"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven"--Ecclesiastes 3:1
Sometimes Believers talk about how Jesus Christ "left eternity and stepped into time." What is meant by that is He stepped out of the domain where God is--the dimension where He is--into creation. But the reality is there is time where God is when He’s just God, says Richard Jordan.
Time is the measure that you give to sequential events. If you have no time, it would be like . . . time is really where there’s a sense in which it always exists, or you can’t have any phenomenon of life.Well, the godhead have an eternity (a constant, never-ending existence) where there are things happening, so there’s a technical sense in which you would say, "It isn’t true to say there’s no time in heaven or eternity because how do you measure whatever you measure in the nanoseconds of eternity?" You’re not trying to deny there’s a sequence of events.
But when you start talking about creation, time takes on the dimension of events in creation and the difference between time and eternity is eternity has no beginning and no ending; it’s infinite.
Time in creation, while it may not have an ending, it certainly had a beginning; a point at which, in the beginning, before which there weren’t any of whatever was after the beginning began.
Philosophers just get it all wound up because, you know, Plato had ideas about this and reality and . . . then there’s St. Augustine . . . and pretty soon you go, "Oh, man, I think I’ll just get a Dr. Pepper, eat a Moon Pie and go to bed!"
In Scripture time is associated with creation. The fullness is associated with bringing it to its ultimate conclusion. What is the phenomenal experience of creation ultimately for? Ultimately, why did God create a universe in which people would experience that universe? What’s the ultimate purpose of time?
Isaiah is very clear. Psalms is very clear. Proverbs is very clear. God created the universe to have a place for Him to manifest Himself and dwell among a creation who would enter into His life; think like He thought and live for one another spontaneously like He lives and like the members of the godhead live for one another (in which He could share the glory of His life; experience it, rejoice in it, glory in it).
Well, that’s what happens out there when Christ becomes "the head of all things." We now know that the way He’s going to do that, the mystery of it, is He had the plan to do it in the heavens—the whole of creation and not just the earth.
It’s the "dispensation of the fulness of time." So there’s a time element associated with all of this. In my mind I say, "I wonder what that time element is? How long is that supposed to be?"
And you hear people say, "Well, He created the heaven and the earth in seven days." So why did He create it in seven days? Well, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.
*****
There’s a principle when you study prophecy, especially studying the Old Testament, one of the most important ways to describe dispensational Bible study to people is to point out the issue of progressive revelation.
When you study dispensationalism, you’re studying a time line. As the time line goes on, people know more than they did before.
Progressive revelation says there’s things back there they didn’t know that now we do know. The basis of dispensational truth is understanding the differences between that. Well, when you understand that principle, then the idea of typology becomes a fascinating subject to you.
“What happens with typology is you have things happen that you get over here, and you begin to understand something, and you’re able to look back at history back here and see how God did things, said things and taught things that at the time, you didn’t know what they meant but now you do know what they mean and can look back and see, "Oh, look! There’s a picture of this reality PRE-WRITTEN in the text!"
“In modern terminology we talk about prototypes. It’s a pre-picture of the reality that comes over here. A prototype demonstrates to you that whoever is writing this and organizing this, knows the future so when the reality comes, and it tells you what it is, He can say, "See, I had this planned all along. Look how I did that and look how I did this."
Philosophers just get it all wound up because, you know, Plato had ideas about this and reality and . . . then there’s St. Augustine . . . and pretty soon you go, "Oh, man, I think I’ll just get a Dr. Pepper, eat a Moon Pie and go to bed!"
In Scripture time is associated with creation. The fullness is associated with bringing it to its ultimate conclusion. What is the phenomenal experience of creation ultimately for? Ultimately, why did God create a universe in which people would experience that universe? What’s the ultimate purpose of time?
Isaiah is very clear. Psalms is very clear. Proverbs is very clear. God created the universe to have a place for Him to manifest Himself and dwell among a creation who would enter into His life; think like He thought and live for one another spontaneously like He lives and like the members of the godhead live for one another (in which He could share the glory of His life; experience it, rejoice in it, glory in it).
Well, that’s what happens out there when Christ becomes "the head of all things." We now know that the way He’s going to do that, the mystery of it, is He had the plan to do it in the heavens—the whole of creation and not just the earth.
It’s the "dispensation of the fulness of time." So there’s a time element associated with all of this. In my mind I say, "I wonder what that time element is? How long is that supposed to be?"
And you hear people say, "Well, He created the heaven and the earth in seven days." So why did He create it in seven days? Well, a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.
*****
There’s a principle when you study prophecy, especially studying the Old Testament, one of the most important ways to describe dispensational Bible study to people is to point out the issue of progressive revelation.
When you study dispensationalism, you’re studying a time line. As the time line goes on, people know more than they did before.
Progressive revelation says there’s things back there they didn’t know that now we do know. The basis of dispensational truth is understanding the differences between that. Well, when you understand that principle, then the idea of typology becomes a fascinating subject to you.
“What happens with typology is you have things happen that you get over here, and you begin to understand something, and you’re able to look back at history back here and see how God did things, said things and taught things that at the time, you didn’t know what they meant but now you do know what they mean and can look back and see, "Oh, look! There’s a picture of this reality PRE-WRITTEN in the text!"
“In modern terminology we talk about prototypes. It’s a pre-picture of the reality that comes over here. A prototype demonstrates to you that whoever is writing this and organizing this, knows the future so when the reality comes, and it tells you what it is, He can say, "See, I had this planned all along. Look how I did that and look how I did this."
No comments:
Post a Comment