No 'time' for eternity?

[JesusIsLord]

An interesting note against my previous argument (that we will be outside time) is that the Lord says that the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind (Isaiah 65:17). What does this mean? Only that if, indeed, we are outside of time in heaven, then there will be limits as to how far back we can see. In this case, we could not go back in time to see the "former things".

I've always thought that I would one day be able to go back and watch Jesus' life and His interaction with His disciples, and the key events that led to our salvation. Apparently, that wont even come to mind in heaven.

[TimothyK]

Originally Posted by missbella

If we are working and interacting with others then there will have to be some way of measuring time otherwise there would be no structure or order to the society. Imagine trying even to organise a simple meeting with someone if you coukd not reference a time frame.

Originally Posted by WVBORN56

Our whole existence here is time oriented...

Time is of the essence
Time marches on
Time will tell.
Time and time again
No more time-outs for our kids
Time is up
Time to go
From time to time...
Time out
My least favorite as a child...Time for bed

Yep. Everything we do is time oriented. For now. We need it for all these reasons in the flesh. Try and imagine then an eternal existence absent of time. Our God does not have an age. We cannot measure how old He is. God does not have a beginning and He does not have an end. God Is, Was, and Will Be. He is outside of time.

When we step into eternity.. when our life ends or we are Raptured away we will have then a beginning, or rather a change of existence from flesh to spirit. But never will any person ever have an ending. Or to really blow your mind, we can also say the moment God decided you will be born would be determined to be the beginning of your existence and since the flesh is but a stage in our eternal lives, you will then never have an end.

So even if you counted every moment since the moment God conceived you and then when you left this life to be with God (or for the lost the eternal misery to be forever separated from Him), you will then never stop counting. Timeless. Endless. You will not have an end point. Time is mute. Time does not exist in eternity. It exists only in Creation.

This does not mean we will not have a type of structure or order or that we'll all be in suspended animation without the existence of time. Would God bring us from one place in our life only to make eternity more miserable then the life we lived in the flesh? That's a backwards, very human way of thinking. If God has done all this good for us even now, will He then in Eternity curse us to a disorderly and structureless existence? Will this be Heaven? Is not our God a God of order? What glory and wonder indeed awaits us when we meet Him and see Him clearly! We'll certainly have a more glorious and wonderful existence then we can scarcely imagine. If just the concept of timelessness can blow your mind, then to be with and where our Heavenly Father is will be a continual state of wonder, amazement, and joy unspeakable for those who hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's just my view on things. If it is better for you to imagine Eternity as restricted by time, that is your will.

[Petezzzz]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Wow. I had always thought that there was an absence of time in heaven. And just came to find out that "and time shall be no more" isn't in the Bible, but from a hymn.
Thank you for bringing this subject up. We learn something new everyday!

Wrong. It's in the Bible:

Rev 10:5-6
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
And swore by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by Petezzzz

Wrong. It's in the Bible:

Rev 10:5-6
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
And swore by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

Praise God! I hadn't imagined it all these years! I was afraid I was going !

It was like someone pulled the rug out from under me when I started reading this thread.

You've pulled me back to higher ground.

[Lucid]

Plus, I wouldn't want to wait 10,000 years for time alone with the Lord. I would get jealous.

[Sydney Spider]

Originally Posted by Petezzzz

Wrong. It's in the Bible:

Rev 10:5-6
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
And swore by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

That's the KJV, but the NKJV says this:

6 and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and the things that are in it, the earth and the things that are in it, and the sea and the things that are in it, that there should be delay no longer,

and the NIV says:

6And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!"

So which version is correct?

[Brinkley]

Lucid....that was a great video presentation by Chuck Missler. There are marvelous answers to God's promises such as eternal life with Him, and no wonder the Word says that......ear has not heard nor eye has not seen and neither has it entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him and keep His commandments.

[rescuedbyChrist]

I read the title in a different way. It seems people don't seem to have "time" for eternity. No one seems to care about it. No one seems to care about our Lord or End Times.

[Mishkins]

Originally Posted by TimothyK

I always thought it safe to assume the time references and times given for certain events were purely for the benefit of the human reader, not God. I believe in a timeless eternity because God Himself is timeless and eternal. Bible tells us this. A timed eternity doesn't make sense when eternity is defined as timeless. Even if you compromise and say eternity is infinite time, time is measurable and therefore not eternal. Looking from the outside in you can give a time for folks inside time, but if you are outside of time there is no time. Savvy?

Jesus Christ is God and a man like mankind. The laws of anything in His creation do not apply to Him. God can do the impossible. Square-circles galore. He can do anything and since Jesus Christ is God and He and The Father are one, there is nothing He cannot do. Any restrictions He has are only those He has chosen to impose on Himself. And like any self-imposed rule, He could also break it if He wanted too. Our God does not lie or break His promises. Can He? Sure. Anytime He wants. Will he? Never. Why not? Because He said He wouldn't. To save us, Jesus Christ stepped out of eternity and into His creation as a flesh and blood man. After He finished His work, He stepped right back into eternity. This did not change God's power or dominion. This did not make Him any less eternal or any less God. The only thing that changed is the second of the Trinity God Head, God's Son Jesus Christ, will always be the Jesus Christ that redeemed mankind. He can be nothing else because He has chosen to be Jesus Christ. He'll have a new wonderful name someday that the redeemed will know Him by, but as far as who He is, He will always be the One we have known as Jesus Christ. He will always be the redeemer of mankind and by whom we have gained our salvation. This will never change not because it can't, because God can do anything, but because God won't. We are assured this forever, eternally. It is a self-imposed restriction that God has chosen to do forever.

Jesus Christ is forever. He is both a man and God. Case closed. We can debate about infinity and time till' our ears bleed and we get reduced to ya'huh and nuh'uh, but Jesus Christ's claim to be God (which is what you truly question when you question if Jesus Christ can really be eternal) is an open and closed case. God answers this in the Bible. He and the Father are one. He is God and He is outside of time; eternal. Which is timeless by definition. I never thought of it as a hard concept. I really don't care how people want to define forever in terms of time. I don't believe time will exist. So if it's a discussion and we can't even agree on the existence of the subject in question, at a place and point we'll never see until we are with our Lord and God Jesus Christ who will answer such questions with wisdom only our all-knowing God has and silences both parties, or else says one to be right and another wrong... a seemingly endless back and forth can occur, unless I chose not to continue. Creating yet another vicious cycle.

Forever is forever is forever. Think on it too much and your head might explode. We were given the ability to contemplate eternity and yet we can never realize it in the flesh. Maybe it's an artifact from our would be pre-fallen state? More likely it's there to make us realize there's more to existence then this short life and to point us to God.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go explode now.

I hope you didn't explode!! Good post!! This makes so much sense I am glad you wrote it. I also think "forever is forever" and this being the case then who can know exactly how time will run (even if it still exists) in Heaven.
Like you personally I don't see the need for "time" in an eternal time frame.
Ok - now I've been discussing this with my daughter who cannot get her head around eternity (and who can blame her) and feel I might explode also!! As humans with our brain capacity what it is we cannot understand fully the concept of "eternity". Mishk.

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by Brinkley

Lucid....that was a great video presentation by Chuck Missler. There are marvelous answers to God's promises such as eternal life with Him, and no wonder the Word says that......ear has not heard nor eye has not seen and neither has it entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those who love Him and keep His commandments.

Missler keeps things interesting!

[pssgrace]

i really don't know the answer to that. 1 of the mysteries we can look forward to finding out the answer to someday.

[Kant]

A lot of good and interesting answers. Rather than pick out a specific post I will ask this more broadly to those that believe we will be outside of time completely.

1) How do you account for the resurrected Jesus, in a physical (glorified) body, interacting in "time."

2) I think someone mentioned about how we will be in the "spirit", but we will have physical bodies correct? Therefore, since time is a physical property, we will still be "in time."

3) I didn't see the Chuck Missler video that's been posted, but I recall a teaching of his where he mentioned that a spirit has no mass and therefore is not subject to time. So while this may be true of our spirit, it isn't true for the bodies that our spirit will be in (glorified bodies).

4) Perhaps we need to clarify the distinction with being outside of time (eternal) and living/being in eternity. Being eternal means you have no beginning and no end. Just being a spirit doesn't meet this qualification. Being God does. We are still created beings, so by that alone we can never truly be out of time because we have a point in time when our being came into existence. Existing/living in eternity means we will have no end; it does not change the fact that we had a beginning.

5) Revelation 10:6 in the NET bible (net.bible.org) reads as follows: "and swore by the one who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, and the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, “There will be no more delay!"

[TimothyK]

Originally Posted by Mishkins

I hope you didn't explode!! Good post!! This makes so much sense I am glad you wrote it. I also think "forever is forever" and this being the case then who can know exactly how time will run (even if it still exists) in Heaven.
Like you personally I don't see the need for "time" in an eternal time frame.
Ok - now I've been discussing this with my daughter who cannot get her head around eternity (and who can blame her) and feel I might explode also!! As humans with our brain capacity what it is we cannot understand fully the concept of "eternity". Mishk.

Don't worry. I explode all the time. You get used to it after a while. Terrible for the complexion though.

Grasping eternity isn't a salvation issue. We'll have all the "time" in the world when we get to that point to understand such things. If your daughter knows Jesus Christ, she needn't know anything else except our Lord crucified for her sake and ours.

1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.