Woodstock Mountain Bike Fellowship

Time and Eternity

July 8, 2008

{Start with a loop of rope, turning it around and around while speaking the following words}. For most of the history of the world, astrologers and astronomers assumed that the universe had always existed (like this rope). Without beginning and without end, it just went on continuously, regardless of how you sliced it.

{Now stretch out a 40 foot rope across the floor. Point out the beginning and the end and the markers along its length.} All of that changed in the last century. From Einstein's general theory of relativity to the more recent studies by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, cosmologists are now unanimous that our expanding universe had a definite beginning. Much like those fireworks you saw over the weekend (during the 4th of July celebrations), there is a consensus model that the universe began with a hot big bang like one of those big, beautiful sparkly ones, starting in the center with a massive explosion and then spreading across the darkness as it cools down. By measuring the background radiation temperature (among other things), they have inferred that the big bang occurred about 14 billion years ago {point it out on the rope}.

If you let this rope represent a timeline, here are some dates to keep in mind:

By the way, the thread that I've used to represent your lifetime is a gross, over-exaggeration by at least a factor of 8, but I had to use something thick enough that you could see.

In the introduction to his book "The God Particle," the high energy physicist Dr. Leon Lederman says that "In the very beginning there was a void, a curious form of vacuum, a nothingness containing no space, no time, no matter, no light, no sound... This story is about the beginning of the universe, and unfortunately, there are no data ... none ... zero. If you read or hear something about the birth of the universe, someone is making it up. We are in the realm of philosophy - only God knows what happened at the very beginning."

I have good news for you! Dr. Lederman's comments are only partially true. God is the one who knows what happened at the beginning, but He has written it down so that we also might know. In fact, while every element of 4000 year old conventional wisdom indicated that the universe was eternally existent, the Bible said something very different (Genesis 1:1,2) "In the beginning, God created..." Not only does it indicate that there was a beginning, but it also says that the universe was created {point at the start of the rope}.

Note that this rope represents only a "half dimension" of time, since it only allows movement in a single dimension. While I can't vouch for the accuracy of estimated dates of contemporary cosmologists, I can attest to the reality of the irrecoverable half-dimension of time in which we live. Recall, however, that Dr. Lederman states the consensus opinion that, before the creation of the universe, time did not exist.

In his book "The Creator and the Cosmos," Hugh Ross says "Time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place... If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos." (p.76) I find this quote to be amazingly powerful, especially in view of some of the special teachings about God contained within the Bible:

(By the way, when you recognize that the laws of cause and effect do not apply absent from our half-dimension of time, it's a lot easier to reconcile God's sovereign choice with free will when it comes to salvation.)

So when we look at our time line, God speaks from His word about events that happened before time existed. Remember - since time is a created entity, it exists within eternity (not the other way around). The Bible often speaks of "the end times" and even of the "end of time" in Daniel 12:4.

Recognizing that time is bounded by eternity; consider what the Bible says about the eternal realm:

God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) as a reminder that we were not made for this world. When you consider all of the natural explanations for our existence, consider the following quote from a letter that C.S. Lewis wrote to Sheldon Vanauken December 1950:

"If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at time. (‘How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heaven's name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something about us that is not temporal."

Apart from the reality of eternal life, our lives are bankrupt, without meaning or purpose. As you can tell from this timeline, even the naturalist admits that the universe is winding down and will soon burn out. Like the ashes from a fireworks display, apart from eternal life, everything that we do eventually lies wasted in a ruined universe. Nothing that we do has any more significance than what is done by a swarm of mosquitoes or a pile of ants. But God does call us to an eternal purpose...

Once again, the Bible stands unique in its clarity around the temporal nature of our universe. Psalm 102:25-27 sounds like a modern cosmologist describing the heat death of our universe. But recognize that God's timetable is not the same as mans', and when He is ready to bring this current universe to a close, it will come as a surprise to some people (2 Peter 3:10,11 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4).

When reflecting on the age of the earth (and universe), many Bible scholars speak with respect to two types of ages: apparent and actual. When God created Adam in the garden of Eden, He didn't make him as a brand new infant - He created a full grown man. As such, while Adam's actual age was one day old, his apparent age might have been 21 years. And if he had to wait for the full development of the fruit trees in the garden, he would have starved to death. In my opinion, we waste our time to debate the actual age of the universe when we are only capable of perceiving the apparent age. Based on these verses, I suspect that many scientists will also make the same mistake about the end point of our universe.

Analysts attempt to break down things into their smallest components in order to explain away the wonder. From the smallest biological organisms to the awesome cosmos, scientists have attempted to break down and define the structure and workings of everything. Except for time. It's interesting that people don't spend a lot of energy examining time - perhaps they're afraid of where it might lead.

Last Monday night, we visited my Father-in-law in South Carolina, spending some good time reading and praying with him. When we said goodbye and headed to the house, we didn't know that those goodbyes would be our final ones. We were awakened the next morning by a phone call with the news that he had died during the night. It's pretty clear that we are not in control of time (James 4:13-15).

A few days later as I stood around with my extended family, I couldn't help but think about how we need to be aware of the brief number of our days. We opened the Bible and read the same verses that we shared as we buried my father five years earlier (Psalm 39:4-7). We often pray for good health, for wealth, and for many other things that will evaporate in a very short time. Let me encourage you to spend more time praying this prayer from Psalms, asking God to renew our understanding of how transient we are and refocus our attention on Him.

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