What is Gods relationship to time?

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True Bible Answers · Accepted Answer

Scripture presents God as inhabiting eternity — not merely existing for a long time, but being of an entirely different order from His creation. Time itself is something He made; He stands outside it, above it, sovereign over it. God's Eternity — His First Attribute Morrish's Bible Dictionary lists eternity as the very first of God's revealed attributes: "The principal of God's attributes and characteristics as revealed in scripture are: 1. His Eternity. Hab. 1:12; Rom. 1:20." The dictionary entry on "Alpha" explains what this means for His titles: "A title or character of God and of Christ, which points to His eternity as 'the beginning,' 'the first,' the I AM. Rev. 1:8; Rev. 21:6; Rev. 22:13. 'I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,' or 'the first and the last;' which is similar to a passage in Isa. 41:4: 'I Jehovah, the first, and with the last; I am he.'" And the title "Ancient of Days": "A title of God used by Daniel, alluding to His eternity. It cannot be separated from Christ; for in Dan. 7: the Lord is called both the Ancient of Days and the Son of man, yet the Son of man came to the Ancient of Days to receive dominion, glory, and a kingdom. Dan. 7:9, 13, 22. He is both God and man." "From Eternity to Eternity Thou Art God" Psalm 90 is the classic statement. W. Kelly translates verses 2 and 4: "Before mountains were brought forth, and thou gavest birth to earth and world, even from eternity to eternity thou [art] God (El)." "For a thousand years in thine eyes [are] as yesterday when it passeth, and a watch in the night." W. Kelly F. B. Hole draws out the contrast between God's eternity and man's frailty: "Jehovah, as the Eternal One, is the true dwelling-place of His people in all ages. He pursues His even way from eternity to eternity without the shadow of turning. In contrast to this mortal man is turned to destruction, for as children of Adam we lie under the original sentence, 'Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return.'" And on Psalm 77: "We spend our years as a tale that is told, whether in the ancient times or to-day. His years are throughout all generations, since from everlasting to everlasting He is God." "The High and Lofty One That Inhabiteth Eternity" Isaiah 57:15 is the great declaration. Morrish explains the Hebrew word ad: "Ad is also translated 'everlasting:' 'the everlasting Father,' or 'Father of the everlasting age.' Isa. 9:6. Also 'eternity;' 'the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.' Isa. 57:15." C. H. Mackintosh draws out the staggering condescension this implies: "How amazing that the High and Mighty One, who inhabits eternity, should so value the love and remembrance of a poor worm of the earth! Yet so it is, and we ought to bear it more in mind." A Thousand Years as One Day A. J. Pollock expounds 2 Peter 3:8: "Geologists may demand millions of years for certain results to be produced. God can perform in one day what we deem, in our feeble and very partial knowledge and wrong conceptions, should take millions of years to bring about. One thousand years may seem a long time to us. Generation after generation comes and goes. Dynasty after dynasty rises and vanishes. To God it is but a brief day." A. J. Pollock The Son — Glorious Outside of All Time W. H. Westcott, writing on Hebrews 1, brings this into sharp focus. The Son's glory reaches backward and forward beyond all ages: "If we look into the past eternity, even as we have looked forward, we see the Son's glory resplendent and eternal. The personalities in the Godhead were distinguishable in the ages previous to all time. 'By whom [the Son] He [God] made the worlds.' This teaches us clearly that in the Godhead glory before all time the Son was distinguishable as Son... These are not merely names connected with the revelation made in time, but are subsisting and related glories in the Godhead outside of all time." W. H. Westcott He then traces the three-fold span — past, present, future: "He created all things, made the worlds; He upholds all things now; He shall be heir of all things." subsisting and related glories in the Godhead outside of all time And in a remarkable phrase, Westcott describes what eternity means for God's being: "God as God is invisible. He fills heaven and earth, and no finite creature could take account of so glorious a Being whose time is eternity, whose dimension is space, whose being is Spirit." God's Purposes — Before Time Began C. H. Mackintosh shows that God's counsels precede the creation of the world altogether: "She was viewed from all eternity in Christ, her Head and Lord; as we read in the first chapter of Ephesians, 'According as He has chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.' Before a single member of the Church had yet breathed the breath of life, all were, in God's eternal mind, predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." G. C. Willis looks at it from the other end — God's ways stretching into the endless future: "We have sought to trace in a little measure God's ways as shown forth in the Feasts of Jehovah from Eternity to Eternity, and as we gaze with enraptured eyes on the entrancing scene before us, as it reaches on and on through the countless ages of eternity, we can but even now fall down and worship." G. C. Willis "In the Beginning God" F. B. Hole writes on Genesis 1:1: "The first four words of our English Bibles — 'In the beginning God' — present to us the primordial germ from which springs all that is revealed to us in the entire book. Here is the great fact that comprehends every other fact within its all-embracing sweep. The Bible begins with God and not man, and we must do the same." Synthesis God is not simply old or long-lived — He is of an entirely different order from created things. Time is His handiwork, as truly as the sun and the stars. He stands before time ("before the foundation of the world"), above time ("a thousand years as one day"), and beyond time ("from eternity to eternity thou art God"). His Son was distinguishable as Son "in the Godhead glory before all time," and the blessings He planned for His people were chosen before the world existed. Yet this same God — whose "time is eternity, whose dimension is space, whose being is Spirit" — condescends to dwell with the humble, for He is "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" who stoops to "revive the heart of the contrite ones." He is the I AM, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end — the One for whom past, present, and future are all equally in His hand.

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