What if?

I suspect we’d all agree that the way we measure time was designed by God, right? Everything about time is divisible by six. Six is the number of man. Man was created on the sixth day.

But six is also the number for man being destitute of God. Seven is the number of spiritual perfection but six falls short of that perfect number of seven. This means that 666 is the greatest of the imperfect. A man cannot achieve a greater status in this life than what the antichrist achieves in the tribulation. He is the imperfect in triplicate. It’s in triplicate because he’s mimicking the triune Godhead. He is the imperfect magnified and glorified. He is the greatest of the imperfect without God.

But back to the number six. God appointed six days for man’s labour. Bullinger, in his Number in Scripture book, would write that “Six is the number stamped on all that is connected with human labour. We see it stamped upon his measures which he uses in his labour, and on the time during which he labours…” Then he breaks it down. “…the day, consisting of 24 hours (4×6), divided into the day and night of 12 hours. The multiples and subdivisions are also stamped by the number six. The months being 12; while the hours consist of 60 minutes (6×10), and the minutes of 60 seconds (6×10).”

God determined the rotation of the Earth around the sun, which would determine how time would be measured on Earth and everything would be divisible by six because six is the number of man, specifically, man’s labor on the Earth because of sin.

I also suspect I don’t need to make a strong case here that God can see the future. Right? How can God give over 300 prophecies about His Son without seeing the future? Especially details about the cross, prophesying about a crucifixion 1,000 years before crucifixions were even invented (Psa. 22). Plus, no bones being broken (Psa. 34:20), being given vinegar mixed with gall (Psa. 68:21), the piercing of His hands and feet (Psa. 22:16), being numbered with the transgressors (Isa. 53:12), or the people looking upon Him whom they have pierced (Zech. 12:10). There’s no way God can prophecy all those details without seeing the future.

Open Theism holds that God cannot see the future. I asked an open theist once to explain prophecy. He said that God was merely announcing what it was that HE was going to accomplish. God is only saying in the prophecies what it is HE will be doing in the future.

The problem with that for me is that if God cannot see the future, then He would have to forcibly manipulate everything for those prophecies about His Son to be fulfilled. He couldn’t do that without betraying man’s free will, and God has never done that. He would have to betray man’s free will in the sense that he’d have to somehow engineer the invention of crucifixion. He’d have to force the Roman soldiers to hold back on the beatings so no bones would be broken, force the piercing of His hands and feet to be done in such a way that no bones would be broken, somehow inspire a soldier to give him gall mixed with vinegar to drink, engineer the Lord being amongst other transgressors, and He’d have to force the direction of the sword to pierce His side so that no bones would be broken. God would have to literally manipulate everything in that Calvinist vein and betray man’s free will for Open Theism to be true.

Therefore, prophecy proves that God can see the future.

How do you explain 1 Sam. 23? Do you remember this story? David is on the run from Saul. The Philistines had also attacked a town called Keilah.

1 Sa 23:1 Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshingfloors. 1Sa 23:2 Therefore David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the LORD said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah.

Then David saved Keilah. Saul hears about this. He’s gathers a lot of men to go capture David in Keilah. In fact, Saul is going to tell the people of Keilah that he is going to destroy their city if they don’t turn David over to him.

On the other hand, David just saved the city. It’s a question in David’s mind whether the people would actually turn him over to Saul or not. So he asks the Lord.

1Sa 23:11 Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O LORD God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the LORD said, He will come down. 1Sa 23:12 Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the LORD said, They will deliver thee up.

David just saved the city but now these ingrates won’t even protect him from Saul? Unbelievable! So David, of course, left the city of Keilah. Saul heard that David left the city. He never sent men into Keilah.

Nothing happened.

Think about that.

God can answer “what if” questions. God could tell David about a future that never happened. How is that possible? How can God tell David about a future that never existed?

I asked an open theist about this story once. He said that God could predict what was going to happen because He knew their hearts. I thought, “Come on, man, that’s not really an answer.” Just because they intend to do something in their hearts doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to carry it out. Nor is it somehow guaranteed that events will play out exactly as they had intended in their hearts. Maybe one resident feels compelled to protect David and manages to persuade everyone else to do the same. Or maybe they try to capture David, but he narrowly escapes.

Plus, the Lord speaks with certainty here. “They will deliver thee up.” The people of Keilah will turn on David. They will capture him. He will be delivered into the hands of Saul. That is how this is going to play out. This isn’t speculation. This is a certainty. This will happen.

How can God tell David about a future that never existed?

This isn’t the only time God answers a “what if” question. In Matt. 11, the Lord explains the alternate future of a city had something different happened. This is the Lord’s discourse of woe upon the unrepentant cities of the north.

Mat 11:21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Mat 11:22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. Mat 11:23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven (Capernaum was the Lord’s home base of operations on the coast of the Sea of Galilee), shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Again, the Lord is stating a fact here. If the Lord had done the same miracles in Sodom as He had done in the cities of north Galilee, then Sodom would have repented and would have remained until this day. The Lord is answering His own “what if” question. What if I showed up in Sodom and did the same miracles? He knows how they would’ve responded. He knows He would not have carried out judgment upon that city.

Not only that, but Sodom would have survived and still existed! Sodom goes all the way back to Genesis. We’re talking roughly 2,000 years before Christ was born. The Lord knows that Sodom would have continued to exist throughout all those 2,000 years, throughout all those Gentile world empires, Sodom would have remained until this day.

Also interesting to me that the Lord only says Sodom here and not Sodom and Gomorrah, and I’ll bet you the Lord even knew that Sodom would’ve repented but not Gomorrah.

God can answer “what if” questions.

If you’re at the Bema Seat and you’re able to talk to the Lord and you say to Him, “Lord, if I had done this instead of this, what would’ve happened?” The Lord can answer that question.

How can the Lord tell you about a future that never existed?

The point is that God is greater than we think He is. God can do more than we think He can do. We cannot pigeonhole God as being confined by the physics of our universe. God is greater than all of that. God is above and beyond all of that. Maybe there is something about the way He created the universe, but God has made it possible for Himself to ask “what if” questions and see how those questions will play out with the free will of man.

The two stories we just covered insist that we accept by faith that God can see alternate realities, because Scripture has shown us twice now that God can answer “what if” questions. Why doubt it? We know that with God all things are possible.

Thus, with prophecy, God didn’t simply look into the future and watched how everything would play out and then wrote down 300+ prophecies about His Son and gave it man.

God also played the “what it” game.

He played out all the “what if” scenarios. He saw all the results, and He chose the appointed time for Christ to be born, for Christ to start His ministry, and to take the paths He took in His ministry, to say the words He said, and God chose the appointed time for Christ to die, because that time was the perfect scenario for His will to be fulfilled.

He wasn’t manipulating circumstances in the Calvinist sense. But He played out all the scenarios with man responding in his free will to the Lord and He chose the perfect time and the perfect hour when everything would play out perfectly for Christ to die for all mankind and for His will to be fulfilled. He chose that appointed time because He knew how all the scenarios would play out and THAT moment was perfect.

God doesn’t view time the same way we do. This is why Peter would say “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pe 3:8). How do you explain that verse? How can a thousand years be as a day and a day as a thousand years? For God, time doesn’t feel long or short to Him.

Why? Because for God it’s all one big NOW. It’s not that God is apart from time He is IN all of time in our world. Hal made the point on Friday that omnipresence can’t be strictly geographical. If God is truly omnipresent than He has to be in all time. Otherwise, omnipresence doesn’t mean what it means, and we’d have to redefine the word.

Before we even get to the future, God is already there. He’s already IN the future, and He has already seen how everything plays out. How else can you explain the book of Revelation? God has already been in the future. God literally took John into the future. God showed John how everything will play out in the future both in Heaven and on Earth. God is already there. He’s already played out all the “what if” scenarios. And now He can tell you with precision exactly what will happen in the future and write all that down in a book.