What is God's relationship to time?

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.

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 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.

The very nature of God demands such a thought. Things do not begin with God. Things do not occur to Him like they occur to us. His life is one eternal present, one eternal NOW. Time does not enter into His life. One day is with Him as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. When sin entered He did not have to turn round and enquire what should be done. He did not have to consider plans. And to suppose that He only began to be the Father less than 2000 years ago is not only contrary to all Scripture, but to all reason and to all right thoughts of the being and nature of God.

Great and many would be the vicissitudes of the nation. Generation after generation would come and go; but there is One who has been Israel's dwelling-place and their refuge in all generations. That One is here called Adonai — i.e. Lord. Who is He? From all eternity He is the everlasting God. In His hands are all men. And their mortality becomes apparent as they die under His hand. But the race does not become extinct. For the word goes forth from the Everlasting One, "Return, ye children of men." So we understand the third verse, bearing in mind the term used for man. In the first clause it is Enosh, — i.e. mortal man — referring to their dying. In the second clause the Psalmist speaks of them as children of men, Adam — i.e. the race. Men then may pass away, but the Everlasting One remains. Time to Him is nothing. A thousand years (and no man has ever yet lived so long) are in His eyes but as yesterday, when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Such is God — everlasting. Such are men, fleeting mortal creatures.

I do not think we have any knowledge of time as time in itself. We measure from one event to another, but cannot without facts with intervals. Space is not exactly the same, because we dicern 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 that it is not "now:" 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 today, I look at it as having happened in a "now" which is not present. This I extend by invented measures. "Infinite," I admit, we cannot know, though we know it is not "finite infinite." But without existence I do not understand time or eternity - but God is.

The only idea I have of time is bounded by events which are not "now." But as far as without, then I seek to know it. I have no idea of time but the principle of eternity, only contradicted by experience. "I am" - that is not time as having duration, but in a point, and with a notion excluding bounded time, and so leadirlg up to God Who is necessarily "I AM," the rearest approach to conceiving eternity; which in itself I cannot conceive. But I conceive God existing, and never doing anything but existing.

"That the adjective aionios is applied to some things which are 'endless' does not, of course, prove that the word itself meant endless and to introduce this meaning into many passages would be utterly impossible and absurd. … Our translators have naturally shrunk from such a phrase as 'the endless God.' The utter dearth of metaphysical knowledge renders most people incapable of realizing a condition which is independent of time — a condition which crushes eternity into an hour, and extends an hour into eternity. But the philosophic Jews and the greatest Christian Fathers were quite familiar with it. 'Aeon,' says Philo, 'is the life of God, and is not time, but the archetype of time, and in it there is neither past, present, nor future.'"

Here the scoffers ask, Where is the promise of His coming? (2 Peter 3:4). All things continue as our fathers have known them. Men have done as they have pleased with apparent impunity from the beginning. But the scoffers are ignorant of two things: (1) That God did once publicly take account of the ways of the world, when it was filled with violence, and, with the exception of one family, it was totally destroyed by a flood of waters. (2) That a thousand years are as one day in the reckoning of God. The former shows that God is not indifferent to the state of the world, the latter that His ways must not be judged by the ways of men. They live in hours, and days, and years, and must work feverishly lest they be too late to accomplish their purposes. He is the eternal God, whose being is outside the bounds of time, and so He can patiently await the development of all things until the moment is ripe for the manifestation of His glory.

The mocking question of the scoffer springs of course out of the fact that many centuries have elapsed since the Lord left this earth with the promise that He would come again quickly. We have therefore to recognise the fact, stated in verse 8, that God's ideas of time are very different to ours. A thousand years are as one day to Him, as indeed Psalm 90:4 had told us, one day is also as a thousand years, as is illustrated in verse 10 of our chapter. We must not therefore count Him slack if much time has elapsed to our way of thinking.