While I believe much of what he writes vis-à-vis exegesis of scripture to be a stretch, Gerald Lund, author of The Coming of the Lord (1970) and the updated The Second Coming of the Lord (2020), and other popular volumes and General Authority from 2002-2008; from October 2008 to the present, member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, appears to reject the mistaken belief that God exists in an “eternal now.” Consider the following:
EARTH TIME, KOLOB
TIME, AND GOD’S TIME
In his second general
epistle to the early members of the Church, Peter wrote: “Be not ignorant of
this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). The world has puzzled over that
statement ever since.
Fortunately, as if often
the case, we are given clarifying information in modern scripture. Through the
Urim and Thummim, Abraham was taught that Kolob is a celestial body that God said
was “near unto me” (Abraham 3:3). Abraham was also taught that one revolution of
Kolob (its orbit, we presume) was “a day unto the Lord, after his manner or
reckoning,” but was “one thousand years” in our time reckoning (Abraham 3:4).
This not only confirms what Peter said but enlightens us further on its
meaning.
So why does this
matter to us in this discussion on how soon the coming of the Son of Man will
be? Because it gives us another perspective—God’s perspective—on time. We now know
that it is not only our perception of time that influences how we experience
it, but also where we are in space—another thing Einstein postulated. More
importantly, we now have a precise comparison of our time and God’s time. So
with that, let’s do some mathematical conversions from the “Lord’s time” to “our
time.”
·
If one of the Lord’s “days” is 1,000 of our years, then one of his “weeks”
would be 7,000 of our years. (This idea of the earth existing for only a “week”
is found in the book of Revelation . . . )
·
On that same scale, our coming Millennium would last for only one of
the Lord’s days. This gives more meaning to a phrase from one of our hymns: “Beautiful,
bright Millennial day” (Hymns, no. 52). It also helps us better
understand why the Millennium is sometimes called the “Day of the Lord” (see,
for example, 2 Nephi 12:2; D&C 2:1; 43;20) and why the Lord could say that
He is coming “tomorrow” (D&C 64:24).
·
On that same scale, one “hour” of the Lord’s time would be 41.7 years of
our time on earth.
·
One “minute” of the Lord’s time would be 254 of our “days,” or about
two-thirds of a year.
With these
comparisons, let us now make some extrapolations between our time and God’s
time. Hopefully, this will change how we think of words such as “soon,” “quickly,”
“night,” and so on. As noted above, most of these phrases are found in
revelations that were given almost 200 years ago, which is several complete “lifetimes”
for us. But consider this:
·
The current lifespan of a person in the United States is about seventy-nine
years. In the Lord’s time, that’s not quite two hours.
·
If we use Kolob time, 200 of our years—the time since these revelations
were given—is only 2.9% of the total time of the earth’s 7,000 years of
existence.
·
If a family had a daughter serving an eighteen-month mission, and had
only 2.9% of her time left, she would be home in fifteen days. We would not
think it odd if the mother said that her daughter would be home “very soon.”
·
If a person were serving a twenty-year term of service in the military
and would be released in seven more months (2.9% of the total time), it would
not surprise us if he or she referred to the required time of enlistment as
being “near over.”
(Gerald N. Lund, The
Second Coming of the Lord [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2020], 65-66)