Eternality of God and Man
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Good morning everyone, as you can see I would like to talk today about one of God’s attributes, his eternality. Don’t get alarmed at the span of what we are going to be covering from the bible today, but I want to show that God’s eternality is first brought up in Genesis 1:1 and lastly in Revelation 22:13, that is to say the beginning of the bible through out the bible and the end of the bible. We will not look at every verse that mentions his eternality but I would like to go over several. I want to give you a biblical picture of God’s eternality, then a overview creation with God’s eternality in mind. Then to how God’s eternality interacts with and accentuates his other attributes. I want to show us how we can stand firm and safe because our God is eternal, and finally what God’s eternality means for us, the human race, being made in the image of God.
I came up with this topic before I knew when I would be talking to you, but I think its fitting to be talking about eternity today. On this day, September 11th, 21 years ago, 2,996 people perished in three locations as the result of a coordinated and deliberate terrorist attack. 2,763 in New York in and around the World Trade Center complex, 189 in Washington DC at the Pentagon, and 44 in a field near Stony Creek Township in Pennsylvania. Those who perished included 343 firefighters, 72 law enforcement officers, 55 military personnel, 33 flight crew members, 2,351 civilians, and the 19 terrorists. 2,996 souls entered into eternity 21 years ago today.
Let us pray.
Our Eternal God
Our Eternal God
Please open your bibles to the beginning and turn to Genesis 1, As we will see you don’t have to go very far into the bible to first see a glimpse of God’s eternal being.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
That verse is probably one of the the most memorized and re-callable verses in the bible. I know its one of the first verses that is taught to our AWANAs kids for memorization. Everyone recite it with me:
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Lets stop for a minute and think about what that means, “In the beginning” the beginning of what? This does not mean the beginning of God, “In the beginning” is not God coming into existence and getting to work to create, this is the beginning of all of what we know as creation. All of matter, existence, time and space, God created it all. Before everything is, God was, he has no beginning, God is not a created being, he is the creator of everything, all life, all things, and all time. Even before time itself was created by God, God was, God is Eternal.
Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Put a book mark in Genesis if you have one and turn all the way over to the end of the bible, Revelation 22 verse 13. Just as we saw in Genesis 1:1 that God has no beginning we see here in Revelation that God has no end, He existed in eternity past and will continue existing in eternity future.
Revelation 22:13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and symbolically represent the completeness of everything and the beginning and the end of all that is. But the end of what? The end of God? No, just like Genesis 1:1 is referring to the beginning of creation, Revelation is referring to the end of creation, or more accurately, the end of the fallen creation. When Jesus will make his triumphal second coming to be the judge of this world, then God will roll up they sky like a scroll and put an end to sin and create the new heavens and the new Earth. Go back a few pages to chapter 21 so we can read about this, I think this passage has the most beautiful description of our most anticipated existence for those who are saved, and horror and terror for those who are not.
Revelation 21 1-8 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.””
That should be beautiful to all who are in Christ Jesus and terrifying to all who are not.
Just to put a little plug out there, our bible study going to be going through the book of Revelation every Wednesday night at 5:30 starting September 28th, so if your interested in the journey through the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ join us on Wednesday nights.
Our Eternal Creator
Our Eternal Creator
So we see that our God is an eternal God, with no beginning and no end, and everything is his creation, including us. So since we are created beings lets take a minute and think about how our eternal creator went about with his creation.
Lets turn back to Genesis 1.
Scientists think that all matter and all of everything was once in a big ball of stuff that that exploded and sent forth all matter expanding into the universe, they call this the big bang. In a way they are sort of on the right track, there was a big bang, it was God speaking all of this universe and everything into being with the power of his voice,
Genesis 1:3 “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”
Genesis 1:6 “And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.””
Genesis 1:9 “And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.”
Genesis 1:14 “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,”
Genesis 1:20 “And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.””
Genesis 1:24 “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.”
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””
God said it and it was so. There was no big ball of stuff that God used to help him create everything, no raw materials that he shaped and formed. This is called creation ex nihilo, ex nihilo is Latin meaning from or out of nothing. Everything we see, feel, or sense was created by God from nothing, even all of the unseen forces like gravity and time was created by God. This is a very difficult concept for our created temporal brains to comprehend, temporal means in time. We have only experienced and have reference to things coming from other things and the constant forward flow of time.
But God is also the creator of time itself, there was no time before time, just eternity and our eternal God and everything, even time exists in the palm of God’s hand. He created it and He holds it together with his power.
Colossians 1:17 “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Hebrews 1:3 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”
The He in both of these passages are referring to Jesus Christ, but before Jesus revealed himself to us He was in the Holy Trinity of God in eternity past. But the Holy Trinity is a whole other Sermon.
God is our constant and everything flows out from God, and because all things are held together by God, down to the subatomic level, if God was not eternal and could perish then all he created would perish. We would have no hope, no assurance, no future, and no eternal life that was promised.
1 John 2:25 “And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.”
John 10:28 “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
And also one of the other most memorized verses in the bible,
John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
No eternal God, no eternal hope.
God’s Eternal Attributes
God’s Eternal Attributes
But our God is eternal, and God’s eternality is intertwined and part of all of what God is. God is not his individual attributes alone in isolation. Each one of the truths about God that has been revealed to us from the scriptures work perfectly together in harmony. Lets take a look at a few of God’s attributes and see how his eternality interacts with them.
God is Love, there are so many passages in the bible that tell of God’s love, and a good many in 1 John alone, but here are two, both from 1 John 4.
1 John 4:8 “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
1 John 4:16 “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
God is Love, but God is also eternal, so he is eternally loving, his love knows no beginning or no ending, no limits on his love.
Psalm 136:1 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
God is Just, and he does not condone sin of any kind.
Deuteronomy 32:4 ““The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”
Our Just God condemns the wicked and there is no limit or expiration on his justice because his justice is eternal because God is eternal.
2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 “in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,”
God is Wrathful,
Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
So God will pour out his wrath on the unjust wicked ones for all eternity,
2 Kings 22:17 “Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.”
But there is also the good news, God is eternally loving and full of grace so he has a way for the wicked to be counted as justified and avoid his eternal wrath by providing a propitiation for our sins, Jesus Christ. Propitiation is the turning away of anger by the offering of a gift, and this gift is a free gift, a gift that we do not deserve, a free gift that we cannot earn with any of our deeds. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins and took God’s full wrath poured out on him on the cross so that we can be adopted and called sons and daughters by God, washed clean for all eternity.
1 John 2:2 “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
That is our salvation, if we believe on Christ, and that he is God and that only though him and his complete and final work on the cross we can be right with God, then we are saved from God’s wrath. He is our way, our only path to true salvation.
John 10:9 “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”
Our Assurance in an Eternal God
Our Assurance in an Eternal God
This is our comfort and our joy, and we can rest assured and be secure with our salvation because God is eternal and this was God’s plan before “In the beginning” before the creation in eternity past.
Ephesians 1:4 “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love”
1 Peter 1:20 “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you”
Titus 1:2 “in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began”
Revelation 13:8 “and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.”
This plan does not change. God is not ever correcting and modifying it because of what we do, there is no plan B. Plan A is God’s plan and he will see it done.
We also have even further and a more solid assurance because God is unchanging.
Job 23:13 “But he is unchangeable, and who can turn him back? What he desires, that he does.”
God will never change for all eternity and we praise him for this.
Heb 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
This is our rock and foundation. If God could change there would be no hope for us all. If God could change there would be no security in God’s covenants with man, there would be no blessed assurance that we are saved, and as Pastor Isaac put it so beautifully and powerfully last Sunday, saved from what? Saved from God’s wrath, last Sunday’s message was a much needed reminder of just what our salvation means and why we are to praise our God with all of our hearts and minds in everything we do.
We are very blessed to know this and believe this truth about our God.
“God is good, All the time”
Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.”
The Eternality of Man
The Eternality of Man
Lastly lets go back to the beginning, Genesis 1:26 and look at what God said about us and how he created us in light of his eternality.
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, ..””
Firstly in that verse we see a picture of the Holy Trinity of God, “Let US make man in OUR image.” We also see how God made us, in his image. Does this mean that God physically looks like us since he made us in his image? No, God is a spirit and we are flesh.
John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.””
This means that because God made us in his image we share his attributes, not perfectly though, we are not gods ourselves, but we reflect what God is, but through a sin tainted dirty mirror. For example God has all wisdom, we have some wisdom, God is Love, we can love but often we do not, and because God is eternal, we are partially eternal. What I mean by partially eternal is we have a beginning, God does not. At a point in time when we were conceived in the womb and life, our life began, we were made of flesh that will grow but then it will decline and perish but also we have a spirit, a soul, this part of us is the image of God in us, our spirit is eternal going forward, and in this is our blessing or our curse. If we believe on Christ and are saved we have eternal life in heaven,
John 3:15 “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
But if we refuse, are hard hearted and stubborn, love our sin, only live for this world, refuse to see the abundant proof and examples of our God, if we do not come to know Christ as our savior we will have eternal punishment in Hell.
Revelation 19:11 “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.”
Matthew 25:46 “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.””
If you don’t know Christ, seek him, if you are felling the weight of your sins, repent and ask for forgiveness. Don’t be consumed by this sinful temporal world and take the wide path that leads into damnation, go through the narrow way, through the open gate of Jesus before it shuts forever when he returns to judge those not in his pasture.