Language doesn’t allow for the explanation of some ideas. A good example is trying to explain time and what came before. Before is a temporal word. It requires time to exist to make sense, so you’ll forgive me when I say things here like “before time.” It doesn’t make sense, but you know what it means.
There was a time when only God existed in eternity (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1), but our time, created time, cannot exist in a past eternity. It is impossible to cross an infinite number of events. Time is observed by recognizing sequences of events. If our past were infinitely long, we would have to cross an infinite number of events and never reach today. So, time had a beginning at creation.
Since there are only two categories, time and God, only God existed prior to creation. So, everything that isn’t God is creation including heaven. We know time passes in heaven since we see events taking place in sequence.
I’d like to propose that God existed in a sort of eternal time, time with different rules than the time we live in. God existed alone before creation but was still active. It seems to make sense that He had thoughts in sequence, the trinity shared love for one another, etc., and God is eternally existent in the past. So, maybe, if this is true, the time God lived in before creation has different properties than ours.
There are two categories of time: actual infinite is an eternity in which there is no beginning and no ending. This is the timeline (for lack of a better term) in which God has always existed. He has no beginning and has no end.
Then there is what is called potentially infinite time. This is a time that begins but has no end. Though there will always be an actual number of days in this potential eternity, it won’t end. This is our time. God can exist within it, too, of course, since He created it.
You might ask, “So, if God exists outside of time, why can’t we pray for something in the past to change?” Many of us have loved ones who died without Christ. If God exists outside of time, why can’t we ask him to save those people so we can see them in heaven? There are actually several reasons:
- God cannot do things which are logically impossible: make a married bachelor or a square circle, so He can’t make something happen and not happen at the same time.
- God is the Author of a real, ordered timeline. Events occur in a definite order, cause and effect. To change the destiny of one person doesn’t just change their destiny. If Pontius Pilate had listened to his wife and pardoned Jesus, then God would have changed the time, place, and event of Jesus’ crucifixion. Some who were saved may not have been. You might think “God would have found a way,” to which I would say “God did.” Jesus died for us on just the day God’s perfect plan required.
- Though prayer cannot change the past, our prayers can certainly be the vehicle God uses to change the present. Perhaps someone is suffering, and our prayers are what God wants to use to heal them. So, don’t think prayer is not effective. They are often used to accomplish God’s plan in the present.
- Rom. 8:28 (ESV) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. If all thing, good and bad, are a part of God’s plan, it would be wrong to pray for the past to change.
Why is this important?
Understanding God is a task you and I will spend our potential eternity working on. Jesus has given us the command to think about God as we love Him:
Mark 12:30 (ESV) And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
Our job is to know Him better and to know as much about Him as we can. Just as we want to learn as much as possible about those we love, we must do the same in our endeavor to draw closer to God through devotion but also through learning about Him.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 