Knowing “the beginning from the end” (Isa. This metaphor helps us understand something of God’s relationship to time. Instead, Peter, like the Psalmist, is using a metaphor to explain that God, who is beyond time, sees and inhabits the past, present and future simultaneously.
#JESUS LORD CODE#
In making this statement, Peter is not providing a secret code for calculating the date of Jesus’ return (the Bible warns us against trying to do that). Psalm 90:4 then contrasts God’s eternity with human temporality: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.” The apostle Peter put it this way: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Pet. Scripture tells us that God transcends temporal time-Psalm 90:2 declares that God is “from everlasting to everlasting” (with no beginning or end), an idea we cannot fathom from our perspective within the confines of temporal time. Karl Barth helps us think of time as existing in two ways: chronological (temporal) time and uncreated (eternal) time. In love and for love, the triune God gave his creation a “triadic temporality” in which there is a past, a present and a future. His “eternal presence” encompasses that which was, now is, and is yet to come. Jesus exists simultaneously within time (temporality) and outside time (eternity). Who needed his spaceship TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) to travel through time and space, Jesus is “the Alpha and the Omega”-the “Almighty” one, “who is, and who was, and who is to come” (Rev. We cannot explain how Jesus, the incarnate Word, exists both within and outside time. We grasp it only when, against the background of God’s intervention in human time, we understand what time really is. The nature of time and eternity is not something we can fathom for ourselves. As Karl Barth notes, defining what this created thing we call “time” is, including how it could have a point of beginning within God’s eternity, is no small undertaking: 2:10) was present when time (and all created “things”) came into being. The Word (Logos) of God, “for whom and through whom everything exists” (Heb. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. However, I do want to address what Scripture tells us concerning Jesus’ relationship to time. Jesus’ ascension to heaven depicted by John Copely (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)Įxplaining exactly how Jesus exists both within and outside of time (a concept with cosmological and philosophical implications) is certainly beyond the scope of this letter (and beyond the powers of any time-bound creature!). Sovereign over the past, the present and the future, Jesus is Lord of time. His resurrection, post-resurrection appearances, ascension and promise of a new creation, all point to the reality that the incarnate Son of God truly is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. Better still, would be to share in Jesus’ ability to exist both within and outside of time. Personally, I often wish I had more time. Enter a room filled with people and you might hear one group lamenting their lack of time and another lamenting their struggle to fill it. Time fascinates us-some are captivated by the past, others by the future, and time travel is the theme of many popular books and movies. As I’ll now explain, it also includes his lordship over time itself.īack in 1970, the music group Chicago had a hit titled Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Perhaps you remember its chorus:ĭoes anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so, I can’t imagine why, we’ve all got time enough to cry. In times of tragedy, I’m comforted knowing that Jesus is Lord of all, and that includes his lordship over storms.
#JESUS LORD UPDATE#
For an update on how our members in Texas fared, and how you can join in assisting them, click here. I know we’re praying for the thousands of people who continue to suffer as a result of Hurricane Harvey, and now there is great concern about Hurricane Irma’s impact in the Caribbean and on Florida. Dear Brothers and Sisters, Joseph and Tammy Tkach