Imagine If You Will, and That By Faith

“I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” Isaiah 46:10

Even as I cannot comprehend eternity and the expansiveness of the heavens, there is one great deviation between eternity and what we can observe of God’s creation of mankind: God’s creation, as far as we can observe and measure it, exists within three dimensions, while eternity cannot be measured. Where did eternity start and what is its end? God existed before the creation, and He will continue after its destruction and reconstruction. Certainly God’s creation spans multiple dimensions for the Bible tells us of powers and principalities; seen and unseen; angelic and demonic hosts.  So, when it comes to this verse in Isaiah, how are we to consider God’s knowing the end from the beginning and that from ancient times? How could God with such certainty tell through the prophets the events that would befall Israel, herald the coming birth of Jesus and His death; as well as simultaneously predestinate and foreknow His elect from before the foundation of the world? How is it that God can work all things together for the good of those who are in Christ Jesus? How is it that God can hear and answer the intercessory prayers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and His children, which span generations? Are we not today the benefactors of that great cloud of witnesses that went before us? Were we not in Jesus’ own heart and mind 2000 years ago when He asked the Father before His death, “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.” John 17:9

How can this be? Well, I thought about what Isaiah witnessed, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” Isaiah 6:1 Yes, His throne! His throne is where all time and space converge; where the end meets the beginning. I remember in 2007 I went to the South Pole, Antarctica, and warmly bundled, I ran around the commemorative south pole. It took me about five seconds. During that time, however, I physically passed through all 24 time zones. How could that be? Because they all came together at that point at the end of the earth.

God’s throne is likewise that point where all prayers come together; all events coalesce; all things are worked together for our good for those that love the Lord. It is here at God’s throne where Jesus stands at the right hand of His Father—Jesus, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Oh, how we err when we presume to define God in our image or to think that we can know His mind. If we were only to close our eyes in order to open them, we could see by faith the unseen. We could behold the train of his robe that crosses dimensions and countless generations of angels and men; powers and principalities…all of which are observable by God and known from the end to the beginning. Such is the throne where God can predestine and foreknow His elect all at the same time. What was set into motion…call it what you will…the big bang; it included more than just the creation of all matter and sent it bounding outward. It also set into motion what was needed inwardly, and that being a Savior.

Don’t you find the Word of God a most wondrous and telling story of man’s origin, journey and end? Don’t you find it odd, if not ironic, that the Gospel of John predates Genesis? Consider: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3  Then ponder what is written in Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Let us make mankind in our image? Really?

Oh, to touch the hem of Christ’s garment! What healing is there? How much more though will it be to survey, as Isaiah did, the holiness of God and the train of His robe that filled the temple! How much more to survey the breadth, depth, length and height of the cross? And to think that we can see all of this by faith! And what is faith?

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1