TIMELESS by Dr. Shah, Clearview Church, Henderson, NC
Introduction: How many of you have watched the sci-fi movies “Back to the Future”? The first one came out in 1985 in which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) goes back in time to 1955 to help his parents. The mastermind behind the time-machine was “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd) who built a DeLorean Time Machine from the DMC DeLorean car. The whole premise of the movies was that one day we will be able to time travel. As you know, we’re in our series on apologetics titled “CONTEND” and we have decided to camp at Genesis for a while. The reason is because many of the questions in the questionnaire were regarding the creation and origin of our universe – “Who made God?” “Is God bound by time?” Will we be able to time travel?” “How do lights from stars that are billions of light years away reach the earth already?” In this message we will tackle the question of time. Main point: God is the author of time. He gave us the gift of time so we could live and enjoy his creation. God is timeless and unchangeable, but he chose to enter time and became like us to save us through his Son Jesus. One more thing – We are time bound. We don’t know the future. “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Context: By declaring “In the beginning God” and “In the beginning was the Word,” both Moses in the Old Testament and John in the New Testament declared that God existed before the creation of the world. In fact, he was the creator of the world. John even identified the exact person of the Triune God who was designated the task of creating – 2 “He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This truth was affirmed again by the New Testament authors in Colossians 1:16, 1 Corinthians 8:6, and Hebrews 1:2. So what does that mean for the questions on time? Here are 4 things we need to keep in mind regarding God, time, and us:
- God created time. On the first day, he created space, matter, and time (you could add energy to it if you like): 1. Space – up and down, left and right, and forward and backward; 2. Matter – Atoms made of protons, neutrons, and electrons; 3. Time – past, present, and future. We will focus on time for now. What is the definition of time? William Lane Craig, “Time is that dimension of reality whose moments are ordered by earlier/later than relations.” In other words, it is the succession of moments. Time has been a subject of great debate among scientists, especially in the past century. The matter revolves around 2 individuals: Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Newton was a philosopher, physicist, mathematician, and astronomer. He was an important figure in the Scientific Revolution we talked about couple of weeks ago. Among many other things that he worked on, he claimed that time was absolute, meaning it was not depended on the observer. Time moved forward as a regular succession of moments. We call them seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, millennia, etc. Space was also fixed, and gravity was just a force that pulled together objects with mass. There was no connection to acceleration. That’s where we get the whole apple story, which may be a myth. On the other hand, Einstein (a physicist and scientist who immigrated to the United States when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933) challenged Newton’s view. We know his theory of special relativity, E = mc2, but the one on general relativity was far more impactful. According to this theory, Einstein claimed that gravity bends light. For this to happen and to be able to observe it, you need an object far bigger than the earth and with a source of light directly opposite to the observer. He said that this would happen on the 29th of May 1919, during an eclipse, when a star that was blocked by the sun would be seen because its light would bend in the sun’s gravitational force. It happened and photographs were taken. Einstein had overturned Newton’s laws of gravity. Unfortunately, this was also taken to mean that Einstein had overturned Newton’s God. Such was not the case at all. To the contrary, the spacetime theorems proved that the universe had a beginning point. Scientists like George Ellis, Stephen Hawking, and Roger Penrose demonstrated that. Others tried to find a loophole, but they ended up supporting the fact that the universe is not eternal. Its known as the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Singularity Theorem.
Why did I go into all this detail? Because this helps us understand the question of how light from stars that are billions of light years away have reached the earth already. By the way, just recently, scientists spotted light from behind a black hole that is 1800 million light years away! The black hole is about 10 million times larger than our sun!
Here’s the point: God is the author of time and after all these years, we are just scratching the surface in our understanding and all of it is in line with the Scriptures.
- God is timeless (Paul Helm and Grudem).
This is the traditional view that God exists outside time. He has no beginning or end. For him to have a beginning would be to compromise the doctrine that God is unchangeable.
Isaiah 57:15 “For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy…”
Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”
Hebrews 1 10 (quoting from Psalm 102) “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. 11 They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment; 12 Like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.”
2 Timothy 1:9 (God) “who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began”
Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Connected to God’s timelessness and unchangeableness is God’s divine fullness and self-sufficiency. Because he is timeless and unchangeable, he is also omniscient. He knows all. Because we are time-bound and subject to change, we don’t know it all.
- God sees all time equally and interacts with us personally in time.
Psalm 90:4 “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” He sees all things equally, but the past is still past to God. 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Everything remains vivid to God.
Even though God stands outside time, he constantly interacts with his creation and us.
Matthew 10:29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.” Song: “His eye is on the sparrow.”
Psalm 139 15 “My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed…”
He is not some static, detached, and emotionless being to us. Throughout the history of the world, God has stepped into time to relate personally with us. He smiles, laughs, weeps, gets angry, changes his mind, and rejoices. How can he do that? Is he just pretending? He can do that because he is God. Just like a parent sits down to play with their child and interacts with all their feeling. Contrary to our emotions that come from good and bad experience, his emotions are part of his disposition and character.
Incarnation is the greatest event of God in time! Like a parent stepping into a dollhouse but becoming like the child. Galatians 4 4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Can you sense the passionate interaction of God with us?
- We are time bound and will always be in time.
From the oldest book in the Bible – Job 14 1 “Man who is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. 2 He comes forth like a flower and fades away; He flees like a shadow and does not continue…5 Since his days are determined, the number of his months is with you; you have appointed his limits, so that he cannot pass.”
Don’t play God. Don’t say “no regrets,” “no care,” or “no fear.” You can say that only if God is with you. Ephesians 5 15 “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
Also, you and I will always exist in time, contrary to the song, “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more…” – Revelation 21 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.
Bottom line: You don’t have infinite time. Today is the day of salvation. Your time on earth may be over before you know it. There is a real eternity where time never ends, either in heaven or hell. Are you saved?
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