JOHN 1.1:In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (ESV) John begins his gospel account with the affirmation that the universe had a beginning. That may seem obvious to us here and now, but there was a time in scientific thought when the Steady State theory of the universe was held in high regard. That is, the universe is eternal. Matter always has been. There was no beginning. This theory came crashing down with the discoveries of the Hubble telescope in the twentieth century. From the insights of doppler light technology applied to the images of deep space from this telescope, it was discovered that nearly all of the galaxies outside our galaxy are moving away from us. Hence, matter is not eternal, because if it were, we would be all alone in our galaxy in the universe. All other galaxies would have moved infinitely away from us. But we are not alone and accordingly, the universe had a beginning. And John introduces us to the truth that the God of the Bible is the Creator of the universe. God certainly was there at the beginning of the universe to speak it into being. But God Himself had no beginning, and He always, eternally, has been. Travel infinitely backwards in time, and the God of the Bible still was always before.