The New Testament of the Bible
presents two realities that are difficult, if not impossible, for us to
understand.
1. Jesus
was one with God
2. Jesus
paid for our sins when he died on the cross.
These are difficult concepts
because they require understanding something we have not experienced and can
not experience.
About 20 years ago Peter Sallis
invented two characters, Wallace and Gromit, which became the stars is a series
of short movies. In one episode, Wallace, a “hard core” cheese lover, found he
was out of cheese. Since the moon is made of cheese, he built a rocket in which
he and Gromit traveled to the moon and collected a supply of cheese. Now,
imagine that, instead, Wallace could have simply removed his hand and sent it
to the moon (easy enough for a clay figure!).
Furthermore, he could maintain communication with his hand, receiving
information and giving the hand instructions. Since we are in imagination mode,
assume that, under Wallace’s instructions the hand moved about the moon and
found the best possible cheese, collected some, and returned to Wallace. Now,
assume this all happened within seconds. This is the best analogy I can come up
with for the relationship between God and Jesus.
In our reality, this kind of
relationship is impossible. However, if God really did create the world, and if
the Bible is really an accurate story of God’s relationship to man the
relationship must be something similar to my analogy. My personal experiences
lead to the understanding that God did create the world and is still in
control. Furthermore, I believe that Jesus was fully man and fully God – hard as
that is to understand. As a scientist, my whole life has been driven by a
desire to understand how and why things work as they do. As I described in
another blog, we live in a three dimensional box with unidirectional-irreversible time. The box is solid and inescapable. We can’t envision anything else. If,
however, the box was created by God, which I believe, then He would also have
created the natural laws under which we exist. Furthermore, God is therefore not
constricted by the box in any way. Jesus said that he and Father were one. To see
Jesus was to see God. (John 10:29-30) That is hard! No question. It has to be
taken on faith, but if you do accept the fact, everything tends to fall into
place. Applying the scientific method in analysis of my own life, I have found
nothing to disprove the hypothesis that God is in control and that He is three
persons in one - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How about problem number 2? How
can Jesus Christ have paid for my sins when I would not come into existence for
another 2000 years. The only way I can explain that is that in God’s world
there is no “was” and there is no “when.” There is no past and there is no
future – there is only now, because there is no time. In our box this is
impossible to conceive. In our time, the man-Jesus was on the cross for a few
hours. In God’s world he was there but only an instant, but as the God-man hung
there He saw and took upon himself all past and all future sins, seeing them
simultaneously. And, if he could see my sins, he would also know whether I accepted or rejected his gift of taking my sins upon himself. I can’t understand this, and so far as I know, no one on earth
can understand it. If, however, time does not exist in God’s world, a lot of
the biblical content becomes understandable. To God be the glory!
