PART TWO
Psalm 13:1-2, New King James Version To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
"How long?" is a perspective of time. Likewise is the term "forever." This is not synonymous with "eternity," for eternity is not "a lot of time." This misconception permeates Christian thought. It seems to be shaking David's faith here at the first of Psalm 13 and I quite often find it to be the battle of the faith walk of the Disciple of Christ.
Looking at that last statement, "of the faith walk of the Disciple of Christ," when we carefully parse such a statement, we see a few containers formed by the use of the word "of.". The generally small words we call prepositions are huge in their impact on our understanding of the relationship between objects. Where context is king and trajectory tells all, the preposition brings them together in the courtroom of meaning. "Of" tells us "Christ" is the big container, "Disciple" is the next container within "Christ," and "faith walk" is within the container of "Disciple."
This meaning of the word "of" is clearer when we use geographical terms. I am John Bullock of Kirkwood Heath of the town of Boone of the county of Watauga of the state of North Carolina of the United States of America. "Of" indicates trajectory, a from-to relationship, providing an inside-out view of the dimensions of relationship between the nouns (people/places/things/concepts) being referenced.
This digression on the minutia of grammar is a foundation for understanding the concepts of time and space and our misconceptions of their relationship with eternity and all the dimensions that we will experience once made a part of it.
Eternity is not a lot of time, nor is it a large amount of space. Read the descriptions of eternity in Revelation.
When we consider numbers, we commonly understand the word "infinity" to reference something beyond counting. But just because we can't count something doesn't mean it has no end. In the created universe, there is not an infinity. Only in true Eternity is their true Infinity, for just as eternity is a state of timelessness, Infinity is a state of being boundless, where numbers cease to have meaning. As long as you are in space you will have time and vice versa.
Using the Biblical order of the Creation account, I understand space to be the container of time. "In the beginning" introduces us to some thing that will be in something else. Since "beginning" is a time reference, it would seem to say that space is inside of time. That's my understanding at this point in time... "point in time" emphasizes my point.
We will next explore how David's big battle was not with Goliath but with the concepts of time and eternity.
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