Bonds Fall From Prisoners

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Acts 12:9-11 Good News Translation

⁹ Peter followed him out of the prison, not knowing, however, if what the angel was doing was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. ¹⁰ They passed by the first guard station and then the second, and came at last to the iron gate that opens into the city. The gate opened for them by itself, and they went out. They walked down a street, and suddenly the angel left Peter.

¹¹ Then Peter realized what had happened to him, and said, “Now I know that it is really true! The Lord sent his angel to rescue me from Herod's power and from everything the Jewish people expected to happen.”

 

You may not remember the first time you heard this story. I don’t. I encourage you to read it again in Acts 12.

Herod Agrippa, son of Herod the Great who slaughtered the babies in Bethlehem after Christ was born, was as conniving as his father. The Herods were descendants of Esau, not Jacob. So, they were not Jews. This made the extremely nationalistic Jews hate them. The Herods always felt insecure in their position as rulers over the Jews.

Agrippa sensed the hatred the Jews felt towards the followers of Christ, so he arrested James, the brother of John, and in a public execution he killed James. For once the Jews applauded his action. Being no dummy, he arrested Peter and planned a great festival to kill Peter. On the day of Peter’s execution, Agrippa sent his men to fetch Peter and bring him before the huge crowd gathered for the spectacle. They came back empty handed. The standard Roman penalty for losing a prisoner was death. Agrippa was disgraced, and for revenge he ended up killing four quaternions of guards—16 guards. This did not, of course, increase his favor in front of the Jews.

How did Peter escape? Was there magic involved? The Angel materialized in the inner dungeon where Peter was. Chains fell off of Peter, and he walked out of the prison. For an analogy consider a two-dimensional maze like the one above. The object is to draw a crooked line that enters the maze at the red arrow and exits the maze at the green arrow without crossing any of the black lines. However, if you were to cover the maze with a thin strip of transparent plastic, you could simply draw a straight line from the red arrow to the green arrow on the plastic and it would not touch any of the black lines. What just happened? Since you are three-dimensional, not two dimensional, you simply made a line above the paper. This line is out of the two dimensions of the paper—the black lines no longer existed. It was extremely close to the paper, but didn’t touch the paper except at the arrows.

If angels are in four-dimensional space, they could be as close to Peter—in the 4^th-dimension—as a thin sheet of transparent plastic, yet be totally undetectable by Peter and unrestricted by the prison walls and doors. The angel would simply slide Peter out of his three dimensions onto this miniscule thickness of the plastic sheet. He would not slide Peter’s bonds with him, so they would no longer be around his wrists, neck, and ankles, and they would fall to the floor. The bonds and walls and guards are now gone. The four guards in Peter’s cell with him might hear the chains fall and see Peter disappear, but they would be so shocked, they couldn’t respond immediately. Peter was simply there one instant and had totally disappeared the next. The other guards would be completely oblivious to Peter and the angel. Even Peter would be mystified: he “thought he was seeing a vision.” Peter follows the angel out onto the street, and suddenly he’s back in his own three-dimensions, and the angel has effectively disappeared.

I’ll let you fill in the details. How did you imagine this event happening? Again, this whole scenario as I have described it may be totally wrong. There may be no fourth dimension. We need to re-examine the whole concept of our existence. It may be that the angel drugged the guards into a deep sleep like we see in movies, but this would not explain how the bonds fell off or the locked doors opened. 

Thank You, Lord, that You have ways of providing for us that are totally beyond our ken.

 

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maze_simple.svg

Communal Living

 

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Acts 2:44-45 Good News Translation

⁴⁴ All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another. ⁴⁵ They would sell their property and possessions, and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed.

 

In the late 1960s, a number of young people revolted against their materialistic, capitalistic, Christian upbringing. A large number of them joined communes across the country. They pooled their resources so that everyone was equal financially—which resulted in no one becoming rich. Many rejected violence in all its forms, so they turned vegetarian rather than slaughtering animals for food. They rejected the concept of individuals owning anything. This often included even the concept of being married to one spouse. They often wore jeans and flannel shirts.

By the early 1970s some of these communes had matured to the point that some members had become professionals in universities. At the university I had a professor of topology who was a member of a nearby commune. He had an unkempt beard, long hair, and always wore a wrinkled flannel shirt and jeans.

I took a class from him in multidimensional geometry and topology. He carried a handful of multicolored chalk to his lectures. Questions came up about how ordinary things we use in our everyday lives, such as knots and clothes, would be in the four-dimensional space. He drew a series of colored pictures that showed in sequence how any knot would become untied in this space. To my very restricted view of the three-dimensional universe that we live in, it came as a shock. But his excellent multicolored pictures made what he taught appear totally obvious. I audited several of his other classes, with his permission, mainly to see his pictures of higher dimensional realities.

The “picture” of a Klein Bottle I have included is a simple object that requires a fourth dimensions to construct. It appears that part of the bottle physically pierces the right side of the figure. However, in a four-dimensional space it doesn’t actually pierce it. I’ll let you puzzle over that concept.

Try thinking of it this way: in our experience we have three dimensions that we move in: 1. Forward and backward; 2. Left and right, 3. Up and down—it helps to own a jet-pack here. If there is a fourth spatial dimension, we have no access to it. But if we could access this elusive dimension, we could construct the Klein Bottle by moving the tube on the right out into that dimension just enough to miss piercing any part of the bottle.

As you begin to grasp something of four dimensions, you realize that a four- or higher- dimensional being can see not only your skin but also all of your insides—not a pretty sight! If, for example, a 4-D being wanted to remove an infected appendix, 4-D could grasp it without cutting open the skin and remove it.

Does what I tried, unsuccessfully I’m sure, to explain to you have anything to do with my—or your salvation? Absolutely not! Well… Just maybe… I plan to explore some of my thoughts on this in future blogs and hope we gain a greater appreciation of the magnificence of our God! But, let me repeat and emphasize, understanding this in no wise changes the fact of our salvation by God’s amazing grace through our faith in Him.

Thank You, Lord, for saving us by the marvelous sacrifice of Your Son Jesus Christ!

  

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle#/media/File:Klein_bottle.svg