What time is it?
[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 4:11).
Time is an intimate stranger. Theoretically, time and space don’t exist, they’re merely categories that are part of the grid through which we filter our experience of reality. They are spatial categories that fundamentally do not apply to God. Saint Augustine once said, “If you ask me ‘what time is it?’ I know.'“ “If you ask me’ what is time?’ I don’t know.” We are the only creatures to know consciousness and understand categories. Without consciousness there is no awareness of self; without consciousness there are no memories and no awareness of time. Since nothing created before us was aware of the passage of time, in a sense, time started with us and all the ages before our arrival therefore passed in no time at all. What time is it? It’s time to venture into the history of time.
Context: What did the original audience know and understand?
The people of the first century had complex ideas about time and dimensions. For nearly half a millennia prior, Greek philosophers wrestled with meaning, and how to conduct conversation about conversation. Socrates created his method of dialogue emphasizing the importance of asking questions and defining terms. Because of their efforts, New Testament Greek is nimble and capable of communicating nuances in thought. The Biblical concept of time is understood in four different ways:
Chronosis chronological time: The measured passage of moments akin to the rhythmic ticking of a clock.
Kairos signifies critical time with purpose: Those occasions when the divine intervenes in our lives. It’s often represented in scripture by phrases such as, “in the fullness of time,” or “the right, proper, favorable time.”
Aion encapsulates the concept of an eternal timeline: An age underscores the infinite expanse of time. For instance when Jesus is asked about his coming ( Matthew 24:36), he responds “No one knows the day or hour” (aion), or age.
Atomo is the smallest indivisible unit of time or the now: Paul (1 Corinthians 15:52) invokes this term to highlight the instantaneous nature of Christ's coming, which will transpire "in a flash (atomo), in the twinkling of an eye."
For a creative metaphor on time see: Stitches in Eternity: God’s Tailoring of Time.
There are chronos/kairos distinctions associated with dimensions. (2 Corinthians 4:18). The visible realm operates according to chronos, the simple passage of time. But the invisible realm, in which God resides, operates according to kairos, the ordering of reality according to divine purposes. Chronos is the time of physics, and physics has only been around as long as the cosmos. But kairos is God’s time, and God has been around forever. These two times are not utterly separate. When the visible and invisible realms intersect, kairos becomes evident within chronos. The creation of the world and the incarnation of Jesus are the preeminent instances of this intersection. In recognition of this, the Eastern Orthodox Church historically begins its liturgy with the deacon calling to the congregation, “It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act,” signifying that in worship heaven and earth intersect.
Historical and Theological Progression: Time began with God. Genesis describes the creation of the world occurring in six sequential days. We don’t know if each day was only 24 hours or perhaps longer, because the ancient Hebrew word for day, yom, can also denote a long period of time. Before English translations were available, disagreements over the length of the Genesis days did not exist. The majority of early church fathers explicitly taught that the Genesis days were extended time periods, something like a thousand years per yom. The ApostlePeter observed, “Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
We know little about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras, but wherever we turn up records and artifacts, we usually discover that in every culture, some people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. At the edge of recorded history it was the Sumerian astronomers and mathematicians in Mesopotamia (4100-1750 BC) who first systematically divided the passage of time. Based on their observations, they essentially invented time, dividing the day into 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness, then further dividing each hour into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. They also created the first calendar, using a solar year consisting of 360 days. Six-thousand years later we still use their system for measuring the passage of time.
Greek philosophers meditated on the concept of time. Parmenides suggested the past and future are illusions because the universe is timeless and unchanging. Heraclitus posited an endless process of creation, destruction and change. Aristotle believed time is rooted in motion and is meaningful only with respect to events embedded in its flow. His predecessor, Plato, observed that time is a reflection of the rotation of heavenly spheres. The Stoics described time as cyclical. The Hebrews developed the concept of linear time. In summation, there are basically three theories of time: 1) realist, 2) relational and 3) idealist.
As science and philosophy continue to pursue the what, how, where and when of time, we struggle to know how to be alive in time. American physicist Nick Herbert observes, “we humans exist in ‘a King Midas-like predicament’, unable to ever feel the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns, in that moment of our touching it, into solid matter.” This incongruency is sensed in moments of dejavu. We pursue life, seldom satisfied, always in a hurry to be where we are not, as if we own time. We forget we are temporary tenants. Our lives are bookended by an eternity beyond the constraints of time. Scripture gives us glimpses into the dimensions of time. Before the creation of the world we were in the mind of God (Ephesians 1:4) He gifted each person, in the ribbon of time, to a mother’s womb (Psalm 139: 13-16). A lifespan is but a mist, inevitably we come to the end of ourselves (Psalm 39:4). God determined the when and where of each lifetime (Acts 17: 26 & 27) and promised to make everything beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He placed eternity in every human heart. In fact, he promised us eternity before time began (Titus 1:2). God draws us to himself, he is not hidden. He speaks to us in ways that allow our finite minds to glimpse his infinite essence. At just the right time, he twisted the fabric of time. God stepped out of eternity and entered our time-bound history as an artist would enter his own painting. In the fullness of time God sent his Son. The incarnation of Jesus, the supreme act of God’s self-revelation, is a singularity— retroactive (in the past) and proactive (in the future). In Christ there is abundant life (John 10:10). Because he lives we can fully live, resurrected and sustained beyond the reaches of time. This paradigm shift is astounding; it should bring us to our knees. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you” (Saint Augustine).
Conclusion: We are time-travelers. Each year the earth sprints around the sun, hurtling through space at the speed of 1000 miles per hour. Incredibly God never fails to meet us wherever we are on time’s continuum. Eternity has no ticking clock. He knows each person intimately. He speaks to our passions and whispers in our longings. He enters our deepest sorrows with the assurance of hope (here). The moment we bow in prayer we enter God’s time, that intersection between heaven and earth, when the finite reaches out for and is embraced by the infinite. In the merging, before a word leaves our lips, God already heard and answered our petitions (Isaiah 65:24). We live time according to his will. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us (J.R.R. Tolkien).
Sources: The End of Christianity, William A Dembski; The Genesis Debate, Norman Geiser, et al; Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver; https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stitches-eternity-gods-tailoring-time-chronos-kairos-aion-gutnik ; https://pages.uoregon.edu/jschombe/cosmo/lectures/lec09.html