THE ULTIMATE REFERENCE POINT
STANDARDS AND CALIBRATION
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. – Hebrews 13:8
“It’s all relative.” The believer in absolutes might cringe at this statement. Yet in itself, the statement is accurate, since all manner of things can indeed be compared with or to something else. But to what are things relative? For example, morally minded Christians such as me are tempted to consider ourselves pretty good, but as compared to the standard of God’s righteousness, “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). (This speaks, of course, of righteousness apart from what God has imputed.) Yet this is not how the relativist makes comparisons. The relativist compares, for sure, but to a variety of convenient and transient “standards” usually to justify immoral behavior or to accommodate individual religious belief. For the post-modernist, collective societal norms are what give some opportune frame of reference. The God-fearing Christian could in a sense say “all is relative,” acknowledging that all is relative to a singular point of reference: God Himself. Either way, we cannot avoid comparison or some frame of reference when making value judgments.
It is quite remarkable the lengths to which humans go to establish points of reference, and it is these points of reference that establish a frame of reference, or worldview. But most see such things as purely empirical, scientific matters. 
Calendars, time zones, and the marking of time itself have been honed through years and years of permutations, coordinated into international standards through the cooperation of astronomers, mathematicians, geographers, physicists, and historians. Our standards of measure are even now international, as the Système International d’Unités (metric system) makes sure we are all accountable to static points of reference in matters of length (meter), mass (kilogram), and time (second), as well as electric current (ampere), absolute temperature (kelvin), amount of substance in atoms or molecules (mole), and luminous intensity (candela). And these are just the fundamental units. Many other measures are derived from these, such as frequency (hertz), force (newton), radioactivity (lux), catalytic activity (katal), electric resistance (ohm), energy, work, and heat (joule), inductance (henry), and other obscure though important quantities. The International Committee for Weights and Measures consists of eighteen persons and meets annually to discuss reports on these matters. Closer to home, the National Institute of Standards and Technology conducts similar annual meetings, and is approaching its one-hundredth year of doing so.
The meter (the standard of length) has itself gone through nine major standard clarifications and updates since 1790, presently based upon both the standard for the second and the standard for the speed of light. Practically, though, it is not defined in the same way that it must be delineated in the lab: 1,579,800.298728 wavelengths of a helium-neon laser light in a vacuum. That crazy number is actually rounded, because this value is less certain than the defined precision of a second. All this just to make sure we have “length” correct.
On some of the most remote mountains in my home state of Idaho are found USGS markers—typically found as round metal disks inscribed with location information, set in concrete. These are used if
needed to set up GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) receiver antennae for “differential GPS surveying.” Everything is measured from something else, with the implicit understanding that such points of reference should not change.
Yet implicit in the creation of standards is the concept that all things are indeed in flux, and such change needs to continually revert to a more reliable point of reference. Even the world’s most reliable balances, spectrum analyzers, and all manner of measuring devices must be continually calibrated to known reference values. A “zero” measure must indeed reflect a zero value, and a reliable zero value is still meaningless until a higher value of measure is also calibrated. Furthermore, all points in between and beyond must be reliably measured by a device that physically functions in a true continuum. Much scientific experimentation is invalidated when proper methodology is tainted by improper calibration. As much as we value diversity, there are matters in which we all must “speak the same language.”
In addition to issues of calibration, there are issues of precision. Numerical measurements may be inherently deceptive if not expressed in proper “significant figures.” This concept bewilders high school science students, who, in math class, would determine that 1.013 times 5.3 equals 5.389, when in fact, if those numbers represent actual measures, the result is 5.4. Rounding is not a convenience, but a requirement. I have had to educate students that scientific notation is not primarily about making numbers more compact to write, but about properly representing their actual precision. Showing a finer value than that which is known is equivalent to lying.
Perhaps the most pervasive common technological denominator of all time, the Internet, has forced the necessity of a standard: HTML (hypertext markup language) is the current programming standard for web browsers, and has been modified from its original 1991 version to the HTML5 “platform,” established in 2008 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), led by a Director, a CEO, and three “Host Institutions.” The way that much of the world presents its information is dictated, of necessity, by this small contingent.
Scripture heralds the importance of these reference points and standards, not merely for pragmatism, but for upholding justice and truth. God is the rationale for the standard: “A just weight and balance are the LORD’S: all the weights of the bag are his work” (Proverbs 16:11). And the violation of God’s standards is the rationale for despising their change: “Diverse weights are an abomination to the LORD, and dishonest scales are not good” (Proverbs 20:23). We are exhorted to “…not remove the ancient landmark” in Proverbs 22:28 and 23:10. Christ Himself is regarded as humanity’s ultimate reference point, as illustrated through structural technology: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily. Also I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the plummet…’” (Isaiah 28:16). Justice and truth are regarded as something as well-established as the vertical: “Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the LORD said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said: ‘Behold, I am setting a plumb line In the midst of my people Israel…’” (Amos 7:7-8).
It is ironic that in a culture that has fashioned a floating “true for you” idea, much of the world still strives to maintain fixed points of reference. Perhaps we believe erroneously that reality’s references are limited only to those things on which we can put a number. But the reality is that even our measureable standards are fleeting. The earth can move (changing all physical reference points), the 
speed of light deteriorates (changing the very definition of distance), and if atomic decay rates change, our very definition of time changes as well. Polaris will not always be the North Star (it once was Thuban, during the construction of the pyramids), and the equinoxes will drift, our seasonal reference marred by our wobbly planet.
So, what can we really count on? What is a truly reliable standard? Only that which is unchanging. And thankfully, that which is unchanging is also glorious and beneficial to us. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). We need fewer things to gamble on as unchanging, and we need more the One Thing that is unchangeable. Hebrews 7:24 speaks to this, reminding us that Christ’s priesthood is unchangeable, and 12:27 indicates that the shakeable things will be removed, so that the unshakeable can remain. It goes on to say, in verse 28, that “since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
Yes, I suppose “all is relative.” Relative to the pivot-point, the cornerstone, the foundation, the baseline, the Origin: God the Creator, God in Christ, and Christ in His Word. All can be measured by Him and to Him. And when we recognize this standard, we know to Whom we must conform:
| Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. – 2 Corinthians 3:8-11 |
© 2010 Chard Berndt
All Scriptures NKJV.