".
. . And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these
things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth
in me. And by the word of my power, have
I created them...And worlds without number have I created; and I also created
them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only
Begotten. But only an account of this
earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have
passed away by the word of my power. And
there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all
things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them . . . the
heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are
numbered unto me, for they are mine. And
as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof, even so shall another
come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory—to
bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
The
magnitude of this revelation is just today beginning to unfold. Modern astronomers have discovered within our
own Milky Way system 200 to 400 billion stars—suns like our own sun—to say
nothing of the billions of galaxies that comprise the known universe. God, of course, is the author of all these
creations: ". . . by him, and
through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants
thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God."
Left: The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin
Via Lactea, and the Greek Galaxia meaning “milk”) is a hazy band of white light
across the night sky formed by billions of stars in the disc of our galaxy;
Right: One small angle of the clumpy universe filled with billions upon billion
of stars
Looking at the millions of stars crowded into the
core of the Milky Way Galaxy, we are talking about only one galaxy out of
the billions in the observable Universe. And as one attempts to penetrate the depths of the universe and
comprehend the vast number of God’s creations which indeed "surpass all
understanding in glory, and in might, and in dominion," can he help but
experience the vanishing of time and the concept of age as the prophets must
have envisioned when the windows of eternity were opened to their view. As
Moses wrote:
"And
were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea,
millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the numbers of thy
creations . . ."
When
looking out over the heavens as they were unfolded to them, the writers of the
Ancient Hebrew text did not speak of "beginnings" or
"ends"; they declared that in eternity there shall be time no
longer. But this is a concept
difficult for our finite human mind
to comprehend, for all things have a beginning and an end to our way of
thinking, yet to the Lord, all things are in the present. He lives in a realm where:
"...all
things are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the
Lord.”
For man
to understand, God speaks to us according to our finite minds and limited
understanding so that we may comprehend even a portion of His
works. But this is not the language of
heaven, only of earth.
"Speaking
unto you that you may naturally understand; but unto myself my works have no
end, neither beginning; but it is given unto you that ye may
understand..."
From a natural
or temporal standpoint, one is obviously justified in discussing an earth
and its heaven from the viewpoint of age, providing there is objective
arguments and evidence at hand to make such a discussion worthwhile. As a
result, age will have significance to us as it pertains to each separate
creation within the universe—that period between the organization and
preparation of an earth and its heavens for a designated group of God's
children to pass through mortality and their eventual exaltation or damnation.
Since
there are various heavens, we have a greater understanding of the universe when
we realize that the Lord speaks of the heavens or heaven of a particular
earth as distinguished from the universe as a whole.
"...
and as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another
come; and there is no end to my works…”
This
obviously pertains to the heavenly bodies close enough to a given earth to be
visible, discernible, and important to its inhabitants—or that bear directly on
the life processes of a given earth, such as the sun, the moon, and the planets
relative to the earth upon which we reside.
The universe, then, is not the heaven of this earth but rather a vast
realm, almost a continuum in space and time.
It is a system that is being added to, changed, and remodeled
continuously.
Hubble
Shots of the Universe. No wonder Abraham, after seeing some of God’s countless
creations, humbly acknowledged that
in comparison, “man is nothing.”
It is
somewhat arrogant, perhaps, that man tries to understand the width and breadth
of the Universe that God formed, that in actuality, has no beginning and will
have no end. However, understanding is a worthwhile goal and one we need to
spend more interest upon, but not as the scientist who rejects the Creator of
all things, but as a child of God who has been placed here for our development
and growth in preparation for an eternal future none of us can fully
comprehend, but one God has prepared for us to inherit.
The point
of all this in relation to the Book of Mormon is that “In the beginning…” God
formed this world for our use, and upon this world has unfolded approximately
six thousand years of history, all of it recorded, with some areas recorded in
different volumes than others. The Book of Mormon is about the people who
inhabited the Western Hemisphere of this world from about 2100 B.C. to about
400 A.D. What all this is leading up to is the location of that area of the
Western Hemisphere where the Jaredites, Nephites, Mulekites and Lamanites dwelt
and lived out their lives.
To better
understand that, we need to start “At the beginning…” which is what these few
posts are all about before getting into the actual location of that Land of
Promise.
(See the
nexct post, “Insertion into the Solar System,” which covers how our Earth came
to be in the area it now occupies)
No comments:
Post a Comment