chronological time can or will cease as a result of any thing that might happen on or to the earth. Biblical Time There is another concept of time, which in the Bible is the more prominent one. The chronological aspect of time appears only incidentally in the Biblical writers. Baker’s Dictionary of Theology, in its article on time, has a significant statement with regard to Biblical time: “While time is not ultimate, it is the divinely created sphere of God’s preserving and redemptive work, and the arena of man’s decision on his way to an eternal des tiny” (p. 524). Philosophers might use the words realis tic and existential with regard to this aspect of time. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has brought this Greek word over into the English language as a noun: kairos, which is defined as “ a time when con ditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial ac tion: the opportune or decisive moment.” This pretty well sums up the New Testament use of the Word. The closest synonym to this is probably season. This idea of time has an immediacy in it. It has its past, in that it may be contemplated as having passed; it has its future in that it may be anticipated; but it carries in its present force an obligation to seize upon it and to act. Voice of Antiquity Many ancient nations looked upon time as a unit, which had a beginning, ran its course, and ended in some kind of consummation. Of course, this was now related to events upon this earth, but to man’s oppor tunity and responsibility. The Chaldeans, Persians, and Etruscans believed that the struggle between good and evil would last 6,000 years, after which time it would cease. Zoroaster even went so far as to teach that in the last times, after much evil of every kind had afflicted the earth, two beings of supernatural powers would appear and extensively reform mankind. In the end another su perior personage, viz., Sosioch — a name resembling in sound that of the Hebrew Messiah (Meshiach) — would make his appearance, under whose reign the dead would be raised, the judgment take place, and the earth be re novated and glorified (Daniel T. Taylor, The Voice of the Church, p. 27). Some believe that he got this from Hebrew sources. The six- and seven-thousand year tradition also runs through Jewish and Christian antiquity. The Jewish tradition dates from at least the second century B. C., the approximate date of Babbi Elias, whose doctrine be came known among Jewish teachers as “ the tradition of the house of Elias.” He taught that the world would be “ 2000 years void of the law; and 2000 years under the Messiah” (Joseph Mede’s Works, 4th ed., 1677, pp. 535-37; 892-96). While this tradition in this quotation as it is some times given, is limited to the 6,000 years, the millennium to follow is not absent in the ancient sources. It is quoted in full from the Germara Sanhedrin as follows by Mede (op. cit., p. 776); “ The tradition of the house of Elias. The just whom God shall raise up [viz. in the first res urrection] shall not be turned again to dust. Now if you ask, How it shall be with the just in those thousand years wherein the Holy Blessed God shall renew his world, whereof it is said (Isa. 2:11), ‘And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day,’ you must know, that the Holy Blessed God will give them the wings as it were of eagles, to fly upon the face of the waters: whence it is said (Psa. 46:3), ‘Therefore shall we not fear, when the earth shall be changed . . .’ ” One of the earliest of the apostolic fathers of the (continued on next page) 25
the radio: “ The white man’s time is up here on earth.” Many Bible teachers believe that things cannot go on much longer as they are. On the other hand there are, as Peter said, scoffers who say, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the crea tion” (2 Peter 3:4). The apostle stated that these men were willingly ignorant. Even in his day things were not as they had always been since the fathers fell alseep, and in addition to that, “The heavens and the earth . . . are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (verse 7). Americans are too prone to look at time in the chronological sense. Scarcely can they conceive of such a thing as time’s ceasing to be. After all, time as we know it, is based upon the rotation of the earth and its revolution around the sun. Doubtless it will come as a surprise to some that time is only a relative thing, and that it is subjective. What about time on a planet like Mercury, for instance, which always keeps its face toward the sun? As a matter of fact, astronomers do not use earth time, but base their calculations on the movements of the heavenly bodies. In fact, they correct our earth clocks by means of meri dian circle observations. Scientists still have not arrived at a perfect measurement of time. But by taking time outside of the earth, they remove the possibility that
DECEMBER, 1962
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