Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom.
Isaiah 40:28
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
“One potato, two potato, three potato, four.” So the child learns to count. After she amazes her parents by counting to ten, what’s next? “What is the biggest number there is?" Perhaps the child tells her parents, "I love you a billion, gajillion." What’s bigger than that? How about a googol? That’s the number one followed by 100 zeros (see
here). But wait, how about a googolplex (one followed by a google of zeros)? That is a finite number so big that there isn’t enough room in the universe to write it out (see
here).
What then? What's bigger than a googolplex? Many people would say, “infinity.” But, what is infinity?
From the time of the ancient Greeks, most mathematicians said that infinity was just a way of speaking about a possibility; that infinity is like an endless journey in which it is always possible to take one more step. But in the 1870s, Georg Cantor, a Russian-born mathematician, revolutionized mathematics with his radical ideas about infinity. He said that infinite numbers should not be compared to an endless journey. Rather, they were like an infinite road that exists all at once. Cantor described collections of infinite numbers in which the parts could be as big as the whole. He proved that infinite numbers could be added or multiplied. It was crazy!
Cantor’s ideas were initially mocked and rejected. One mathematician compared his ideas to a disease; another called him a "corrupter of youth.” But Cantor was able to prove mathematically that his understanding of infinite numbers was correct. His ideas became widely accepted and his methods serve as the foundations of modern mathematics.
Mathematicians since Cantor use axioms and logic to approach the infinite and discover some of the fascinating, unexpected and difficult-to-understand consequences of dealing with the infinite. We, as Christians, deal far more intimately with a far richer Infinite when we yield ourselves to God, our very creator. And the consequences are equally unexpected and staggering.
We scarce can comprehend the meaning of an infinite, everlasting God. Our hearts may fail us when we consider the magnitude of the universe and our seemingly minuscule place in it (see video below). Yet we have tested and claim this hope – that the Creator of the universe knows us, became like us, and died for us; and there is nothing in all the universe that can separate us from the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.
God bless you!
Donna and Dean Payne
