One of the most popular themes in science fiction today is time travel. It offers mind-bending plots that captivate the imagination of the viewer (or reader, as the case may be). The scientific community has not decided whether time travel is possible. What does the Bible say? Most themes about time travel were inspired by the biblical prophets. Traveling in the past might altar the present ... and the future. If time travel were possible, a rogue might visit the past to change things for his advantage. If he committed such a time crime, he might catastrophically altar the future. For time crime, you need time police. They would not only know what you have done, they would know what you are doing, and what you will do. Given the world of fallible and fallen human beings, time travel presents a multitude of horrors. To go back would be to court disaster. Merely being there would altar history. To go forward would be to leap forward into a world of technocratic despotism and fiendish super-weapons. Or so the science fiction writers would tell us. This is the secular view of the future. Their speculations are endless. Time travel is limited in two ways - mind boggling paradoxes and the inability to find sufficient power. But that doesn't keep the curious mind from probing the dark unknown to find ways out of the box. At the major universities around the world, many physicists continue to labor at solutions to what Einstein called a "unified field theory" - a mathematical way at explaining the universe. To the uninitiated, their world of electrons, anti-electrons, positrons, quarks, rings, strings, vortices and a myriad of other descriptive terms verges on the supernatural. The secular approach involves penetrating the wall between our dimension and other dimensions. Physicists see as many as ten of them ... or perhaps even more. The Bible actually depicts exactly the same structural idea. This should come as no surprise, given that it is the handbook offered to us by the creator of the universe. Perhaps the most fundamental truth of our existence is that he stands outside the dimensional walls of our world. He is beyond length, width, height, time and any other dimensions our mathematicians will finally discover. He made them all. He travels through them freely. If time travel is the creation of a bridge or tunnel between parallel dimensions, then a time jump should be possible, given enough power. The Lord has that power. But he also stands outside of what we would call a "time line." We are on the line, or within it. He is outside of it, and plainly states that he can view any part of it ... or all of it, at his leisure. "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure" (Isaiah 49:9-10). As the Lord of time, he can "travel" to any point in history ... past, present or future. Actually, he is not traveling at all, since he is omnipresent - everywhere at the same time. In a very real sense, the biblical view of time travel is simply another view of God. Put another way, to travel in time, one must be allowed to travel in time, and the Lord, himself, is the gatekeeper. In the Bible, there is a great deal of time travel, but it is always with a purpose. It is never done lightly, and it is always accomplished with a view toward the future. There seems to be no instance where the Lord takes men into the past. Other than Jesus himself, one of the several biblical people mentioned in scripture who actually traveled in time to the future is John, who was taken bodily into the heavenly dimension and was allowed to witness the approaching seven years of judgment upon earth called the "Tribulation." He was also allowed to witness the establishment of Christ's Kingdom on earth after the Tribulation and the glories of the restored earth. His trip began when the risen Christ appeared to him, and gave him a series of messages to seven specific churches. Then, he was literally allowed to pass through a dimensional door. As this occurred, he was ushered into the timeless realms where the future may be viewed from a variety of perspectives. "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne" (Revelation 4:1-2). John's spirit, in conjunction with the Lord's spirit, now moved to the divine throne room for a formal procedure that would unfold in a series of judgments upon the world.

• published: 29 Jun 2017
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