Friday, January 19, 2018

The Infinity of God, Pt. 2

Second – GOD’s ETERNITY.   If God is infinite, then it stands to reason, He is also eternal.  The form in which the Bible represents God’s eternity is simply that of duration through endless ages. 

Ps. 90:2 - Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God.

Ps. 102:12 - But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever. Your fame will endure to every generation.

Eph. 3:21 - Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

To try to grasp the eternality of God is mind-boggling. The language that the Bible uses is designed to help us to make sense of what our finite minds can handle. We tend to think of God’s eternity as duration infinitely prolonged both backwards and forwards.  While this is helpful to come degree, it is not the complete picture of God’s eternity.

Eternity in the strict sense of the word is ascribed to that which transcends all temporal limitations. That it applies to God in that sense is at least intimated in 2 Pet. 3:8 – “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”  While we can say that God fills time in every sense of it, His eternity still is not really this being in time. God transcends time and space.

Another example, our existence is marked off by days and weeks and months and years, but not so with the existence of God. Our life is divided into a past, present and future, but there is no such division in the nature of God. He is the eternal “I am.”   In other words, God is an eternal present.

His eternity may be defined as that perfection of God, that corresponds to His infinity, whereby He is elevated above all temporal limits and all succession of momentsand possesses the whole of His existence in one indivisible present.

Trying to make sense of God’s eternity in relation to time is one of the most difficult problems so solve, totally incapable of a final solution in our present finite, sinful condition.

Nevertheless, to meditate on God’s nature of infinity is one of the best brain and mind exercises we can do for ourselves.  Why? Because when the going gets rough (and it will), placing your faith, trust and hope in the infinite Lord God is the smartest and wisest thing you can do.  If anything, meditating on what the Bible reveals about God is to see Him as big as He is, and to see you as small as you are. A great remedy for pride and arrogance.


End of Part 2

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