“good without knowledge of evil” (Rom. 16:19, BBE)
Let us spend a minute looking at the cataclysmic implications of man’s choice in the garden of Eden, which lead to his state of self-awareness.
In Gen. 1:26, when God said: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness,” it was not necessarily an immediate process already completed. The initial creation process most probably had to move through necessary processes of formation, of continuous phases of (re)creation. The mere fact that Man did not have the ability of God to discern good from evil, makes it clear that there were most probably also other spiritual qualities, and characteristics that man did not receive initially, for some very good reasons.
It seems like a principle in Scripture that God allows everything to unfold, and that there is thus always an unfolding increase. One could then speak of the concept of a correct time, or due time. [I realise the apparent contradiction here – God is in eternity, and eternity does not exist in a context where time unfolds (or does it?), but here we are thinking about time in the Hebraic sense, namely that it is not a continuum of abstract markers on a timeline. In various books about this and related matters it is illuminated from various angles: Irrational Man (William Barrett); Christianity with Power (Charles Kraft); Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek (Thorleif Boman); Judaism and Christianity – The Differences (Trude Weiss-Rosmarin), Our Father Abraham (Marvin Wilson), and God in Search of Man (Abraham Heschel).]
In Hebrew there is no specific word that can be translated for our Western understanding of time. The word that we translate as time, ‛êth, for instance found in Ex 9:8, means the moment (“occurrences, occasions” – Thayer) something happens, or will happen (“the time of the occurrence of some event” – The Complete WordStudy Dictionary). The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible then also defines the word as “a moment or season”. The Hebrews for instance referred to time in terms of agricultural activities – when it is time to sow and when it is time for the harvest; or according to religious rituals or festivals; or in reference to other events in the culmination of Israel’s history – their understanding of time was always linked to processes of development or unfolding, and not the restriction of minutes, hours, months and years. Time is always based on the principle of becoming complete, attaining a full measure. This framework of thought saw time as a series of God’s acts of saving grace, and the focus is not on linear completion, but on cyclicality.
The Greek language carries the heavy burden of Western “philosophy and empty deceit” (Col. 2:8). That there is much more inherent to the concept of time that is not at all concerned with the rapid sequence of units of time, is beautifully reflected in Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge cosmologist’s paradoxically titled book A Brief History of Time.
For this reason, we make the Western interpretive mistake when we take the expression in Ps. 90:4 – “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night,” and try to render it into specific mathematical numbers. When Paul quotes this in one of his letters in 2 Pet. 3:8: “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day,” he is not so much pointing out that one day and a thousand years are now equivocal, but rather points to the relativizing of time as a concept. In his explanation of the second coming (parousia) He makes use of the Hebrew understanding of time: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God …” (2 Pet. 3:10-12).
Please take note of the logic of the argument – the day of the coming of the Lord → the heavens will pass away with a great noise → elements will melt with fervent heat → the earth and the works that are in it will be burned → since all of these things will be dissolved → ask of yourself: how do you fare in terms of holy conduct and godliness? If the heavens pass away with great noise, and so does the earth on which you and I live and walk, why would you be concerned with your holy conduct and godliness? And you have to pose this question to yourself, as it expects and HASTENS the parousias, notes verses 13 and 14. You cannot interpret this in literal terms!
Our new understanding of the second coming (parousia) is absolutely confirmed by the Hebraic concept of time, as is our understanding of God; “To the Jewish mind, the understanding of God is not achieved by referring to a Greek way to timeless qualities of Supreme Being, to ideas of goodness and perfection, but rather by sensing the living acts of His concern, to His dynamic attentiveness to man. We speak not of His goodness in general but of His compassion for the individual man in a particular situation.” (Heschel, p. 21).
It is also important to, for instance, revise our entire Western understanding of prophetic deadlines in this light. The Hebraic thought framework for instance does not link “the day of the Lord” to a preordained date and time, and is thus NOT prophetically determinable.
Along with this we also need to revise the misperception of the loaded term eternity. Our Western thoughts link timelessness or an unending long period of time to this concept – both are by definition inaccurate. The Parkhurst Lexicon notes that the word for eternity “(should) be used much more for an indefinite than for an infinite time”.
The first concept that time will exist no more is taken from the Bible, specifically Rev. 10:6. But this is an inaccurate translation. The correct translation is as the ASV presents: “there shall be delay no longer”. This makes such a major difference!
The second concept, as is found in the well-known spiritual song, Amazing Grace, which we sing while staring into the horizon, as unending as our idea of eternity:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
than when we first begun.
This sounds very spiritual, but it is alas absolutely untrue. Eternity is not necessarily timelessness, or an unending period of time. Even in the Greek language this is not the case. Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible notes the following: “the Greek word which is rendered ‘eternal’ does not, in itself, involve endlessness, but rather, duration, whether through an age or succession of ages, and that it is therefore applied in the N.T. to periods of time that have had both a beginning and an ending (Rom. 16:25), where the Greek is ‘from aeonian times;’ our version giving since the world began.’ (Comp. 2 Tim. 1:9; Tit. 1:3)–strictly speaking, therefore, the word, as such, apart from its association with any qualifying substantive, implies a vast undefined duration, rather than one in the full sense of the word ‘infinite.’”
Hasting’s Dictionary of the New Testament (Vol. 1, p. 542) makes clear: “There is no word either in the O.T. Hebrew or in the N.T. Greek to express the abstract idea of eternity.” Thus, in short: “The O.T. and the N.T. are not acquainted with the conception of eternity as timelessness.” (The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 643). To summarise, this strong statement by Charles H. Welch, in An Alphabetical Analysis (Vol. I, p. 52): “What we have to learn is that the Bible does not speak of eternity. It is not written to tell us of eternity. Such a consideration is entirely outside the scope of revelation.”
The simple definition Jesus provides of eternal life in John 17:3 is the most basic way of thinking about what eternity entails: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” To know Him is eternity – a definition not related to time.
Back to the concept of time. Ecc. 3:1 presents this common truth: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven …” This could also mean that even before time, which is strictly speaking part of eternity, in other words being intimate with God, there must have been a sequence of events! It was however not subject to chronos time, but part of the unfolding of all things. Eph. 2:10 (KJV) for instance notes: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Before time there was a sequence of events, an unfolding of action. Selah!
In this dispensation where time is however a necessary part of our existence, it is very important to keep the Hebrew notion of it in mind throughout. Look at these Scriptures that all speak of a specific time:
- “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Rom. 5:6)
- “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Gal 6:9)
- “For there isone God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time …” (1 Tim. 2:5-6)
- “Paul … in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began,but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior” (Tit. 1:1-3)
- “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” (1 Pet. 5:6)
Back to the garden of Eden. Earlier we noted that the initial creation was not necessarily an immediate process of completion. The creation process had to undergo necessary formation processes or continuous phases of re-creation. God clearly created man in a non-complete state, with the potential inherent to his Being, attainment of that completion an unfolding process. Man had to be an innocent IN THIS DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE OF HIS BEING, “that you may be wise in what is good without knowledge of evil” (Rom. 16:19, BBE).
- Selah: Explain the Biblical concept of time to someone.
- Read: 61-66; Jer. 1-3.
- Memorise: 66:1.
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read any of the books mentioned above.
