Time, in Light of Eternity

God is eternal; He has no beginning or end; He is limitless. You may say, “But I don’t understand that; I can’t conceive or comprehend something being limitless.” Of course you can’t! The very nature of God’s limitlessness requires that it not be limited, or held, within the bounds of our puny imaginations.

Did you know that you will spend 100% of your life in the eternity that follows this world? That sounds crazy, but if you think about it, any amount of time, no matter how large is nothing when compared to eternity. Our minds, though brilliant and complex as they may be, cannot begin to even grasp the smallest edge of eternity. Does that mean eternity doesn’t exist—since we can’t understand it?
Obviously, not only is it impossible for our mind to grasp the existence of eternity, it is equally if not more so, impossible to imagine the absence of eternity. I endeavor to believe that many of us have tried to understand the vastness of eternity, but how many of us have tried to get a handle on a concept that depicts the absence of eternity? If you were to set out on a quest to understand this absence, here are some good questions to ask yourself.

1. If there was a beginning, when was it?
   
2. If you come to a conclusion of a beginning, what was before that?
   
3. If you’re still considering trying to figure this out, you might as well ask yourself, when will time end?
4. If you find an answer to the last question, ask yourself, what is after that?

In my mind, after trying to imagine the absence of eternity, I would say that the argument for its presence wins by default. So whether we like it or not, we have come to a conclusion of the existence of something that we cannot understand.
If you believe that we came from and are headed to eternal oblivion, it would seem that the blackness of eternity past and eternity future would engulf and completely swallow our existence to the point that we could say that it never logically existed. The line between eternity past and eternity future is so small that we could easily zoom out to the point that it completely and totally vanishes.

Eternity cannot be understood, compared to, or measured by time; and any attempt to do so is sheer nonsense. When we measure something, we generally try to measure it with something that is bigger than the object. For instance, we wouldn’t try to measure a ten-foot wall with a two-foot tape measure. Trying to measure eternity with time is like trying to measure the surface area of the world with grains of sand. And that illustration applies no matter how large the sections of time may be by which you try to find the end of eternity. Moral of the story: time and eternity have to be thought of in separate leagues, otherwise time will completely lose its meaning and value because eternity "doesn’t play fare."

Some have contended that hell is not forever. That notion is impossible! If hell at any point ended, eternity would continue on to the point that the punishment of hell would eventually disappear into utter darkness, as if it had never happened. But know this: at the point where a million years of hell would vanish in the rear view mirror of eternity, the sinners will still be paying the eternal punishment of the sins that they have committed against an eternal God. Probably the best explanation of this concept was summed up by the great evangelist Jonathan Edwards:

The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to obey him. And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligations to love, and honor, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty.

Our obligation to love, honor, and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority.... But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty....
So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment.... The eternity of the punishment of ungodly men renders it infinite . . . and therefore renders no more than proportionable to the heinousness of what they are guilty of.

Lastly, since we’re talking about eternity, I would like to mention one other eternal aspect, and that is the perfect Sacrifice of God Who freely gave of His eternal perfection to cover our eternal imperfections. Of course the One I’m speaking of is Jesus. The Bible refers to Him as the spotless Lamb of God. First Peter 1:18-19 says that we are “not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold from our aimless conduct received by tradition from (our) fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.” When it speaks of “corruptible things,” it is speaking of things that measure worth.

Yet, just as time cannot breach eternity, so corruptible objects cannot breach perfection. In the same manner that time is swallowed by eternity, anything short of eternal perfection will be swallowed by God's eternal wrath over sin. See, eternity and perfection are equal; they are the same distance, length, width, and breadth. Like eternity, perfection cannot be outdone, overspent, or underestimated. Therefore, the perfect Lamb of God is the perfect substitute for the eternal evil that we have done, and it is the only thing that can save us from the eternal wrath that we are sentenced to.