There is a place where time and eternity intersect. Most Americans prefer not to think about this, until arriving at the time of death, when they are forced to confront this occult intersection and the questions it raises. What happens after we die? Almost without exception, we logically intuit that something follows death, . . . but what? Is it to be feared or welcomed? Is it nothing or something?
You might complain that no one has experienced what happens after death and returned to inform us. But this is not true. One Man, Jesus Christ, has died and returned to tell us the truth about the intersection of time and eternity. The Holy Bible is the only religious text I know that very specifically, and without religious mumbo jumbo, informs us about the relationship between time and eternity. Christians, who are mocked as “slaves of Christ” or “little Christs” (since first century Antioch, Acts 11:26), know that eternal reality cannot be seen by the eye of flesh, but that it is more to be seen and trusted than the temporal physical reality of our present world. The Bible, via the Apostle Paul, puts the intersect between time and eternity like this:
2 Corinthians 4:17-18 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, (18) while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
This is an astounding revelation to time bound mortals, but it answers our deepest questions. When did the world begin? What happened before the beginning? When and how will the world end? In the biblical sense these questions are all answered and fulfilled in eternity. Eternity is without beginning or end–it is the essential dwelling place of Almighty God Who Himself Just Is! Thus He revealed Himself to Moses,
Exodus 3:13-14 . . . Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” (14) God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'”
I AM THAT I AM translates the Hebrew YHWH, which, when vowels are added, reads Yahweh and is often translated Jehovah. This phrase name of God might also be translated, “I will be who (or what) I will be,” since the Hebrew verbs express continuing action. Jesus confirmed this meaning when He announced to the skeptics examining Him in the Jewish temple during the last days of His earthly Passion,
Luke 20:37-38 “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB. (38) “Now He is not the God of the dead but of the living; for all live to Him.”
In other words, the personal name of God expresses His wholly unique perspective–continuous existence in the present without beginning or end. This is an outrageously baffling notion to our time shackled human minds, but we intuit that it is not illogical. It seems to fit and make sense out of our devolving dilemma in time. We were not made to die but to live. Only the Bible announces this amazing truth made possible by the incomprehensible grace of eternal God. In this series of posts I will explore the comforting, and baffling, truths about time and eternity that are revealed in the Bible.
Leave a Reply