The Revelation Of Zero and Infinity

by Ye Wei-ping

Zero

Mathematically, zero can be found at the intersection of the x-axis and the y-axis. To use one of the American idioms, zero is in the middle of nowhere. In our daily life, zero depicts nothingness. For example, if a person spends all his money in the bank, his savings account will record a zero.

If you take the absolute value of all natural numbers, you will get number series starting from zero as 0, 1, 2, ..., ¥. The symbol ¥ represents infinity.

I often use one of the mathematical relations to help understand the concept of infinity.

n
- = 0
¥

In another words, no matter what the value of n is, be it in the millions or very small, be it a mountain or a feather, to borrow one of Si Ma-qian's famous sayings, as long as n is a finite number, its ratio against infinity is always zero. It is practically nothing.

Very interesting revelation.

One can be a genius, a Ph.D., a rich person, a king, a handsome man or a beautiful woman... we compete against each other; we compete for wealth, for fame, for beauty, for degree, for kids, for power... Compared to God's infinity and heavenly grace, however, all of this comes down to a pitiable zero. It is nothingness indeed.

Human beings constantly aim to break away from nothingness. How many colorful soap bubbles do boastful politicians break? How many tempting pictures of the future do scientists paint? How can we, with human limitations, paint tempting pictures of the future? How can we, with human limitations, break away from our finiteness?

Infinity

The concept of infinity may not be readily comprehensible to us. God, however, created us by planting the yearning for infinity into our heart and we search for it with perseverance ever since.

God said to Moses: "I am who I am. I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." The English translation uses the present tense for the verb. Whenever I read this, I can't help praising the Lord. Our concepts of the past, present and future are meaningless in the presence of the Almighty of the universe. Every number on the x-axis, no matter which position it falls into, cannot break away from the axis. Now that our God is without limit, the past and the future of human beings as well as the entire universe are all within His control, and there is no need to distinguish between past and future.

What a "I Am"!

Whoever follows Jesus Christ will have a share in God's eternity and infinity, no matter how rich or how poor the person is. Such transformation from finiteness to infinity does not result from deeds but it is due to God's grace. It is the ultimate paradise that human beings can ever possibly enjoy.

Human beings try every means to break away from their finiteness, but all their efforts can only result in history repeating itself.

As mentioned above, before following the Lord Jesus, we are exactly the numerator in the equation above; no matter how prosperous we are, the ultimate result is but zero.

Christians step into the denominator of the equation above. This is the fundamental transformation in the significance of life. Worldly affairs, prosperity or poverty, all become the n in the equation. They are transient and they are nothing compared to heavenly eternity.

Such is another interesting mathematical revelation.

Paul, the apostle, said: "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." (Phi. 3:7) "The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." (Gal. 6:14) This is why Christians are able to live in this adulterous world with righteousness regardless of their social or economic status. It is also common in the testimonies of countless Christians in the past couple of thousand years.

God gives us eternity that injects into our life new significance, which is not to be measured with any worldly standard.

The author came from Guangdong Province. In his letter, he described himself as one who "was involved in the bloodshed of the Cultural Revolution, was assigned to labor in the rural areas for seven years, was lost in life, and is now joyful because of heavenly bread." He earned a M.S. degree in America and is now a principal engineer of Motorola in Texas.