God is eternal (timeless)

A common question that gets asked by people who hear about God’s eternal nature is, “What was he doing before he made the world?” One pastor hated the question so much that he replied, “He was creating hell for the curious!” But of course, that’s not the way we want to reply to a question like this because it’s actually a very good question.

When we think about God being eternal, we naturally think about time in a linear way. That is, as we see history. On the far left is the point God created the world – we could call that Genesis 1:1. And on the far right we have the return of Jesus and the start of the New Creation. As we place God on that spectrum, we tend to think of him existing outside of that timeline, beyond the left edge of creation, and then we try to imagine that space going on in a left-ward direction forever. But in doing this, we are actually thinking of God’s eternal nature from a human perspective.

To think of God’s eternal nature more accurately, as one author says, ‘it would be better for us to think of a God who transcends time, is external to time, and is timelessly eternal.’ God does not change, so there is no past or future with him. He wasn’t at one point here, and then over there. He is everywhere at all times, and everlastingly present in the fullness of all his divine perfections. All that to say, as we think about God’s eternal nature, we have to keep in mind that time is a human experience created by God to govern the universe he has made, but an experience that he himself is not subject to. God is eternal because God is not bound by time.

One of the hardest things to grasp about God’s eternal nature is that he never came to be. One of the main differences between the Creator and the creation is that he alone has no beginning. All that is, apart from God, was created by God, and is sustained by the power of his word. All this puts God in a category of his own, which we need to understand as we consider how to think about him, and how to respond to his eternal plans and purposes that are now being accomplished through Jesus Christ by the power of his Spirit. 

What’s more, as the 5th Century theologian, Augustine, said, “In the eternal, nothing is transient, but the whole is present.” As mentioned above, since God is everywhere at all times, and everlastingly present in the fullness of all his divine perfections, all time is ever before him. “A thousand years are but a day” (2 Peter 3:8) doesn’t teach us that 1000 years is literally 1 day to God, but that time to him is irrelevant.

As David discovered in Psalm 139:2–6;

You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too lofty for me to attain.

I’m glad he said that this is too much for him to attain! Because it really does push our minds beyond their limits. God is like nothing we’ve ever experienced. But like all the deep truths that he’s revealed to us in scripture, their purpose is not to confuse us but to comfort us. And so we ask, how does God’s eternal nature bring his people comfort?

I’d say the comfort of God’s eternal nature is the fact that God is not simply perfect, but eternally so. All the attributes that we’ve come to appreciate so much about him, such as his love, justice, faithfulness, joy, peace, holiness, etc., are attributes that will always belong to him. As God himself says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega […] who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). As we’re told in Hebrews 13:8, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.’ Which means that his promises are also eternally secure.

Since God is eternal by nature, and perfectly eternal at that, we can have full confidence in him, because once we find peace with him, we know that peace is eternal. When his love is found by us, we know that we have found everlasting love. The life he gives is everlasting. The joy he’ll bring is everlasting. Because God himself is eternal, all who are united to him in Christ can be confident that they will enjoy him (and each other) forever.

For unrepentant sinners, God’s eternal nature has got to be their greatest torment. If they were to get away from God by dying, some would celebrate that. However, not even death separates a person from God, because since he fills the universe (Study 6), he is everlastingly present both in heaven and in hell.