What does it mean that God is eternal?

God is called the Father of eternity, and the eternal God. He is said, too, to inhabit eternity. The word must be taken in its full unlimited bearing, as shewing the infinity of Deity in regard to what we call time. We are lost when we attempt to think of eternity. Time, to us, is what comes in between events which our minds can take account of, as space is what we conceive as the distance between bodies. There is no time with Him who is the First and the Last, who is, was, and is to come, nor are there measurements of space with Him who fills heaven and earth. "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God."

I have already said, the nature of the proof demonstrates that I cannot form an idea of the thing proved in itself. But there is clearly seen eternal power and godhead. And here note that creative power involves eternal power, for all begins by creation, and all creation begins. But what creatures must be, that is, exist absolutely without a beginning. "I am," therefore, or absolute existence, is the one just revelation of God as such.

In God, as in man, I have: 1st. Being; and this being has a nature (in the sense to be hereafter defined), a nature inherent in His being, predicated of it, and therefore (though inseparable from it as a fact) capable of being viewed and treated apart. 2nd. The word condition, which I have found useful when treating of man, I hesitate to carry up to the present subject; but mode, which I have employed along with it, seems a sufficiently admissible expression for that in reference to the divine being, which corresponds, so far as correspondence is possible, to what I have termed the conditions or modes of being in man. I shall therefore say that I find, in connection with the divine being, certain modes of that being, inseparable from it, though neither to be considered as parts of the being itself, nor of the nature which inheres in it. It is one of the modes of the divine being to have neither beginning nor end, or, as commonly expressed, to be eternal. It is another of the modes of the divine being to be subject to no mutation, or, to be unchangeable. These modes of the divine existence, though inseparable from it, do not constitute parts of the divine being or of His nature, but are expressive of the manner or degree in which that Being enjoys His nature. 3rd. In the being of God certain qualities inhere, inseparable from that being, but characteristic of it; which qualities have characterized that being so long as it has existed; i.e. from eternity. These qualities, being attributed to Him, I call attributes, and the sum of these inherent attributes I call His nature, as the best term at my disposal to express that which corresponds to nature in man, as nearly as correspondence is possible in the case.

No creature is eternal. It would not be a creature if it were. Only the true God is eternal: He is from everlasting to everlasting. Man fills his day like the hireling, departs hence and is no more, but God lives for ever. We are creatures of time. There was a moment in which we came into existence, and we can number the days since then. We know that the moment is fast approaching when we must go to our long home, and leave the mourners to go about the streets. We may have reigned as kings, or worn the chains of slavery; we may have been honoured by the world, or despised by the grand and great; but whoever and whatever we may have been or possessed, our tenure of all is but for a moment as far as life on earth is concerned. Everything is subject to the vicissitudes of a changing creation, and of a universe in which it seems everything is subject to decay.

This divine life is called eternal life because it is eternal: it exists outside of time, although it has been brought into time in Jesus. The natural life of man is bounded by time. Individuals may reach a life span of nearly a thousand years, like the ancients before the flood; and as they will in the coming Millennium; but human life as derived from Adam sooner or later comes to an end. Even if we contemplate human life in connection with the race, it is not eternal. It began with Adam, some six thousand years ago, and it will pass away when the earth is no more. But eternal life lies outside what is connected with Adam; it had no beginning, and will never have an end.

He is eternal. He did not begin to exist. He has no beginning, for "in the beginning was the Word." He ever was. Before time began and matter was created, He was.

"From eternity, from the beginning, or ever the earth was;" long ere "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy" at the laying of its foundations; before the morning stars themselves, or the sons of God, had begun to be; before ages had commenced to run, or time to be reckoned, God was; and He was "the living God."

There can be no change in a divine Person. Though all creatures are liable to change, and there be variation in everything around us, there is One who is the same,* the Eternal Self-existing One, and He is presented to us in a most wonderful manner in this passage.

8 I do not connect omnipresence and eternity as attributes with God, not because they may not, in an ordinary sense, be said to be so; and Scripture itself so speaks practically, and it always speaks practically, because truly; but that in our minds they are connected with time and space, which do not apply to God. There is no time when God is not; no place where His eye and hand, to use human language, are not. "I AM" is the proper expression of His existence. While time rolls on "I am" remains unchanged, and when time has rolled away "I am" subsists the same. It can hardly be called an attribute. This being understood, we may speak of eternal as a natural attribute of God.

I do not think we have any knowledge of time as time in itself. I measure from one event to another and so enclose periods, but cannot without facts with intervals. Distance is not exactly the same, because I discern it by a sense which sees an interval at one time. All I know of time is 'I am now.' When I compare this with events, I am conscious it is not 'now,' and there is time. As events only proceed from God, 'I am,' to Him, never changes. He is in Himself always. Events come from His will, and are relative not absolute. When I speak of an event before what happened to-day, I look at it as having happened in a 'now' which is not present. This I extend by invented measures. - 'Infinite' I admit of course we cannot know, though we know it is not 'finite infinite.' But without existence I do not understand time or eternity - but God is. When I begin to count time, I count necessarily from 'now,' for I am now. I then speak of times not finishing in thought. Ante and post make no difference whatever, save by events, and if I look post I must imagine events or I cannot take a step beyond now. The starting point in both is 'now,' and I go on, both ways, from that and cannot finish. Hence when Christ's eternal nature is spoken of it is said "In the beginning," all events and genomena by which time had an existence being supposed - "was the Word." That is existence per se - eternal, i.e., divine. When historical creation is spoken of it is supposed God created, i.e., all genomena egeneto (things made came into being) by One who "was," but it is not stated and this was fitting. Creation being, there must be a Creator. What we wanted to know was Creation. The highest, holiest way of speaking of God was thus saying nothing about Him but that He acted. As to Christ, it was of the utmost importance to know that He was before and eternal.