Adding A Dimension

There's a pattern in a couple Scriptures where an extra word shows up describing how big something is. It makes me wonder, "Where did that extra word come from?"

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Transcript

Adding a Dimension

by Eric Engelmann

All content © 2025 Static Force, LLC

WHAT IS ADDING A DIMENSION?

Imagine I'm going to the store, and I want to buy some twine. I need 100 linear feet or more. I'm about to demonstrate some examples of what I might expect.

I searched for "buy twine" on the internet. Here are some of the descriptions I found:

• Hyper Tough 5/16 in X 50 ft Jute Twine. (The first mearsurement is the thickness, the next is the length. That product is not long enough)
• 2mm Twisted Twine Roll Length: 330m (This is plenty long enough. More than ten times what I need)
• 2mm x 805 feet (Plenty long enough, too)

Those are the kind of measurements I get accustomed to seeing when I shop for twine online.

ADDING A DIMENSION would result in a label that has an extra number. It would say something like 4mm x 150 feet x 100 meters.

I would find myself asking, “What in the world is that extra measurement?”

And that question -- what is that extra measurement -- is the riddle I run into when I read two sections of Scripture. In this episode I'm going to look at those two Scriptures and address the riddle that comes with them.

The theme I run into is the extra dimension has to do with God's love. I’m not kidding.

ONE SCRIPTURE IS AT the end of the book of Revelation. This might be within the last two chapters of the last book written in the New Testament. 

John is talking about a city that comes down from heaven. It has gigantic proportions.

Rev 21:16

16 The city is laid out as a square; its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal. 

– Rev 21:16

A furlong is 220 yards. There are eight furlongs in a mile. 12,000 furlongs is 1,500 miles. That -- to me -- is a big city. It takes hours to fly across a city that big.

But the length and the breadth aren't the only surprises. The other surprise I get is the list of its dimensions: "Its length, breadth, and height are equal."

Where did this height come from? It's an extra dimension if you're trying to describe a square. This extra dimension is describing a cube.

A clue might be included in the line "The city is laid out as a square." It turns out the Holy of Holies in Moses' tabernacle was a square -- part of a cube with a matching height.

I think the extra dimension implies the city that comes down from heaven is like the holy of holies in the tabernacle. It's where God dwells.

To underline that point, John says later -- in verse 22 -- "But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple."

The whole City of God in Revelation 21 is like the Holy of Holies.

THERE'S ANOTHER SCRIPTURE that throws in an extra measurement. It references the Love of God.

It's part of a prayer that Paul has for the Ephesians:

In Eph 3 Paul prays that the Ephesian believers

"may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

-- Ephesians 3:18-19

We're not used to looking at things that have four dimensions. Here the list of dimensions exceed the 3-dimensional limit of our experience on this earth.

I think the extra dimension underlines Paul's next blessing:

Verse 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

I've found that pretending to use our brains to imitate this "power that works in us" is vain. We don't impress Him with our attempts to adjust our lives and imitate Him with no power.

Instead, we allow Jesus to fully live in us.

Receiving the love of God is where this power lies -- from one generation to another. To describe the love of God, we might have to refer to another dimension.

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