14 billion light years away? The new telescope that NASA has put in space (The James Webb space telescope) is surpassing the iconic photographs taken by the Hubble scope. It is looking deeper into space than we have ever looked before. We are now seeing light from stars that has taken 14 billion light years to get to our earth. (That is fourteen billion years travelling at the speed of light!) Is that mind boggling? If you are struggling to understanding God in the immensity of eternity, then probably your God is too small! If we could understand God, He would cease to be God.

God is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and Omnipresent (everywhere at once.) How does that reconcile with the way the Bible pictures God as an old man with a snow-white beard sitting on a throne with all the angels around Him? 14 billion light years, yet the Bible teaches us that we are a recent creation. We are a speck of dust, an orbiting cemetery, circling an insignificant star. There are stars in our Milky Way galaxy that are bigger than our solar system. For example, VY Canis Majoras is 2,000 times wider than our sun and you could (apparently) fit 9.3 billion of our suns inside it. I can’t comprehend that! Oh, and it is only 4,000 light years away! How does that all fit with the Biblical portrayal of a snow-white bearded old man sitting on a chair?

Just a little clarification. If we make the mistake of literalizing everything we read in the Bible, we create problems in our own minds. For example, is the throne literal? Can you limit omnipresence to a “chair?” Remember it said that we will sit down with him on His throne – if it was just me and Him then that would be OK, but it includes you and myriads of ‘overcomers’ through the ages. The Bible speaks to us in conceptual language that our minds can understand. What does the concept of a ‘throne” speak to you about? Rulership, sovereignty, and authority I should imagine.

Does God need judgment books? He is omniscient, He knows everything! The ‘books’ convey to our limited finite minds the concept that a record is being kept. Do angels actually have wings or is this a concept that we understand in terms of flight? Yes, I believe that angels get around at great speed, but I’m not sure that they actually have wings. According to modern science, worm holes in the space fabric are like celestial elevators. Step into one and you can be somewhere else almost instantly. That explains to me the rapid ‘flight’ of angels between heaven and earth.

Conceptual language is portraying literal things in a way that we can understand. Scientists say that we will soon be able to communicate with dolphins. If so, how will we be able to tell them about things that are way beyond water and fish and boat bottoms? This is how God is dealing with our limitations. He speaks to us in concepts and symbols. He uses the language of the past (The history of the Old Testament) to enlighten our futures. I believe that God is Sovereign of the Universe, I believe that Jesus is “the Lamb that was slain,” but I also believe that he is King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s.” There’s a concept worth contemplating. TBC