in the New Testament that are theological in nature. Few, if any, books cover his role in the Creation or on what the world was like at the time of his birth. This book captures all that in one comprehensive volume.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984519795

Paul Van Fossan

About the Author Paul Van Fossan is a graduate of the University of Oregon. He grew up on the West Coast, moving often with his Minister father. Paul is a Vietnam veteran. He had a career in Business and is now retired. Paul is an avid reader and studier of the Bible and is the Ministry Leader of Celebrate Recovery at Rolling Hills Community Church. He believes that daily Bible reading and prayer are important keys to recovery and encourages that whenever he can. Paul has two daughters and five grandchildren. Paul lives with his wife, Maggie, in Portland, Oregon.

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Copyright © 2018 by Paul Van Fossan.

ISBN:                  Softcover                     978-1-9845-1980-1

                             eBook                          978-1-9845-1979-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 04/04/2018

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Jesus Before Creation

Chapter 2     In the Beginning

Chapter 3     Jesus in the Old Testament

Chapter 4     Old Testament Prophecy

Chapter 5     The Incarnation

Chapter 6     The World at Jesus’ Time

Chapter 7     Birth and Youth

Chapter 8     Baptism, Temptations, and Disciples.

Chapter 9     Travels, Miracles and Teachings

Chapter 10   Trials and Crucifixion

Chapter 11   Burial, Three Days, and Resurrection

Chapter 12   His Appearances and Ascension

Chapter 13   The Church

Chapter 14   Where Jesus is Now and the Second Coming

Chapter 15   The Second Coming into Eternity

Chapter 16   Jesus Christ as Savior

Chapter 17   Jesus: A Savior for the 21st Century

Chapter 18   Who Jesus is To Me

I would like to express thanks to many Christian friends that have inspired me to undertake this book on Jesus. I give credit to my father, who was a pastor, and taught me things I didn’t realize he taught me until later. And I didn’t appreciate him until after he left this world.

I also want to acknowledge my wife, Maggie and my family all of whom have inspired me way more than I have inspired them.

And of course, all credit goes to Jesus for his sacrifice for me.

INTRODUCTION

I N THE YEAR 325 AD, a man named Athanasius of Alexandria said this: The results of the incarnation of the Savior are such and so many, that anyone attempting to enumerate them should be compared to a person looking upon the vastness of the sea an attempting to count the waves. That person could be me as I set out to document Jesus!

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 warns this …all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. I confess up front, that the more I know, the more I ought to know. But I rest in the promise that I am known by God.

My goal when I set about writing this book was to present Jesus in a way that would make Him hard to resist. I wanted to do this chronologically, like a biography. And I wanted to glean directly from the Word of God, The Bible. For the most part, I have accomplished that, although I have included some information from history that it is not mentioned in the Bible to determine some of the timelines.

Generally speaking, there’s nothing in this book that you couldn’t already know if you had read every word of the Bible a couple of times. I would urge you to jump on that right away. I have found that I discover new things that I never saw before each time that I read the Word. I hope that you will find that true for yourself, as well. I particularly like the New American Standard Bible, (NASB), because I find it the most readable. My quotes in this book are from the NASB. But there are other good versions as well. I leave it to you to discover your favorite.

My father was a Southern Baptist pastor. We were in church a lot. Twice on Sunday and Wednesday night prayer meetings. I was saved at the age of seven. At that point, all I really knew about Jesus was that I asked Him into my heart. I’m sure I didn’t fully understand that, but I did believe it. I got baptized shortly thereafter. I spent many years in Baptist Sunday School and learned a lot of stories. Stories we all know. About Moses and the Ten Commandments. About Daniel and the fiery furnace and the lion’s den. About Jesus and His death and resurrection and many others. But these did not come together for me until much later when I started getting serious about the Bible and what it says.

When I left home at 17, I was tired of church and what seemed to me to be hypocrisy among the members. I left the church behind, and didn’t attend church or open the Bible for 16 years. I was prompted to start reading the Bible again, in an effort to help determine how to raise my two children. My real goal then was to eliminate Christianity once and for all out of my life, so I could help mold them in some other way. I felt the need to be intellectually honest, and so determined to look at the Bible again. That’s when I bought my first NASB Bible and began reading. I have been in and out of the word a lot since then. I did a lot of topical studies, to better understand Christian issues and I devoted a lot of time reading it straight through several times.

That process of Bible study has led me to a closer walk with Christ, and a better understanding of Jesus Christ and of the Trinity. As a result, I have come to love Jesus even more over the last several years. I began to look for books to improve my understanding of Jesus. There are many, many books about the life of Christ during His 33 years on earth, including His death, burial, and resurrection.

I also looked for books that covered His whole existence and His eternal nature. Where was Jesus before and after those 33 years. I didn’t have much success finding these. Which doesn’t mean they aren’t there somewhere. However, not finding it led me toward this book.

This book is about the Life of Christ in eternity, both before earth and after earth. In Revelation 1:8, Christ says I am the Alpha and the Omega who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

Imagine the life of Christ on a timeline on a single line. That’s a little hard to do because Christ is eternal. On that timeline, there is a small 33 year blip in the middle during which Christ came down to earth and lived among us as man. And then He died, was raised, and left the earth again. In this book, we are exploring the entire timeline. Where He was before coming to earth, and where He is now and forever?

We will look at his time on earth in some detail, but start with His eternal nature as part of the Trinity, His role in creation, His appearances in the Old Testament, and His birth. We will look at his youth, His ministry, and His death and resurrection. And finally, we will look at where He is now and His second coming and then beyond that into eternity.

My main source is the Bible, but I wanted to look at what was going on in the rest of the world during His time on earth. And that necessitates looking at some history.

I hope that you will join with me in this exploration and that you will be blessed by it as I have been. And it is my desire that you will love Jesus more, as I have come to love Him, and that you will perhaps be encouraged to look into the Bible more yourself.

Let’s jump in.

CHAPTER 1

Jesus Before Creation

N ORMALLY, A BIOGRAPHY would start at the beginning. However, with Jesus, there is no beginning. Jesus is part of one God, and, as such has no beginning and no end. We know from the Bible, that we have one God who exists as The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three in one. This is referred to as the Trinity, or the Trinitarian God. We can see this referred to in Matthew 28:19-20, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The three are mentioned in this passage together. When a person becomes a believer in Jesus, he is baptized into a relationship with all three. They also are named separately in this passage. Throughout scripture, we see that each one of them has a separate role. Yet they exist together as one God.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus starts by saying, Our Father who art in heaven… There has always been a heaven, even before the beginning of the earth. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were in this heaven before there was time. We will look at creation in Chapter 2, but note