TIME

Time has been a noted theme in pop music over the years, particularly in my heyday of the 1970s.  From that era, we have Chicago’s hit recording, Does Anybody Really Know what Time It Is? (“Does anyone really care”).   We have the classic hit from Pink Floyd, Time, with its chastening lyrics “ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.”  Al Stewart laments in his hit Time Passages, “Well I’m not the kind to live in the past, the years run too short and the days too fast, the things you lean on are the things that don’t last”.  The Steve Miller Band in their hit, Fly Like an Eagle, warns us over and over that “time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future”.

My favorite (time) song from that era though was Jim Croce’s sentimental love song, Time in a Bottle.  It would likely now be one of my all-time favorite songs if I believed that Jesus was the one Jim was singing about when he crooned, “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do, is to save everyday ’til eternity passes away just to spend it with you”.

In the infamous 1960’s we had the Rolling Stones hit, Time is on My Side, which it obviously was as Mick Jaeger and his crew continue to perform in major stadiums before millions of worshiping fans from that era to today.  We had Judy Collins hit album and recording “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”, and probably the most prophetic song ever written outside of the Psalms, namely Bob Dylan’s  The Times They Are a-Changin.

A more recent time related song is called 7 Years, written by a young man named Lukas Graham who in it anticipates the increasing sense of loneliness found in moving from childhood to old age.  (It’s worth listening to.)

The Bible has much to say about time since its divine author, God, is the creator of it. The Bible references time in its opening verse (Genesis 1:1), “In the beginning.” From there God proceeds to reveal to us a firsthand account of His creating the universe, earth and man for His glory – that the infinite perfections of His eternal being would be displayed, seen, imaged, experienced, proclaimed and enjoyed within the realm of time (Psalm 19:1-6) (Isaiah 43:7) (Lamentations 3:22-23).

God creates all things over a period of time, six 24-hour days, and each day He proclaims that what He created as good, perfectly designed to fulfill His purpose in creation.  He rests on the seventh day, establishing a rhythm to life in which we would work, rest and freely enjoy His good creation within the context of time (Genesis Chapter 1 and 2).

The rotation of the earth, its revolution around the sun and the phases of the moon would be used to mark the years and seasons and months and weeks and days and hours and moments and seconds of human history and our individual lives.

All of God’s initial plans and purposes for mankind would be fulfilled within time.  Although there has been and continues to be significant theological, philosophical and scientific debate regarding God and His relationship to time and eternity, the traditional Christian teaching is that while God acts in the realm of time, He, as the eternal creator of it, exists outside of time.  He does not experience a succession of moments and related events that are constantly changing as we do but sees vividly, all at once, all that occurs in the course of time from beginning to end (Isaiah 46:9-10) (Revelation 1:8).  All that has occurred, is occurring and will occur in time is present in God’s consciousness (Psalm 139:1-3) (Psalm 139:15-16). I would note however, that God’s ability to declare future events before they happen does not necessisarily come from His seeing these events in time, as some believe, but because He has ordained those events from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8) 

Although our finite, sin-clouded minds only grasp the concept of God’s timeless existence in part, we believe it to be true by faith in His word, the Bible, His gracious self-revelation, in which He is described as without a beginning or end, eternal, infinite, everlasting.  Psalm 90:1-2 declares, “From everlasting to everlasting You are God”. He always was and always will be who He is today (Exodus 3:14) (Malachi 3:6) (Hebrews 13:8).

God, in creating man in His image and likeness, created man immortal.  However, sin, mankind’s rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, brought death into the world (Romans 5:12), meaning that each person’s time in this world of time would be limited.  At the end of our lives, each of us will face God’s judgement (Hebrews 9:27), His just determination of where we will spend a timeless eternity, either as the object of His love in Heaven or subject to His wrath in Hell.  That determination will be made based on how we related to God, and to our fellow man, who are created in the image of God, during our time in this world.

The good news is that God, God the Son, Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago, left the realm of eternity to enter into time, (Galatians 4:4), so that those who entrust their lives to Him, while in time, will not perish in Hell for all eternity, but be restored to the glorious and timeless relationship with God for which mankind was created (John 3:16).

More on time – next time.

Grace and Peace ×