The Link

The following thought was inspired by these words from Randy Alcorn's book on Heaven: "What possible effect could our redemption have on galaxies that are billions of light years away? The same effect that our fall had on them."

Here is a dialogue that I feel could very well have occurred within the divine Trinity before the creation of space and time:

"While they yet live on earth, let them feel the unfathomable gap between them and the galaxies. Let their observations cause them in their souls to define space as a lonely infinity, with unreachable nebulae and impossible distances. Let that be the Universe's reality in their minds—that of an untouchable, disconnected expanse. When they have become convinced of that reality, let Us surprise them and give them not only the world, but the whole Universe."

God is our link to everything, since He intimately knows us while simultaneously intimately knowing, for example, the farthest star, and each of its atoms—where they are, what they're doing, their weight, their speed.

The Creator bridges the gap between any two things, since He is everywhere. Each of us is only one Person removed from the farthest point in the universe. I can literally say, “I know Someone who's been there.” And, as resurrected humans in a resurrected universe, I think it's likely we'll journey there too one day. How then can outer space be lonely if we have an omnipresent God? It isn't lonely, but perhaps God allowed us to adopt that impression so that our heavenly surprise would be that much greater.

God is quite the Bridger of chasms, come to think of it. Light years pose no challenge to Him, great though they be. But even greater than the distances in our universe is the distance between sinful beings and a holy God. Time and space are nothing to Him; but that He would condescend to Earth as Christ, and suffer torture and humiliation is something. More unfathomable than the wonders of our universe is the wonder of His sacrifice. Without that, we, along with the universe, would have no redemption, but would languish in the outermost of nothingness, eternally devoid of God. For those who have trusted in His sacrifice, though, verse 12 of Psalm 103 records the most glorious distance of all: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”