The Eternity of God

Announcer: Welcome to Sword of the Spirit, written and presented by Colin Dye, senior minister of Kensington Temple and leader of London City Church. Sword of the Spirit is a dynamic teaching series equipping the believers of today to build the disciples of tomorrow. We pray that you find these programs inspiring, and a catalyst in deepening your knowledge of God, your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and your intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

Colin Dye: Hello, and welcome to The Sword of the Spirit, a school of ministry in the Word and the Spirit. Our topic is Knowing the Father. And in this series, we’re going to be looking at every aspect of the Bible’s revelation concerning God as Father. It’s a wonderful revelation, that you and I can get to know God as our Father. Not just our Father because He created us, but our Father also because He sent His Son to be our Savior. In the last session, we are looking at the existence of God, and I mentioned one or two philosophical proofs of the existence of God. I also showed how that these proofs are not absolute. We come to know God by faith, not by philosophical argument. The Bible never seeks to justify God’s existence. The Bible begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But the rest of the Bible reveals to us who this God is. And in this series, we’re going to be looking in more detail at the being and attributes of God, especially as Father—God the Father. In the last time, we were looking at God’s eternity. This means that God exists and has always existed and will always exist. He was not created, He did not come into being; He always was and He always is. This means that He is eternal. And only God can be eternal. The world in which we live was made by Him; therefore this world is not eternal. It owes its existence to God. You and I are not eternal—not in that sense. We were made by the loving hands of our God and our Father. But right now we’re going to go deeper into what it means that God is eternal.

That’s the first thing that the eternity of God means. It means that God Himself had no beginning, will have no end, and that He is the source of everything else. The second thing it means is that He is unchanging. It stands to reason that if He is the eternal God, it means that He is unceasing and unchanging. Now this concept of God is being challenged today because people are looking back at the history of theology and are complaining about the Greek influence that came very, very strongly around about Augustine’s time in the early church. And yet so often, the very people who will criticize traditional Christian theology as being too influenced by the kind of Greek metaphysics of the day are themselves being influenced by the philosophies of today. Beware of somebody who claims to you to bring an interpretation of the Bible which has nothing to do with any philosophy. Because the truth is, most often those people are unable to see their own philosophy in which they’ve imposed upon the Bible. Now I understand that Greek philosophy had the idea of God as this timeless being—this transcendent timeless being that had very little to do with action in the world. That’s not what I mean when I say God is the unchanging God. It means that God has everything in His person in absolute perfection and therefore could never change, and if He did change, He would cease to be God. So the eternity of God, His unceasing nature and His unchanging nature, are two equal and inseparable meanings of the same—of the word ‘eternity.’ So we see the unchanging nature of God also revealed in scripture. 1 Samuel 15 verse 29, “But also the strength of Israel will not lie nor relent, for He is not a man, that He should relent.” Here we’re talking about the fickle nature of human beings, how changeable we are. We change more than the British weather changes. I mean, just where we’re broadcasting this now, right now, we are in very funny weather. We had snow two days ago and now we’re having hot sunshine and thunderstorms and rain. The weather is changeable. Well, God says that human beings are like that, but God Himself is not like that. The most famous verse in this respect is Malachi 3 verse 6, “’For I am the Lord; I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.’” Can you see? The prophet will not allow just to philosophize and intellectualize about God. ‘He is the eternal, unchanging God.’ No, no, no. It’s not just that. He says because He is the eternal, unchanging God, that’s why you’re not consumed. Because if there was any capacity of change within God, He’d have got fed up with you a long time ago. He doesn’t just come to the place where He says, “I’ve tried, and I’m a bit bored with you, Colin. I’m going to move on to somebody else. No, when He sets His love upon you, that love stays forever because our God endures forever. The picture of this that James presents in chapter 1 and verse 17 is this: “Every good and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” Here’s the picture of a sundial. And with the sun at its zenith in the midday sky. And obviously, the picture works best if you think about it close to the equator, because there when the sun is at its noon height, there is no shadow. And so you can’t tell the time, as far as that’s concerned, because the sun always stays there in this picture that James is drawing. And so what he’s saying is this, is that God is always at His zenith. He is always at the full height of His capacity to love and to bless and to prosper and to give His people that which they need. And you can depend upon Him because He doesn’t change. He doesn’t grow more fond of you and then get sick of you. He doesn’t decide one day He’s the God of healing and then it ceases with the apostles. No, He stays there, always the same—the eternal, unchanging God, who set His love upon you and will never let you go. Well there we are. God is eternal. Then we also see—and it’s related to this—that God is infinite. The eternity of God also implies His infinity. Technically, the distinction is this: eternity shows that He’s not bound by the limitations of time and infinity means that He’s not bound by the limitations of space. Now when we use the word ‘eternal,’ it’s a shorthand way for us as believers to say that God is beyond everything because He is the source of everything. And so by definition, every aspect of God’s nature—His love, His power, His provision, His knowledge, His salvation, and so on, all these exist eternally and infinitely. Because God is unceasing and unchanging, there must be an eternal, an infinite capacity and quality to everything that He is, everything that He has, and everything that He does. Oh wow! You could spend a lot of time meditating on that. Let me just dip into it for a moment this side of the platform. All right. Listen. If God is infinite, then if He has power, He has infinite power and if He shows that power on your behalf, then there is nothing than can prevent His power from operating in your life. Hello? If God is love, then His love is infinite and He loves you with an infinite love. God loves you with an infinite, unending love. Aren’t you glad you decided to do a bit of theology today? All right. So every aspect of God that we’re going to be looking at, by definition, God holds it within Himself in an infinite, eternal, unceasing and unchanging way. And this should lead us deeper and deeper into our knowledge of God and into our worship of the almighty God. Then also when we study the scriptures, we discover God is immortal. Eternal, infinite, immortal. God is not only beyond time and space because He created time and space, He is also beyond life. Now this is a concept which you might find difficult to grasp. God is beyond life. What do I mean by that? I mean that God is the source of all life and you cannot take your understanding of God and limit it to any form of life that you see in the created world. Because God created life itself and every form of life; it means He is beyond life. Just as He created time means He’s beyond time, as He created matter and space He’s beyond matter and space, and because God created life He is beyond life itself. This is what it means when it says He is the living God—He is the source of all else that is living. He doesn’t depend on any source outside of Himself for life. He has life in Himself. It means that He cannot be bound or defined by anything that we see in our created world. When we say God lives, we mean He’s the living God and this helps us understand Him. It’s a metaphor; it’s an expression. Yet these are only human expressions which give us some handle by which we may grasp in our understanding the nature of God, but He is so much more above and beyond even that description. When we say that God is immortal, we don’t just mean that He will not die or even that He cannot die. When we say that God’s immortal, we mean that He is before and above and beyond life itself. No wonder God’s going to take us to heaven. It’ll take an eternity to ponder on some of these things. Don’t be discouraged if you find this stretching your mind. I am intending to stretch your mind. I hope you’ve brought an elastic hat today. So we should think of God, not so much as just living forever, which is limiting our understanding to the physical world; we should understand God as being the source of all life. God will not die because He existed eternally and before He even created life. So His immortality means He’s much, much more than living forever. And the full truth is this: God is not sourced in anything or sustained by anything. He is, Himself, the source of the physical universe, space, matter and energy. He is the source of life, He is the source of time, and He is the eternal sustainer of these things. He is entirely self sufficient and He owes His existence to nothing outside Himself. Quite simply, He’s immortal. Now, okay, let’s be practical. If God is everything that I’ve just said, let me give you a hint. Let me give you some advice in life. Don’t argue with Him, all right? Don’t argue with Him. You’re not going to win the argument. You may win the argument against your wife, your husband, your friend, your mother in law; you may win your argument against all these people, but you’ll never win an argument against God. Don’t even try. Can you see what this should elicit from our lives? Can you see how practical this is? This means that we should give Him everything, that we should say, “Lord, You are the source of everything and [stutters] I belong to You. Come and take full control of my life. I hold nothing back from You. I don’t try to resist You in any way. I submit to You and I want a relationship with You.”

All right. Moving on. Another attribute of God is His transcendence. God is transcendent. And there are several English words which we use to describe God’s eternal nature, but it means that He is far beyond everything in the universe, so we use this word transcendent, which means that He exists apart from the material universe. He’s not subject to any of these limitations. Now the word ‘transcendent’ is derived from the Latin verb transcendere, which means ‘to climb over.’ And it’s used to convey the idea that God is far beyond our reach. He’s the God that goes beyond the physical world. He is much higher than we are. God is described also as the exalted one, which comes from the Latin word altere, which means ‘high.’ It also means that God is raised high, that He is far above us, high above all things. And the most common Bible name for this, for God, is the El Elyon, the Most High. And this points to His supreme transcendence and His exalted nature. Genesis 14 verses 18-22, here we have Melchizedek. He was the priest of God Most High. Psalm 7 verse 17, “I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness and sing praise to the name of the Most High.” Can you see in Melchizedek’s case, the ministry of Melchizedek is directed towards the exalted one—the Most High God. And the praise of the psalmist is directed to the Most High God. This elicits from our life high praise, worship of the exalted one, service of the exalted one. Psalm 78 verse 17, “But they sinned even more against Him by rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness.” This shows us the true nature of sin. It’s rebellion against the Most High God. It’s high treason against the Almighty. It’s utter, utter foolishness. And it shows us the real, rebellious nature of sin, when we understand who the God is against whom we have sinned. And there in Psalm 78, the psalmist is amazed at the rebellion of the children of Israel. So God encourages us to worship Him, as He is the exalted one. Nehemiah 9 verse 5, “The Levites,” whose names are written before you, “said, ’Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever. Blessed be Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.’” So even God’s transcendence transcends our blessing and praise. It’s not as if when we praise Him we add to Him. No, when we praise Him we get in line with who He is. And so when we come to worship God and our hearts are lifted up in exaltation and praise and worship, it should draw from our lives and our hearts, our mouths, our sacrifice, our service, our obedience our humility—it should draw from us all of these things as we acknowledge Him for who He really is. Somebody shout Hallelujah! All right. Isaiah 57 verse 15. Again, “For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, ‘I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite.’” Now let me point out here—it’s the second time we’ve referred to this verse—let me point out that in this whole question of seeking to understand God, the Bible often gives us two apparently contradictory truths, paradoxical truths, or antinomies—an antinomy is something that puts two things together which apparently contradict, but when you examine them closely, you find that they resolve themselves in a higher unity. And so we have this understanding that God is the great transcendent God, that He’s right up there, but in the same breath, the revelation comes: yet He also is the one who will dwell with you if you are humble and contrite in heart. And so we have God’s transcendence—and we’ll see the technical term for His closeness a little later on; it’s imminence, we’re coming to that—God’s transcendence, His otherness, His farawayness, is also put alongside His closeness. And so these things seem to be contradictory, which goes to show us that we have got to be very careful when we emphasize any aspect of God, that we don’t exclude some other aspect of Him. And these two things are placed side by side. He is infinite, He is above all things, but He is also alongside all things. Remember that. Then when we study the scriptures, we realize that God is spirit. God is spirit. Jesus says in 4:24 of John’s gospel, “’God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.’” This means that God is not directly accessible to our human physical senses. Sense data will never give you a revelation of God. In fact, the essence of faith is that we move beyond our physical world and outside the information that our five physical senses gives us. So we don’t find God by feeling. We don’t find God by smelling. We don’t find God by seeing with our natural eyes. No, no, no. He is spirit. And because He is spirit, we must find Him by faith through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. John 1 verse 18 says, “No one has seen God at any time.” Of course, it goes on to say that Jesus has declared Him. 1 Timothy 1 verse 17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen.” So God is the eternal, invisible God. He is the God who is spirit, and because He is spirit, we need faith with which to grasp Him. Faith is like our spiritual eyes that enable us to see, our spiritual ears which enable us to hear, our spiritual hands by which we reach into the realm of God’s accomplished realities, into the spiritual realm of God, and receive from Him. That’s why faith must be fed by the Word of God. Jesus said, “The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life.” Our faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It’s not to do with anything that we see, touch, taste, or feel. We often, in the life of faith, have to say, “I’m not moved by my senses, I’m not moved by what I see, I’m not moved by what I hear, I’m not moved by what I touch, taste or smell, I’m moved by what the Word of God declares to me.”

All right. Going on, we find that He also is the only God.  God is the only God. There is only one God; there is none beside Him. Yes. Now, if we understand that He is the exalted one, the eternal one, the immortal one, it’s obvious there can only be one. There can only be one supreme, eternal, infinite being. A second being such as this is impossible. We see truths in passages like—these truths in passages like this in Deuteronomy chapter 34 [stutters] Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 34 and 35: “Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs or wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and by a great terror, according to all the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord Himself is God. There is none other beside Him.” So no other God has done what our God has done, because He is the exalted one and we discover that therefore, there is only one God anyway. Deuteronomy 6 verse 4, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Well we spoke about God’ transcendence; now we’re coming to God’s imminence, which is the equal and the opposite truth. God’s transcendence, or exaltation, means He is beyond everything. And that’s been emphasized very often in Christian theology. But He’s also the imminent one. The English word ‘imminent’ comes from the Latin word manere, which means ‘to remain,’ or ‘dwell.’ We describe God as imminent because He permanently pervades the universe. He’s not the just God who is ‘out there,’ He is the God who is ‘down here.’ He is the God who dwells and remains within His creation. Now there is a view of God called pantheism that describes everything as God. And that’s this truth gone to the extreme. Because just because God lives and dwells and fills His universe, He is not to be identified with His universe. Remember, He is the holy, transcendent one. He is totally the wholly other one. But nevertheless, He is the God who fully dwells within His created world. The whole universe is permeated by His presence. All right? This means that He holds the world in His hands. Because He’s infinite, by definition, He is everywhere. And if He is infinite and everywhere, it doesn’t mean that He spreads Himself thinly, that God is everywhere, but He’s spread so thinly. No, this is the great mystery. Try to grasp this. God is wholly present everywhere. God is fully present here. Everything that is God is present here. And everything that is God is present there, for everything that is God is present everywhere. All of Him is present everywhere all the time. That’s my God. Hallelujah. Remember that on the mission field. All right? When you’re struggling out there, seeking to believe God.

Now we’re going to have to continue this into the next section—next session—but let me just finish on this next point. God is personal. God is personal. All that we’ve seen so far describes a person, not an ‘it.’ He’s not an it, a thing, a principle, a power, a force—the force be with you—not at all. That’s not a biblical concept. God is not a force. God’s a person. He has all the aspects of personality. For example, He thinks, He wills, He feels, has emotions, He loves, He feels anger, He feels compassion, He feels joy. We’ve been created in His image, and having been created in His image, we, who are personal beings and have the aspects and attributes of personality, how much more does God possess these attributes? We are a reflection of Him and so God is the personal God. Often we see this reinforced in the Word [stutters] in the scriptures by such statements as ‘my God,’ ‘my Lord,’ and that which belongs to Him. Repeatedly, the Bible gives God personal names. And so we see God’s eternal and personal nature. And that means that we can get to know Him. And we mustn’t emphasize any aspect of God’s nature or personality or character to the exclusion of the others. This great, glorious God of the universe is your God. He’s my God. He’s the God who loves you; He’s the God who loves me. He’s the God who’s chosen you, chosen me, brought us together to live for Him throughout all eternity.

Well, that’s the beginning. God bless you as you have started in this first session, and we’ll come back for the next session and take it up from here.

And that brings today’s teaching on Knowing the Father to an end. I pray that as you’ve been watching today and throughout all these programs, God will be drawing you closer and closer to His love, that you will really get to know the Father. We’ll be back next time with more in this Sword of the Spirit series on Knowing the Father. God bless you.

Recommended reading

Dye, Colin. Knowing the Father
Kensington Temple, 2007