From a biological viewpoint we are finite creatures. There is a specific number of cells in our body. We don't know what it is but there is a set number. From the moment sperm and egg interacted to form a new set of cells to the second that the last cell in our body dies also has a number. You could say that the human race itself could conceivably have a similar number... a first person and a last person.
The Bible proposes a notion however that the soul is not finite. It has a beginning but no end. It is infinite but infinite in a particular way. It starts but does not stop. It has a progression.
Infinity is one of the concepts that opened mathematics up from being straight addition and multiplication into something else. Infinity was hidden in the math of a circle. It was waiting there right there between zero and one. How many numbers are there between zero and one... .1, .11, .111, .1111
Where do we even start to count? How small is smallest? It is conceptually infinite.
Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and a symbol must be assigned to it because the decimal places seem to go on forever 3.1415926...
God did make man in His image and we are clever creatures. We took an infinite number like Pi and just assigned it a Greek letter so we could use it in our math and math opened up like a flower. It was no longer something to be used in the market place to buy fruits and vegetables. Math could be used in engineering and architecture to spectacular effect.
There are many directions we could take these ideas in but I want to focus on just a couple of them.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." - 1 John 1:7 ESV
What does all mean in the light of eternity? All is every one possible. If the Bible deals in infinite things as easily as it deals in finite ones then what does all really mean?
It covers every fraction and every multiplication. It covers every real number and every irrational number that needs a Greek letter to represent it. All stretches out into the vast expanse of the human experience and into the smallness of the tiniest moment.
"And he said to me, 'It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son' ." - Revelation 21:6-7 ESV
Payment would require addition and subtraction. Payment needs no knowledge of the infinite to function. God wants us to enter into His higher math and function in the place where engineering and architecture blossom. He has a love that is without a beginning and without an end.
When Jesus said, 'It is finished.' on the cross He meant it. All of it is finished. Redemption is finished. Time is still ticking away and God is using time in humanity and in the angelic contest but infinity entered time and space in a unique way when Jesus was born and His death also accomplished something very unique and infinitely far reaching.
"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?' " - John 11:25-26 ESV
Do we believe it? When our biology comes to an end what will happen to our soul?
--
No comments:
Post a Comment