Date: Mar. 30, 2017
I recently read an article about a very interesting material. British researchers created the blackest material ever that absorbs 99.96% of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light. It's called Vantablack and, when you place it near something that we think is black, like a phone case or material inside the Hubble telescope that prevents stray light from affecting the instruments, it really shows the difference.
Vantablack is composed of carbon nanotubes that measure 20 nanometers by 14 to 50 microns in size. When light hits the material, it gets caught in the gaps between the nanotubes that cause light to bounce all around internally, but never reflect light out. Even if you shine a bright light on it, the material would still look perfectly black. Recently, the research team was able to make a version that can be spray painted onto other objects. Now, the properties of the spray version is not as good as the original. It only absorbs 99.8% of light, but it brings up more interesting opportunities.
Vantablack is so black that human eyes cannot perceive it. Pictures of objects coated in Vantablack look like their Photoshopped. When you look at it, it is like looking into a bottomless hole. Three-dimensional objects appear to be two dimensional. A sphere looks like a black disk. A bust coated with the material shows no features whatsoever. Our eyes rely on the reflected light to see features of objects, but Vantablack absorbs all the light we could possibly see and we only see black.
You might be wondering what this information is doing on a church website, but it is a great example of how perfect our salvation is and how God sees his children. The apostle Peter wrote that "love covers over a multitude of sins". (1 Peter 4:8 NIV) Sin is what separates us from God. It mars the image of God that lives within us and eventually leads us to death. If we deny our sins or try to cover them up, it's like hiding a dog under a blanket. It is covered, but you can still make out the shape and eventually it gets out.
However, God says in Isaiah 43:23, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." When God forgives sin, it is blotted out and forgotten. It is a lot like Vantablack. When we are covered in forgiveness, all the features of sin are gone and we are a clean slate. The apostle John wrote, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7 NIV) It is the blood of Jesus that purifies us from all sin. When we are covered in the blood of Jesus, our sins are forgiven and forgotten. We don't have to live with the thought that our sins might get brought back up at a later time. There are no more features to our sin.
And there is nothing that can overpower that blood. As Jesus hung on the cross, there were two criminals crucified with him. They were people who were insurrectionists and murderers, and the Roman government would probably label them as terrorists. One of the criminals hurled insults at Jesus while on the cross. The other asked for Jesus to remember him when he came into his kingdom. With that, Jesus forgave his sins and said that the second criminal would join Jesus in paradise. It didn't matter at what time the criminal repented or what he had done. The blood of Jesus saved him.
There are people that like to think that it is too late for them or that they had done too much wrong, but the power of Jesus' blood is greater than all our sins. Just look at the Vantablack. It prevents us from seeing any light and the blood of Christ is just like that. Our salvation is so perfect that even the worst of our sins are completely covered by the blood of Jesus.
