CHAPTER 3
WHEN TIME BEGAN
Since God did not need time, and time was created by Him for souled beings, when did time begin? We know that time is not as “ancient” as God, since God created time. This is a primary certainty. It may be hard to think of a period when time did not exist, but since time is a created thing it had a beginning, unlike God. Time has therefore existed for only a relatively short period in comparison to God's limitless “eternal now” existence. But regarding when time actually began, it was created just prior to the creation of the first souled creatures since sentient creatures need time and also location. God created time and location, then after these were in place He put souled creatures into that original structure of time and a universe. And those creatures would be the angels. So the answer to the question “when did time begin?” is that it began just prior to the creation of angels when the first universe and heaven were both created for them.
If God had everything He required with only Himself in Trinity, why create beings at all? The issue comes down to love and worship. God alone could not express His love outside of Himself, and He was not worshiped, which He deserves. God cannot worship Himself, since worship requires a lesser being to look up to a greater Being with reverence and love. And if the worship is to be genuine, the lesser beings must have true free will to decide to worship or not worship. Therein lies the conundrum of time and history. Creating lesser beings with the free will to choose how and when to worship God included the opportunity for those beings to reject God. As it turns out, they would.
God created perfection, but creatures eventually turned it into something very imperfect as a result of the free will God graciously gave to them. It was not the design of God but the free will foray into arrogance by Satan and his angels which led to the fall of the angels, and eventually mankind followed a similar pattern. And time exists solely to support those souled creatures. Satan and the fallen angels who joined with him made their decisions to revolt against God, and their eternity has been decreed by God to be in the Lake of Fire. The second creation of souled creatures called mankind is now playing out their part of the timeline, and each person must make a decision about their eternal destiny during human history. Life is about choices, for or against God, whether angel or human.
Time and location were a nearly simultaneous creation, but although there can be time without location, there cannot be location without time, so time technically had to come first. Time and location were therefore meant for the angels, and were created just prior to the creation of the angels. But why angels? Good question.
At some point during the “eternal now” God made a plan to create the souled creatures we call angels. Actually, “at some point” is inaccurate since there is no “some point” in an eternal now because that would require God to be subject to time, which He is not. You can see the problem when discussing time, since God is not limited by it. Anyway, God’s plan included souled beings in phases, and also iterations of universes as locations for those souled beings, also in phases. This plan involved two sets of souled (or sentient) created beings with true free will capable of making decisions for or against God. Note the "making decisions" thing on the part of souled creatures, which is the key to history since it involves free will in those creatures. The first round of sentient being creation in God's plan was therefore angels, and they were created by God as an expression of His love. When souled beings understand the love of God, they worship Him. But looking ahead as to why God created some of the other locations, it was because the angels lost their focus on God's love and revolted against Him by making decisions against the will of God. That forced God to create additional locations, some with nasty names like the Lake of Fire, the Abyss, and so on. More on those locations later.
Time is answerable to God. The Bible tells us what portions of time have already occurred, and what remains. Therefore we will begin with a short overview of how time has played out during its history so far. Yes, time has a history since it is not eternal, only everlasting. Again, eternal is unending in both directions, everlasting is unending into the future but not the past. Time and the creations and restorations associated with it cannot be separated, so these will all be discussed in the same context. This section will provide a road map showing where the discussion of time is headed as it relates to souled creatures and the universes and other locations provided for them. It is important to explain some things in several different ways in order to make them clear because this is a difficult subject, so please understand if some things seem to be repetitive. The way to make such difficult issues clear is by explaining them in several different contexts.
As mentioned earlier, the order of creations began with time and location, including the original universe and heaven, and then the angels. The original universe creation was nearly simultaneous with the creation of time, but for our understanding it helps to view them as occurring in order, one following the other, first time, then the original universe and heaven (location or place), and then the angels. The universe could not exist without time since there would be no continuation or sequence, which all locations require. And both time and location needed to be in place before the creation of the first souled creatures, the angels, who were put into this newly created infrastructure. Souled creatures cannot exist apart from or outside of time, and they also cannot exist outside of location, either during history or the eternal future.
Therefore when we think of time and location, we must think of God as apart from both, but souled creatures requiring both. God is outside of them, but makes Himself available to His souled creatures through these two creations. Again, the most important issue to understand is that God created both time and location, and therefore He is not subject to either of them. This allows God to be in any and all portions of time and location continuously and all at once, therefore any point in time and location is as fully known to God as any other. This gives us an even greater appreciation for God and should cause awe that God as eternal Existence would, at a specific point in history, make Himself available to mankind in the body (a location) of the God-Man Jesus Christ in order to resolve the barrier of sin which stood between God and man.
As another illustration of how God is outside of time, and therefore not subject to time, God has actually made time stand still and also go backward, both events occurring during battles when the Israelites needed extra time. The first occasion was during the time of Joshua shortly after the Jews had begun to settle the Promised Land:
Joshua 10:12 "On the day the Lord gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the Lord in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!"
Another event occurred nearly 700 years later when the prophet Isaiah relayed a message from the Lord to King Hezekiah of Israel when the army of Israel was about to be defeated by the Assyrian army:
"And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city. 7 “This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: 8 I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz. So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down."
Time actually went backward (by approximately 40 minutes assuming each step was one degree on a sundial) to enable the Israelites to repel the Assyrian army. Both of these events where God made time stand still or go backward help us understand that God is outside of time, and He controls time.
Time is therefore not something outside of history, some supra-natural all-powerful thing beholden to nothing and no one, not even to God. On the contrary, time is inside of God's plan, and therefore beholden to God, and held in place by God the Son. Time exists inside God’s plan for created beings, not outside of His control. Time is not the creator, although all anti-creationists and atheists worship time as the creator, as though it was a god. Their flawed theories all have one overarching tenet, namely that given enough time anything can happen. That is an illogical assumption based on wanting to avoid believing that God exists. Time is a created thing, created by God as a gift to His creatures, not something which created those creatures. Time may allow certain things to unfold due to its longevity, but that is not the same as original creation of something or everything or anything. And the assumption that time always existed and therefore was available to create things, including life itself, is illogical. Time needed to have an origination, and that could only be from God. And as we have seen, time could not go back eternally as far as God. So all non-creationist theories about how the universe did not require God are based on the assumption that time would have existed without God, which is both inaccurate and illogical. God created time. Time did not create anything, but rather it has merely allowed certain post-creation issues to unfold as ordained by God. Unfolding and creation are not the same thing. Not even close. Only God creates. Time can only unfold downstream consequences, such as fossils and smooth stones in a river bed and wind-eroded hills. Simply stated, time is not the creator of anything, since time is itself a created thing.
The keys to understanding the Biblical view of time and the universe are:
God does not need time, and exists in an “eternal now” apart from time
God created time; it did not exist until He created it
God does not need location; He created locations for souled creatures
Time, the universe and heaven were originally created for the angels
Angels revolted against God and changed the course of time and locations, requiring changes to the universe, and also requiring additional locations to be created
Man was created to prove the love and fairness of God to Satan and his fallen angels
Eternity will continue time and locations forever, although those locations will change
But just to answer a question which is often on the minds of people even though it is out of sequence (speaking of time and timing, which is our subject), what about the dinosaurs? God created the original universe for angels to use, and when He created the earth it included the original plants and animals of the period of the dinosaurs. Man and dinosaurs never coexisted on the earth. That original animal and plant creation was only for the angels. The dinosaurs could not harm the angels since they could not die or even be harmed by those creatures. We will discuss later in detail what happened to the original plant and animal life on the earth, including the dinosaurs, but the preview is that it was all eliminated before man was created, and an entirely new set of plants and animals were put in place during the restoration of the earth in preparation for man’s occupancy. Therefore the earth has so far had two purposes, the original purpose was for angels and not man, and the second purpose is now for man with angelic “involvement” and even interference. And there were no dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark. They were already fossils at the time of Noah, since the dinosaurs had long since been extinct. We will discuss the timing of dinosaurs as related to humans in more detail later. This was just a preview of coming attractions for the highly curious. And I don’t blame you for curiosity – it is a fascinating subject.