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The Eternal Nature Of God
Author : Greg Baker
This article may very well be a lesson in futility. Trying to comprehend the eternal nature of God is very much like a squirrel trying to comprehend aerodynamics. Just give me a nut, will you?
Yet our basic understanding of God’s eternal nature is so rudimentary, so basic, and so mundane that I felt an attempt to give you a taste for the much larger complexity is appropriate. I am not even going to endeavor to say that I am right in this matter. That would be absurd. But I can dazzle your mind a bit and show you that the eternal nature of God is so much more awesome than we could ever believe.
It is very possible that eternity isn’t time ongoing or never ending as we’ve come to think of it. It may be that eternity is the absence of time altogether. Moreover, you could say that eternity is really a single moment that never ends or never moves on to the next moment. I read to you a singularly fascinating pair of verses from the King James Bible:
Ecclesiastes 3:14-15 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
Every commentary I’ve ever read on these verses differs as to what they mean. But why can’t they mean what they say? That forever or the eternal state that God exists in is outside the realm of time itself. That for God all is now. The past is now. The present is now. And the future is now.
Time is a finite creation of God. In Genesis 1:5, He clearly indicates that there was a first day. It implies that time didn’t exist before that day began. If God existed before there was a beginning then, how could God possibly have a beginning? Mind boggling isn’t it? But God also indicates that there will be time no longer. In Revelation 10:6 we read that time itself will end.
So if time is a construct into which God has placed us, yet is something that He Himself is not bound to, then it is very possible that all of time is something that God can observe at once.
For example, since time is linear, let’s imagine that time is a ruler. This ruler is linear as it goes from one inch to twelve inches, or as time passes from day to day, year to year and so on. If you are holding that ruler up before your eyes, you can see the entire thing, the beginning and end, all at once. You could also concentrate on any given aspect of that ruler. You could see inch one, gaze upon inch nine, and then turn your attention to inch three.
If God created time, is it not possible that God created everything, beginning and end, all at once? Jesus did say that He was the beginning and the end (Revelation 22:13). God created the ruler, all at once, first and last, complete. God can then look at any part of the ruler that He wishes. God can gaze at any specific point in time that He wants to. He can watch us right now and then watch in real time as Moses parts the Red Sea. He could see Eve’s transgression and His Son’s crucifixion by merely resettling His gaze. It is always now to God.
Think about it. Revelation 13:8 claims that Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. What does that mean? Is it not possible that as far as God is concerned, while David sat on his throne, Jesus had already died on a cross? The past is now with God. The future is now. To an eternal God, everything that is to us past, present, and future is merely now to Him.
To an eternal God, all of time is happening right now—this very moment. We are the ones bound to the ruler, bound to time. God isn’t on the ruler, isn’t bound to the linear nature of time. God is gazing upon all of time from the first day until there will be time no longer.
Moses, when asking God about His name, received this reply:
Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
This contains an implication that God is in every moment, or rather that all of time is contained in God’s present, God’s now. It’s a mind boggling concept.
But to believe in an eternal God is so much more impressive than to say that God had no beginning. That is just the beginning!
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