I sometimes deal with thoughts that don’t have simple answers. Many years ago I thought about space. Space outside of this atmospheric ball we live on. The thought of the infinity of space boggled my mind. There’s no end to it. But what if there is. What’s on the other side of space? Intriguing. Are we living in a never ending expanse of space or are we a cosmic order in a quart jar in some kid’s bedroom?

Another thing that makes one think. Time. Just what is time? We Westerners have three tenses in time, but the Hebrew language and understanding has only two. Past, present and future are easy to live with because that’s all we’ve been taught. The Hebrews have a continuum of time consisting of past and future together and where we live at this moment is somewhere on that line. This gave me a whole new look at the thought processes of the Bible. I, if not you, separated the past from the future and the two never really touch. Oh, I believe in eternity, but that was relegated to the future only, when in fact the past and the future exist in the same “place” called eternity. How else could a prophet tell the future if all of time didn’t exist all at the same time, so to speak. God, as we know Him, exists in eternity. He says things like “I knew you when you were in your mother’s womb”.

In the process of salvation, the Bible says Jesus died for everyone. He went into the grave (Hell) and retrieved all who died in the faith. Then He also brought about the ability of rebirth spiritually while still in the physical body. In His dying on the cross He gave everyone eternal life past and future. Your name was written in the Book of Life then. Not at the time of your acknowledgement of Him. The blotting out of a person’s name from the Book of Life comes from rejecting the gift of salvation when the wooing of the Spirit comes upon a person. I’ll step out on a limb here and say everyone is already given the ability to be saved. It simply requires the acknowledgement of this gift. Rejection will relegate one upon death of the physical body to the grave (Hell).

I can say someone has said why do you put Hell in parenthesis next to the word grave. It’s because the translations from the Hebrew and Greek for grave is Hell. Not some eternally burning place. Remember to read in Revelations 20:13-15- And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Okay, sorry, I got carried away. I could and have lost friends over my studies. The Bible is a complex book. I’m not a main stream Christian. I don’t hold to traditional Christian beliefs. To me it’s not a religion, it’s a lifestyle. You either are or aren’t. No middle ground.

If you’re atheist or of some other religion, I don’t condemn you or say it’s my way or the highway. There’s a lot of things out there we don’t know about. Everyone is due their own opinion or belief. Just be all you can be at what you do believe.