Light is amazing! Turn on a light and time how long it takes to get from the bulb to the wall. Did you notice? It’s fast. It was moving at 186,000 miles per second! And no matter how many times you measure it; no matter how fast you’re moving when you measure it, it will still move at 186,000 miles a second relative to you.
Albert Einstein discovered that the speed of light is a constant. Now, that’s totally counter-intuitive, but it means this: If the speed of light is a constant, space and time are not constant. Time is relative.
So as I move relative to you, time slows down for me and speeds up for you. If I were to travel into space at 130,000 miles per second and then return in ten years, ten years would have passed for me, but twenty years would have passed for you. You’d be ten years older than me.
Theoretically, if I could travel at the speed of light, time for me would stop. It would always be NOW. And all your life would be eternally present to me—past, present, and future—NOW. I’d see your whole life in the eternal NOW.
I can’t travel at the speed of light. But light can and does. In The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene writes, “Light does not get old. A photon that emerged from the Big Bang is the same age today as it was then.”
A photon is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Light is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
So when He looks at you, He sees all of you: yesterday, today, and forever. And when He forgives you, it’s all of you. He’s never surprised by you.
Light is eternal. God is eternal. Love is eternal. Jesus is eternal. So when He gives you His life, it’s eternal.
God said to Moses, “My name is I AM THAT I AM (Ex. 3:14 KJV).” Jesus said to some Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I AM (John 8:58).” And Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:54).”
When we come to the cross, we come to eternity. The cross is the point where eternity invades all temporality and fills it with life, with meaning, and with the plot. So when Jesus cries “It is finished,” I think He means
all is finished: all time is finished, all creation is finished, all atonement is finished, and all of you is finished—in the End. He is the End. So, when He died on the cross for your sins…
Which sins did He die for?
Was it only the ones you’ve confessed up till now? So you worry that if He knew this or that about your past the deal would be off?
If you hide a sin in the past, you just build a coffin for yourself now. You close your eyes to the light and climb in . . . even though He has forgiven all your sins in the past.
Is it only our sins in the past that He’s forgiven? Such that you have to worry about failing in the future? If you do worry, you only build a coffin for yourself now and then climb in . . . even though He has already died for the sins you’ll commit tomorrow. He already knows: If you fail tomorrow, He won’t say, “Oh no!—I forgot that one.”
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul. (Romans 8:1) I think He means no condemnation. Remember? You are already “seated in the heavenly places with Christ.” (Eph. 2:6) So when God forgives your sins, He forgives all your sins. And when the Light descends into darkness, He descends into all your darkness. He is the end of all darkness and all time.
This is a small portion of the book The History of Time and the Genesis of You, written by Peter Hiett. (See pg. 123) To obtain a copy of the book go to The History of Time on Amazon.