The attributes of God

The Eternity of God

An attribute of God · Psalm 90:2

The eternity of God means he has no beginning and no end, and is not bound by time as we are. Before the mountains were brought forth, from everlasting to everlasting, he is God. He was never born and will never die; he simply is, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Because our fleeting lives are held by the everlasting God, they are not swept away like a forgotten dream.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.Psalm 90:2 (KJV)

What the eternity of God means

To be eternal is to be without beginning and without end, and more, to be above the whole flow of time. We are creatures of time, living one moment at a time, the past gone and the future not yet come. God is not like this. He does not grow older; he does not lose the past or await the future. He dwells in the fullness of his life all at once, inhabiting eternity, the high and lofty One whose name is Holy.

This means God never came into being. There was no time when he was not, for time itself is part of what he made. Nor will there be a time when he ceases; he is the living God, the incorruptible, who only has immortality. Everything else that exists depends on him for each moment of its being; he alone exists of himself, needing nothing, before all things and outlasting all things. From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

How the Bible reveals it

Moses, having watched a whole generation die in the wilderness, wrote the psalm of eternity: Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Set against God's eternity, he says, our years pass like a watch in the night, like grass that flourishes in the morning and is cut down by evening. And yet the eternal God is our dwelling place, our home across the generations.

God names himself in terms of eternity: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Abraham called on the everlasting God. Isaiah proclaimed the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, who faints not. To this God a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years. He is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever.

Common misunderstandings

Some imagine eternity as simply endless time, God going on and on through the ages as we would if we never died. But eternity is more than unending duration; it is a different relation to time altogether. God is not waiting through the centuries as we wait; he holds all times in his single, undivided life. Past and future are alike present to him.

Others feel that an eternal God must be remote, too vast to notice creatures as brief as we are. But Scripture joins his eternity to his tenderness: the eternal God is thy refuge, and the same everlasting One counts our days and gathers our tears. And some are troubled that if God is outside time, prayer and history cannot matter to him. Yet the eternal God truly enters our story, hears prayers offered in time, and acts within it. His eternity does not make him distant from our moments; it means he is faithful through all of them and master of them all.

Why the eternity of God is good news

Our lives are short and we feel it. We are here for a breath, and the world forgets us. But the everlasting God is our dwelling place, and to belong to him is to be joined to a life that does not end. The eternal One offers us eternal life, not merely endless existence but a share in his own deathless life, so that though we die, yet shall we live.

His eternity also means his love and his promises never expire. What he purposed before the foundation of the world he will bring to completion after the world as we know it has passed. He does not change his mind with the centuries or lose interest over time. The same God who walked with Abraham walks with us, and will keep his covenant to a thousand generations. When everything else is swept away, he remains, and those hidden in him remain with him. Underneath the flux of time are the everlasting arms.

How the eternity of God is seen in Jesus Christ

The eternal Son entered time without ceasing to be eternal. Before Abraham was, he said, I am, claiming the timeless name of God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God, and all things were made by him. He is the one whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, and yet he was born in Bethlehem in the fullness of time.

On the cross the eternal One tasted death for every one, and in the resurrection he rose to die no more; death has no more dominion over him. He is alive for evermore, and holds the keys of death, and because he lives, those who are his shall live also. He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever, the unchanging center of a changing world. To be in Christ is to be anchored in eternity itself, safe with the God who was, and is, and is to come.

A note offered humbly and for all Christians: God is one, simple, and undivided in his being, and these attributes are not parts of him but the one God seen from many sides. His holiness is loving, his love is holy, his justice is merciful, and his mercy is just. He is also greater than all our words, and no page can contain him. What we can say, we say only because he has graciously revealed it, above all in Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible God.

Related: The Immutability of God · The Self-Existence of God · Who is Jesus? · All the attributes of God