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4.17.2006

Time and eternity in the Bible

The subject of time in the Bible... One thing that 'hounds' me is the fact that so many people I know and see around me have no real connection with the Word of God (to any serious degree), and the fact that if they go to their death in this state they are lost in hell. I understand the doctrine of hell, and accept it. Nevertheless, one is hounded by this fact of so many people so far from interest let alone connection with the faith. So, the subject of time: these thoughts don't drive me into the direction of universalism or anything unbiblical. I understand the Bible. I accept it. Yet TIME. If you do a study on time in the Bible by just looking up the topic in systematic theologies and dictionaries of theology you see interesting things that seemingly are very big when applied to how we see the fate of human beings vis-a-vis salvation. God is in eternity. He is not limited by time as we are. Our perception of time is limited as well. God has access to all parts of a human being's time, past, present, future. God can act in time at any part of time. Our perception of a human life - birth and a straight line to death - is our limitation. God doesn't have that limitation. We also can't go to other points of that birth to death line (like, I can't go back to a point in time when I was a teenager), yet God can do that. He can see me at that point of time and he can act on me in that part of my time. So why not suppose God can act in a person's time when that person is dead?

If God is in eternity, it would follow that our time is alive in all its parts - from God's perspective - but we just perceive it as past, present, future, birth to death, and with death ended.

So without talking of second chance or universalism is there no room to say 'unregenerate at physical death' doesn't necessarily mean 'reprobate at physical death'? God chooses from before the foundations of the world, yet that is in eternity, so it's just language to say 'before'. God chooses from eternity. When he regenerates is his act as well (the Holy Spirit effects that regeneration in time, and He is God as well and He works from eternity too, so even if you want to say 'before the foundations of the world' means before our life and time still that choice has to be effected in regeneration by God the Holy Spirit, which occurs, when it does, at some point in time). Do we really have to despair of a person who dies an unbeliever? Perhaps yes, but...that doesn't mean God can no longer act in that person's time (regenerate them at any point of their birth to death time). God doesn't have our limitations in perceiving and acting in time.

It's not about living again or going 'in a circle'. From our perspective we die and then are judged. We need to know that. But when we look at other people who are still asleep to their situation can we not interject this subject of time into how we see it and not despair that they are definitely lost?

One thing that nags at the mind is there are such big consequences of seeing or not seeing the faith that if we really felt the import of it all we'd be out sounding the Gospel call like maniacs every hour of the day, yet we instinctively don't feel that is necessary. We don't do it, anyway. We don't feel that urgency, yet the situation would seem to call for it. I suspect perhaps deep down we know it doesn't work that way. That people aren't necessarily lost at death if they die an unbeliever. That God can still act on them and give them a new heart in any part of their time. It is just difficult for us to perceive that, yet God doesn't have our limitations regarding time.