Over the course of this series, I have explored Christ’s temporary embodiment in space and time, hence the title of this book, Jesus in Space and Time. But following his ascension, Jesus now once again exists beyond our physical realm. He came to us from beyond space and time and he has now returned to that realm. In this final post, I want to explain what this means and explore the implications for our understanding of the nature of God.
Our Space-Time Continuum
Let me begin with a bit of science. I’ll try to make it as simple as possible – but it does involve some concepts that are unavoidably complex.
Most people would say that we live in a three-dimensional universe, but scientists disagree. They explain that our universe is actually comprised of four primary dimensions, with time being the fourth. (Actually, physicists propose that there are a further 6 dimensions in the quantum realm that are foundational to the physical universe – but we will disregard those for our current discussion). Thus, scientists refer to our universe as the space-time continuum. In our space-time continuum, any event or point in the universe can be described using four coordinates: three spatial coordinates (x, y, z) and one temporal coordinate (t). This framework allows for a more complete representation of reality, where time is treated as an integral and interdependent component alongside the universe’s spatial dimensions.
Albert Einstein incorporated this fourth dimension of time (t) into his equations which describe General and Special Relativity. His equations show that time is intrinsically linked to the three spatial dimensions of our universe and interacts with those spatial dimensions in a peculiar way. He predicted that the ‘speed’ or ‘rate’ of the flow of time is influenced by both gravity and velocity. Time has an inverse relationship to both gravity and velocity, so that time literally runs more slowly in the presence of objects of huge gravitational mass or when travelling at extreme velocities.
While Einstein’s predictions remained speculative and theoretical for many decades, several stunning observations in recent years have confirmed them. For example, it has now become clear that atomic clocks (incredibly precise clocks based upon the resonance frequency of atoms[1]) on satellites orbiting the Earth run at a slightly different rate to their counterparts on the surface of our planet. This is because of the complex interplay of their extreme velocities and the diminished gravity they experience in orbit.
For instance, GPS satellites in high orbit at an altitude of about 20,000 kilometres have a velocity of about three kilometres per second. Einstein’s equations which describe the relativity (or inconstancy) of time predict that a velocity of three kilometres per second will slow time down by 7 milliseconds per day whereas the reduced gravity at an altitude of 20,000 kilometres should speed time up by 45 milliseconds per day, creating a net result of time flowing faster by 38 milliseconds per day. Amazingly, scientists have now been able to observe this. The atomic clocks on board these satellites show that time runs 38 milliseconds faster than it does for atomic clocks on Earth. Because of this, the clocks on these satellites have to be adjusted on a daily basis to match the flow of time on Earth. Without these daily adjustments, our GPS system would be out by many kilometres within a few months because our GPS systems use timed ‘pings’ to establish precise locations.
By comparison, satellites in very low Earth orbits of only a few hundred kilometres, have a much higher orbital velocity of about seven kilometres per second. (A greater orbital velocity is necessary in order to remain in orbit and not be pulled down by the higher gravity at that lower altitude). The much faster orbital velocity of these low-orbit satellites creates a net result that their clocks run slower than the same atomic clocks on Earth, requiring a different daily adjustment.
These observations confirm the extraordinary fact that the flow of time is not fixed and constant as we once believed but varies in relation to velocity and gravity.
Further evidence of the relativity (or inconstancy) of time has also come from interstellar observations. Using high resolution telescopes, scientists have been able to observe light being bent and slowed as it passes close to objects of huge stellar mass such as supergiant stars and black holes. This is another observable proof that time does not operate at a constant rate throughout the universe but varies inversely with gravitational mass and velocity.
Extrapolating this to its extreme, if you were to travel in a spaceship at a velocity approaching the speed of light or, alternatively, if you were to be caught in the event horizon (outer edge) of a super-massive black hole, time would slow down to an extraordinary extent. While only minutes passed for you in your spacecraft, hundreds or even thousands of years would elapse in the outside universe. This is a strange but undeniable characteristic of our space-time continuum. The relativity and interdependent nature of time is not some wild, speculative theory, but is now an established, observable scientific fact.
But what has all this got to do with an understanding of the nature of God?
Simply this: God exists beyond both space and time. Let me break this down into its two components, starting with the easiest to understand.
God Beyond Space
God does not live in orbit around the Earth or on Mars. He does not dwell on the moons of Jupiter or somewhere out past the Andromeda Galaxy. Heaven is not located anywhere within our physical universe. Although God is present everywhere within our universe, he also transcends it. Our physical universe is something that God created for us to live in, but he exists beyond it. This is why we refer to God as a supernatural being, a term that simply means “beyond nature”. Thus, the Bible declares that God exists in a metaphysical realm that transcends our physical universe and he cannot be contained within it:
“But will God really dwell on the earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain You.” (1 Kings 8:27)
“For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place.” (Isaiah 57:15)
These statements are more than a mere declaration of God’s omnipresence – his presence throughout every molecule of our vast universe, as impressive as that is (see Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 23:23-24). Not only is God everywhere within our universe but he also exists outside or beyond it as well. These verses declare that even our inconceivably vast universe “cannot contain” him for he “inhabits eternity”. He is unconstrained by our spatial dimensions.
This is entirely logical. If God created our spatially dimensional universe, then clearly, he exists outside of it. He can’t be contained by his creation, otherwise he could not have created it in the first place.
God Beyond Time
But now we get to the really profound part, because God must also exist beyond time as well. This is an inescapable logical conclusion, because we’ve now proven scientifically that time is the fourth dimension of this physical universe. It is a temporal dimension that is inextricably tied to the three spatial dimensions and observably interacts with them. Time is as much an intrinsic and defining component of our universe as are the spatial dimensions of length, breadth and height. That is why scientists refer to our universe as the space-time continuum.
From a theological perspective, if time is a mechanism that is demonstrably and inextricably linked to the physical dimensions of our created universe, then God must exist beyond time. God exists beyond the spatial and temporal dimensions of our physical universe, in a ‘metaphysical’ realm (meaning outside of or beyond physical). Just as there are no spatial dimensions in the metaphysical realm, neither does time exist there either: it is a realm beyond time.
I’ll let that last concept sit with you for a few more moments … neither does time exist there either: it is a realm beyond time.
Even the noted atheist, Richard Dawkins, concede that if God exists, this must be the case:
Thus, God lives in a timeless realm. Just as it doesn’t have spatial dimensions, neither does it have a temporal dimension. The temporal dimension that we call “time” is simply a created mechanism to make our universe tick (pardon the pun). I know I’m belabouring this point somewhat but please hang in here with me a bit longer, because we are heading somewhere significant with this.
Describing God as timeless means more than just saying that he has existed forever in the past and will continue to exist forever into the future. He does not merely progress forever through linear time as we do, experiencing time incrementally and sequentially one second at a time. This lineal concept of time simply does not apply to timelessness. When there is no time, there is no past or future. Those terms are meaningless. There is only the eternal present.
Our puny minds struggle to comprehend this, because we are locked into a temporal existence and can’t conceive of anything other than a lineal progression of time. We travel through life locked in a temporal train that moves forward at a velocity of exactly one second per second. We can’t stop it, we can’t go backward and we can’t go forward any faster. But God is not locked into that lineal time-train. Just as he spans the spatial dimensions of our universe, so he also spans its temporal dimension. God spans all of time simultaneously.
Imagine a person straddling along the length of a very long ruler, with one foot at one end of the ruler and the other foot at the other end. Also imagine an ant walking along the same ruler, progressing along its length, one millimetre at a time. While the person straddling the ruler exists at all points along the ruler simultaneously, the ant does not, and it could not conceive of anything or anyone existing at all points simultaneously. From its perspective this would be an impossibility.
The same is true in relation to God and time. God exists outside of time and he straddles all of human time like we can straddle a ruler. He exists at all points of time simultaneously.
The Bible gives hints of this at several points. In the book of Revelation there are four occurrences of the phrase, “I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end”, twice used by God to describe himself (Revelation 1:8; 21:6), and twice by Jesus to describe himself (Revelation 1:17-18; 22:13). Note that these references don’t say “I am the beginning and I will be the end” (future tense). They are phrased in the present tense, effectively saying, ‘I already am the end’. In other words God inhabits the beginning of human history and the end of human history simultaneously. He lives in the eternal present and spans all of human history at the same ‘time’.
We see a further echo of this when God revealed his name to Moses as “I AM” (Exodus 3:14) and in Jesus’ use of the same term to describe himself: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58). This makes no grammatical sense to us because in a linearly temporal world Jesus should have said, “Before Abraham was born, I was”. But Jesus, the Son of God, came to us from a timeless dimension where he exists in the eternal present. For him as God, there is no past, no “I was”, only the eternal present of “I am”.
The previously quoted words of Isaiah 57:15 are also significant at this point:
“For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who inhabits eternity…”
It’s a strange thing to say, isn’t it – that God “inhabits eternity”? Eternity is an esoteric concept of limitlessness and ‘foreverness’, not a place. How can someone inhabit a concept? This is more than merely saying that God is eternal. He actually “inhabits” eternity. But how can you inhabit a ‘foreverness’? You can live forever, but how can you “inhabit” it? This statement infers more than mere temporal longevity stretching linearly forever into the future; it implies a state of utter timelessness.
The thirteenth century theologian, Thomas Aquinas, in his seminal work, Summa Theologica,[2] argued for God’s timelessness as an essential part of his transcendence. He proposed that God must be an uncaused first cause, whose existence is not contingent upon anything else. Logically, this first cause must exist outside the temporal sequence of cause and effect, thereby implying a timeless existence.
Theological Implications
If God is timeless and exists in the eternal present it makes sense of several concepts in the Bible. For example, the statement, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2 Peter 3:8), becomes clearer if God does not inhabit time as we do but spans all of time simultaneously. This verse essentially points out that time is meaningless to God and that he is not constrained by its linear progression.
More significantly, this also explains why biblical prophecies about the future are sometimes written in the past tense. For example:
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Although at the time that this prophecy was given it referred to the future suffering and atonement of the Messiah, it was expressed in the past tense as if this event had already happened. This is because from God’s perspective outside of time it already had happened![3] From his vantage point beyond time, God perceives all of human history simultaneously and does not have to progress through it linearly and sequentially as we do.
This also explains the series of revelations given to John where, among other things, he “saw” multitudes surrounding the throne of God at the end of history (Revelation 7:9-17) and witnessed the heavenly city coming out of heaven to Earth (Revelation 21 & 22). These are events that haven’t happened yet, but John “saw” them. The simplest explanation is that God took John out of the temporal flow of time into his timeless realm where he could see these events already happening at the end of time.
The timelessness of God also makes sense of the Bible’s teaching about predestination. On the one hand, the Bible regularly urges all people everywhere to repent and turn back to God (Acts 17:30), while on the other hand, it declares that God has already chosen and predestined those who will be saved from before the beginning of creation (Ephesians 1:4). How can both these things be true? The timelessness of God offers a perfectly logical solution. If God exists outside of time and interacts with all points of our human timeline simultaneously in his eternal present, then people’s faith response to him today and his calling of them before the creation of the world happened (and are happening) simultaneously. From our perspective, God’s call predates our decision to turn to him, but from God’s perspective, every event from the beginning of creation to its temporal end occurs in his eternal present.
This understanding of God’s timelessness provides us with a more satisfying explanation of the free will / predestination paradox than both the weaker explanation of God’s simple foreknowledge and the purely deterministic explanation of Calvinistic predestination. Both these common explanations are premised upon a simplistic and anthropomorphic view of God being bound by the temporal dimensions of his own creation and limited to the sequential flow of time. Understanding the timelessness of God, however, explains the apparent antinomy of the free will / predestination paradox and provides an explanation that retains the concept of God’s complete sovereignty while avoiding the over-reach of a completely deterministic viewpoint.
This also helps to explain God’s promise through the prophet Isaiah, “Before you call, I will answer” (Isaiah 65:24). From our perspective it is right to speak of “before”, because we are limited creatures locked into a linear and incremental progression of time. But God is not so constrained. There is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ for the One who lives beyond both time and space. These are mere constructs. They are parameters that define and shape our physical universe, created by God for us to live within, in the same way that a fishtank is designed to contain fish. But the Creator is not constrained by his creation. He exists beyond our space-time continuum.
Relevance for the Incarnation
But what relevance does this have for our understanding of the incarnation? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In stepping into our world, Christ not only limited himself to be constrained by our three spatial dimensions but he also became subject to the fourth dimension of our space-time continuum: time itself. He lived with us in our constrained fishtank. He joined us onboard the train of time which progresses in a lineal, incremental fashion. But prior to this, Christ had been outside of time.
This explains Jesus’ deep grief when he wept over Jerusalem and spoke of the impending suffering and genocide of its future inhabitants:
“As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)
Jesus did not merely know this in advance and perceive it as a future event. He had already seen it happen from his pre-incarnate existence in a timeless eternity. He had watched women being slaughtered and their children being dashed against the rocks. He had watched his beloved Jerusalem being torn apart by the cruel Roman army and its terrified inhabitants fleeing to the surrounding mountains.[4] Jesus’ language in the above passage bears out this interpretation. While speaking of this future disaster, he uses the past tense to lament the people’s unbelief which had caused it:
“If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace …” (Luke 19:42)
This is a strange tense for Jesus to use, seeing that Jerusalem’s rejection of him had not yet even happened – it lay in the immediate future (a few days away) as Jesus spoke these words. Yet Jesus laments that these future sufferers “had not” believed in him.
Jesus’ description of the future suffering of the people of Jerusalem was not merely an instance of abstract intellectual foreknowledge for Jesus, in the same way that we might ‘know’ about an examination or some other distasteful event that is looming for us. This was a vivid and shocking event that Jesus had already witnessed from his timeless vantage point in eternity, and it was this image, burned so deeply into his heart and mind, that caused him to weep such painful tears of grief.
Embracing the Mystery
There is a profound mystery to the incarnation. The timeless God became bound by time. The immortal God became mortal. The limitless God became constrained by the spatial and temporal dimensions of his own creation. We will never fully understand this. Limited minds are incapable of grasping limitless concepts. The deliberations of this book therefore do not presume to explain Christ’s incarnation definitively. They are simply presented to increase your sense of wonder as you embrace this extraordinary mystery.
Jesus’ ascension at the end of his earthly life represented not only his resumption of heavenly glory and divine privileges, but it also involved his re-entry into eternal spacelessness and timelessness. He left the fish tank. He exited the train. He is no longer bound by the four dimensions of our space-time continuum, but he once again exists in timeless, unbounded splendour.
This is the God and Saviour whom we now worship.
He is, once again and forevermore, the God who lives beyond space and time.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] “What is an Atomic Clock and How Does it Work?” on science.howstuffworks.com
[2] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1274, public domain,
[3] See other examples: Isaiah 9:6; 46:10; Revelation 13:8
[4] Luke 21:20-24