God is pure spirit (Isaiah 31:3; John 4:24), and everything that God creates is spirit.  Therefore, matter is a state of spirit, although a state that is not yet refined and purified.  The story of creation, then, does not begin with the creation of the material universe but rather begins with the creation of the spirit creation eons and eons ago.

     A long, long time ago God was.  There was not a time when God was not.  God created from His Being a Spirit that was most like unto Him without truly being Him.  God and His first-born Son were together for an untold period of time; a time when there was harmony, beauty, love, peace, and bliss.  Then they wanted to expand.  The first-born of God, this Son of God, was granted by God creative powers and the world of heavnely spirits began to come into being, Christ the Highest and the most like unto God, then the second whom we know as Lucifer, and then the others: Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Michael, and (see Tobit 12:15, "I am Raphael, one of God's seven sons").  This delighted God, the Father, to no end, as it did His Son.  The existence of this family of the original Spirit Creation lived in perfect harmony.  The newly created spirits were granted powers of regeneration, and so this first family owes its being to God but owes its generation to God's first and only Son.  

     Then began a plan to expand the spirit creation.  Families sprang up and before long billions and billions of spirits came into being, each spirit perfectly paired to its mate.  For every male spirit there was a female spirit.  Whenever a spirit babe was born as a male, another was born female.  Every spirit that came into existence owed its "soul" (or divine spark) to God and its spirit body to God's "only-begotten" Son.  Now, it was clear how the Son was different from all of the other created spirits.  Unlike the first 6 pairs of spirits and the rest of the spirits that came after these 6 pairs, the Son was the only spirit who had been created directly out of God Himself.  It was through the Son that the spirit creation came.  This generation owes its origin to God, Who generated His Son, and upon whom He granted the government of Creation.

     The spirit creation was like one large family made up of a variety of spirit families who lived in communities with liberties given to them by God.  Each spirit had its perfectly mated dual.  Each spirit not only had parents but were themselves parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, "grand" parents, and so on.  Every spirit could trace it's lineage all the way back to the One upon whom God had granted the government of Creation: that Spirit whom we call "Christ."

     Then, one day, the spirit second only in line to Christ, who is now known as "the Light-Bearer" (Lucifer), began to ponder a subject that would gradually come to fruition over many millions of years.  This spirit being, radiant and beautiful and wondrous in his own rite, was pale in comparison to his older brother, Christ; Christ would be the sun and this spirit a glowing ember.  Over the course of time, many spirits became acquainted with this spirit's interest in "running for Mayor" in the spirit world of God.  But God had already ordained His King; the King of His Spirit World was Christ, and if a spirit was to live and remain in the Kingdom of God, then that spirit had to recognize his rightful king as Christ and Christ only.  Christ did not rule like a dictator or like a tyrranical governor.  He was every spirit's oldest and most loving Brother and His dual every spirit's oldest and most understanding Sister.  There was nothing that these two, under God, could not provide their younger spirit brothers and spirit sisters.  But Lucifer was interested in ruling, too.  After all, he was only second in line to the King himself.

     Once Lucifer hatched his interest and willingness to rule heaven under God, despite God's annointing of Christ as King, he began to make promises to his closest devotees, promises of promotion in his administration and promises of power.  These promises encouraged them to spread Lucifer's plan to all parts of the spirit kingdoms in order to consolidate a "grass roots" base with the hopes of persuading God to make Lucifer their King.  Many, many throngs of spirits made the fateful decision to go along with Lucifer's plan.  He made extravagant promises not unlike a politician running a political campaign that we see today.   Lucifer had "time" on his side; he made sure to unpack his ideas gradually, slowly, and forthrightly.  Families debated the plan, brother debating sister, husband debating wife.  Families were split over the plan--while some remained loyal to Christ, others thought that a change was needed and Lucifer might not be a bad option.  What was the real harm?  Spirits from the farthest ends of the spiritual kingdoms made it their duty to spread Lucifer's "New Idea," from household to household.

     This idea became a sticking point in the spirit world.  The lines were beginning to be drawn.  God was fully aware of what had been going on all those millions of years, but He did not intervene as He very well could have.  He simply remained quietly in the background.  God's gift of free will that He had given to his children was now being put to the ultimate test: would spirits remain loyal to Christ or side with Lucifer?  Before Lucifer was ready to approach God with his new idea, he had already established "offices" and "agencies" where his closest followers worked as administrators, preparing for the time when their positions would be confirmed by God.   When the time was right, when Lucifer felt that he had enough spirits on his side, one-third of all created spirits, he then approached God and presented his case to Him:  "My elder brother Christ has ruled all this time with a gentle and merciful hand.  But now, may I have the honor of ruling these, my followers, who want me to be their ruler and King?"  The die was cast.  The spirits had thrown in their towels.  They sided with Lucifer, some consciously and willingly, others just going along with it because everybody else did.  Despite the numbers that Lucifer had brought along with him, despite one-third of the heavenly spirits having sided with Lucifer, God's  law that Christ be King still stood.  God was not going to change it simply because another spirit wanted to be King.  Once Lucifer presented his demands, God simply said, "No.  I have already annointed my only Son as your King.  To him, and to him alone, do you honor and obey."

   God decided to banish Lucifer, his Leiutenents, and the throngs of followers from heaven.  Once this decision was made by God, word spread and many spirits became saddened, disappointed, and angry.  What these spirits did not know was that, all the while, God was preparing a place for them even before Lucifer had approached Him with his new idea.  God's angels prepared a place that best suited these spirits' temperment and disposition.  Once the decision had been made, God could send them away, and so He did.  Spirit families were broken apart as some of their kin were banished from the heavenly dimensions and "fell" to a lower vibration, to a lower level of creation that had been especially prepared for them.  What Lucifer and his followers were not aware of was that over the course of time during Lucifer's campaign for his "position" as usurper of Christ, their heavenly, divine consciousness was becoming eroded, ever so gradually, with hubris, arrogance, and the need for power.  This transformation was so, so gradual that it went unnoticed by them.  The consequences, however, became all too clear once God made his final decision to ban them from heaven.  So began a new era in creation; the Era of the Fall of the Heavenly Spirits that ushered in a frightening period of turmoil for an untold of number of years.

     The Fall was more human and more agonizing than one can possibly imagine.  Families were torn asunder and the spirits did not know if they would ever see their kin folk again.  Were they forever lost?  Were they annihilated?  Would they ever be seen again?  What did God, in all of His mercy, do with them?  Where were they?  The once radiant spirits now became darkened as they "fell" to a lower level of creation.  Their consciousness became weakened and clouded; they became fearful, angry, resentful, crestfallen, and some even began to curse God and curse themselves for having listened to Lucifer.  But God was fully aware that the punishment had to be just; not every spirit was as guilty as Lucifer and those closest to him.  Lucifer, as the Ring Leader, and his closest Leiutenants, were the most guilty.  Other spirits were less guilty and followed the "New Idea" simply out of weakness and were misled.

     The less guilty spirits did not descend to the lowest levels, but rather were actually given a chance to make amends in a spiritual Paradise.  God did not want to lose any of His children, and this included Lucifer and his henchmen.  But they were to be dealt with later.  For now, the less guilty became the focus of God's Justice.  This spiritual level, Paradise, was only a faint glow in comparison to their heavenly home, but the spirits' memories had been accomodated to their fate.  They had no memory of their previous existence in the highest heavens under Christ.  In Paradise, they could now prove their loyalty by obeying God's command.  The spirits named "Adam" and "Eve" were a part of this spirit populace in Paradise, a place that came to be known in human history as "the garden of God," when, in reality, it was a spiritual "weigh station" in order to prove the less guilty so that they might return to heaven.  Unfortunately, the spirits failed the test, and so a second Fall occurred [the Genesis creation stories in the Bibles mistake the physical creation for the trial of the less-guilty fallen spirits in a spiritual creation.  For at that time there was no physical/material universe].  The spirits in Paradise now found themselves alongside their more guilty brethren in dark, treacherous, rocky, cold, black, green, odious spiritual terrains ruled by an angry, vengeful, and powerful spirit: Lucifer, the very spirit that these spirits had helped promote as their new King in heaven.

     God and Christ then decided on a Plan that would work for sure; a Plan that would not fail; a fool proof plan that would, indeed, take much, much longer than the earlier plan in Paradise.  This Plan was to involve the creation of a more dense, more crude spiritual creation; a spiritual creation in which the spirits residing would find it difficult to believe in a "spirit world" and "spirits" in the first place!  This was to be a creation whereby spirits were to be "clothed" in a heavily condensed form of spiritual substance; a substance that would become known as "flesh."  This material substance, a truly spiritual substance that had been so condensed, would be the primary component of what these spirits would come to know as "matter" that made up the "physical world."  The spirits living in this physical world would reside in physical bodies that were crude and imperfect copies of their spirit bodies.  The spirit body would animate the physical body, and so the spirit would be said to be "incarnated" or "in fleshed."  This incarnated spirit would come to be called "a human being."  As in Paradise, the incarnated spirit would have no memory of any prior existence.  Furthermore, the incarnated spirit would not even be aware that he or she was "a spirit."  With the exception of a few enlightened persons, most incarnated spirits would come to believe in only ONE reality: the physical world.  The creation of this physical world was a supreme test for ALL of the Fallen spirits.  In this physical world, the Fallen could work out their Salvation and learn once again true and moral behavior toward themselves and toward one another.  The reshaping of character, of a good and loving attitude, and the knowledge of a God would be basic to any spirits' education in this material creation.  The purpose of the creation of the material world was to simply prepare a way out of the lower dimensions ruled by a tyrranical Lucifer.   Because of Lucifer's actions, however, he would be the very last spirit able to leave the lower dimensions and begin his way back to God.

     While the physical world was a rung on the ladder back to heaven, no spirit was able to cross over into Paradise from the Earth.  The Earth dimension was the threshold of Lucifer's domain.  A bridge had to be created by a Redeemer who would come to Earth and teach a small, loyal band of followers who would spread the message of Redemption and Salvation of all the Fallen spirits.  But first, who would dare take up such a Mission to Earth?  After all, Earth was Lucifer's jurisdiction and many of the fallen spirits had degenerated over time before the creation of the physical world into evil, cruel spirits.  Any spirit who incarnates loses all memory of who they were as a spirit, and that spirit would come face-to-face with Lucifer's agents, both in human form and in spirit form.  That spirit would have to be a heavenly spirit; a spirit who had remained loyal to Christ.  But Christ thought that since the Fall came about as a challenge to his Kingship, he should be the one to incarnate on the Earth and challenge Lucifer.  If he successfully withstood the onslaughts of Lucifer as a human being, then, as a spirit, Christ could launch an offensive onto Lucifer and his kingdom and lay down restrictions and laws that would allow the fallen spirits to leave Lucifer's kingdom without being forcibly enslaved, as Lucifer had done to all of the fallen for eons and eons.

     And so the Plan of Salvation went forward.  The creation of the material universe had taken much, much time and great care and patience on the part of the spirits responsible for bringing the material creation into being.  As always, God was the great Architect and Christ saw to it that the Plans were put into effect.  The heavenly spirits created different genuses and species for the fallen spirits who would incarnate beginning with the mineral world, then the plant kingdom, insect and animal kingdom, and finally the human stage.  Christ was fully aware that at some point he would take up his Mission to Earth, but before he did so, he wanted to prepare the way.  The biblical story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Hebrews, Joshua, ancient Israel, Kings Saul, David, and Solomon tell the the narrative of Christ's preparations for his coming, that which the Old Testament refers to as "the Day of the Lord."  The Old Testament prophets, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others, were spirits who had remained loyal to Christ; these were "pure spirits" or "spirits of the Living."  Christ sent them as heralds of his coming to Earth as the Great Redeemer of all of the fallen spirits (which included human beings).  One of the highest pure spirits to incarnate was Elijah who returned as John the Baptist.  Other pure spirits were Abraham, Isaac, Moses,  and Mary the mother of Jesus.  

     Then came the day for Christ's incarnation.  The highest of all created spirits was now to become a human being for the sake of ALL of the fallen spirits--a Mighty Task, indeed.  This was the supreme Love shown by the Father and by the Son, for both wanted all of the fallen to return to their Homeland in the heavens.  This return would be a time of great splendour and bliss as it had been long, long, long ago when all spirits lived in peace and harmony and God was their Father and Christ was their King.  

     Christ, our oldest brother, succeded in his Mission, which is recorded in the New Testament.  The gates of Hell, of the lower spiritual dimensions, have been opened now for a mere 2,000 years and Lucifer can no longer hold by force any spirit from incarnating on the Earth for the express purpose of leaving his Satanic Kingdom.  While the Earth still remains in Lucifer's Kingdom, it is nevertheless on the "outer edges" of that kingdom.  Lucifer is allowed to coerce spirits through fear and intimidation; he is also allowed to mislead them through artifice and guile.  These tactics do make it difficult for the fallen spirits to leave his kingdom, but now, ever since Christ's Victory, a spirit can decide to leave without fear of being held back by force.  The jail door is open.  That spirit simply has to put one foot in front of the other and begin his or her journey homeward.  The story of the Prodigal Son is the story of us all.