According to Science, the Universe began about 14 billion years ago with a bang! The Universe and everything in it came into existence at the moment of the Big Bang. Space, time, and all the matter and energy within was created from nothing at a singular point, and then expanded and cooled, giving rise over billions of years to the atoms, stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies spread out across the billions of light years that make up our observable Universe. It is a compelling, beautiful picture that explains so much of what we see, from the present large-scale structure of the Universe's two trillion galaxies to the leftover glow of radiation permeating all of existence. The Bible says it this way, in the beginning God said "Let there be. . ." and it appeared. "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." (Hebrews 11:3)
The idea of the Big Bang first came about back in the 1920s and 1930s, and was first discovered by Edwin Hubble.. When Astronomers looked at distant galaxies, they discovered something peculiar: the farther away from us they were, the faster they appeared to be receding from us. According to the predictions of Einstein's General Relativity, a static universe would be gravitationally unstable; everything needed to either be moving away from one another or collapsing towards one another if the fabric of space obeyed laws. The observation of this apparent recession taught us that the universe was expanding at a blinding speed, and if things are getting farther apart as time goes on, it means they were closer together in the distant past -all the way back to "nothing." Hubble’s discovery rocked the halls of Science in 1929 and because many wanted to rejected this model they tried in vain to disprove it. Those who believed in the big bang were accused of dragging Science back into the Dark Ages. To accept this creation model was to acknowledge that some "thing" or some "One" (obviously God) created the universe.
An expanding Universe doesn't just mean that things get farther apart in time, it also means that the light existing in the universe stretches in wavelength as it travels forward in time. Since wavelength determines energy (shorter is more energetic), that means the Universe cools as it ages, so things were hotter in the past. Trace it back far enough, and you come to a time where everything was so hot that not even neutral atoms could form. If this picture were correct, we should see a leftover glow of radiation today, in all directions, that had cooled to just a few degrees above absolute zero. The discovery of this Cosmic Microwave Background in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Bob Wilson was a breathtaking confirmation of a creation event.
Though God created the universe about 14 billion years ago, it is still expanding. According to Astronomers there are between 200-400 billion stars and at least 100 billion planets in our Milky Way Galaxy. As galaxies go, ours is tiny in comparison to most. The size of the universe is incomprehensible! It is so vast that it must be measured in light years. Light travels at the speed of 186,000 miles per second which covers almost one million miles very 5 seconds. Even at this unimaginable speed it still takes 9 minutes for light from our sun to reach the earth. When we gaze into the heavens we are looking back in time as the light of distant celestial bodies finally reach our eyes.
Since the universe is expanding it has a specific size and a specific age at any given moment. Science recognizes that the universe is mostly material-material that had a beginning and will have an end. But this material universe is expanding into "empty space." What is empty space? Is it timeless? Is it really empty, or only empty as in void of material things? Though the universe is measurable, "empty" space seems to be immeasurable. Has anyone ever suggested that the expanding universe may reach the boundaries of empty space and come to a crashing halt -or fall off the edge of empty space? I’ve never heard it questioned myself. It appears that the created, material universe is expanding into the eternity and infinite invisible empty space.
It seems logical that empty space is part of the eternal realm, which having no beginning nor end, is infinite. As massive and vast as the universe is, it is likely no more than a tiny speck in the infinity of eternity, yet this awesome Creator loves us. As Christians we understand that God exists in the realm of eternity. And that He has promised to give His saints eternal life. We were born into a material world in a material universe, so we tend to view things through that paradigm. But as we ponder the timeless empty space that our universe is expanding into we understand that there is so much more beyond this temporal. God is eternal -I believe that eternity is the default existence and that the temporary is, well. . . temporal. "The heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10) "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away." (Revelation 21:1)
Death came into existence through sin, but even death will one day be swallowed up in victory. (1 Cor. 15:54) God has placed eternity in the heart of man, "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart." (Ecclesiastes 3:11) All things which are not eternal, are eternally useless.
