Genesis

Broadly speaking, God has revealed Himself in two ways, commonly referred to as “general” and “special” revelation. As Dr. Norman Geisler explains, “While the Bible is God’s only written revelation, it is not God’s only revelation; He has more to say to us than is in the Bible. His general revelation in nature, man, history, art, and music offers vast opportunities for continual exploration.”[1] This revelation from God is called “general” because of its universal reach and its non-salvific content. No one, at any time or in any place, can claim to be without knowledge of God as mediated through creation or conscience (Rom. 1:18-32; 2:14-15). On the other hand is “special” revelation. Geisler continues: “Special revelation contributes uniquely to Christian theology, for the Bible alone is infallible and inerrant. Further, the Bible is the only source of both God’s revelation as Redeemer and His plan of salvation. Thus, Scripture is normative for salvation.”[2]

Since God is the Author of both general and special revelation, these cannot contradict one another, and one can help us understand the other. This “unity of knowledge” was the basic model on which prominent universities such as Princeton (1746), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1769) all were founded.^[3] Historian George Marsden expounds the intellectual heritage of the American university founded on the “unity of knowledge” paradigm:

The truths learned from Scripture and those learned from nature were assumed to be complementary. Christians who had long learned from the pagans could learn even more from their own natural philosophers. And since the creator of heaven and earth was also the author of Scripture, truths learned through the methods of philosophy and those learned from biblical authority would supplement each other and harmonize in one curriculum.^[4]

The premise that God is the Author of two complementary revelations is epitomized in the methodology of the nineteenth century theologian Charles Hodge:

“God is the author of our nature and the maker of heaven and earth, therefore nothing which the laws of our nature or the facts of the external world prove to be true, can contradict the teachings of God’s Word. Neither can the Scriptures contradict the truths of philosophy or science.”^[5]

Since God cannot contradict Himself, what He revealed in nature cannot contradict what He revealed in Scripture. Therefore, not only can the Bible speak to the world of natural science, but the well-established facts of science should also influence how we interpret Scripture.^[6] To put it in colloquial terms: “All truth is God’s truth.” Nowhere in Christian theology is this truth more important, not to mention controversial, then in the interpretation of the Genesis record of creation.

Three Non-Negotiable Truths About Creation

1. The Creation Account is Historical

Genesis 1 is not mythology, metaphor, or an allegory. The Bible itself provides ample evidence of the historicity of the creation account, as demonstrated by numerous internal markers. First, the grammar indicates that the text is of a narrative genre, indicating it is historical in nature. Second, the text presents Adam and Eve as historical persons and narrates important events in their lives. Third, the toldot structure (repetition of the phrase “this is the history of”) indicates its historical nature. Each toldot introduces a narrative section that essentially tells the reader “what became of” the person or thing mentioned. There are eleven “toldots” including Adam, Noah, Shem, Terah, and Jacob. If the latter four describe actual historical events, it stands to reason that the first one does as well. Fourth, the very first word in 1 Chronicles is Adam. All the names that follow are regarded as historical figures. There is no (non a priori) reason to disregard the historicity of Adam in the text. Fifth, the prophet Hosea regarded Adam to be an historical figure (Hosea 6:7). Sixth, Luke’s genealogy of Jesus traces itself from Jesus, the son of Joseph, all the way back to “Adam, the son of God.” If all seventy-six names leading up to Adam are historical, there can be no legitimate reason to take the reference to Adam as anything less than historical. Seventh, in a debate with the Pharisees over marriage and divorce, Jesus referred to the first “male and female” (Matt. 19:4), whom He evidently regarded as historical persons. Eighth, Paul argued that, “sin reigned from Adam to Moses.” His entire argument regarding Christ would fail if Adam were not an historical person (Rom. 5:12-21). Ninth, Paul’s instructions regarding church leadership presupposes the historicity of Adam and Eve (1 Tim. 2:12-14).

2. Creation is Supernatural

Here three observations are in order. First, divine commands produced supernatural results. God said: “Let there be light.” And there was light. God said: “Let dry land appear.” And it was so. God said: “Let the earth sprout vegetation.” And it was so. God said: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” And it was so. God said: “Let us make man in our own image.” Divine commands produced supernatural results. Second, the Genesis text indicates three particular emphases of supernatural activity. The creation of matter itself was a supernatural act. Besides God Himself, there was nothing (as in “non-being”), then, at the command of God, there was something (“the heavens and the earth”). Moreover, the creation of life was a supernatural act. God spoke two times on the third day, the second time issuing in life (vegetation). Finally, the creation of man was a supernatural act and not a product of natural processes. As on the third day, the narrative also records God speaking twice on the sixth day, indicating a critical ontological distinction between mankind and the animal kingdom. Third, naturalism and evolutionism are ultimately incompatible with the Genesis account of creation. While there is no inherent incompatibility between a bland theism and neo-Darwinian evolution, there is, on the other hand, an inherent contradiction in the idea of biblical evolution. Attempts to harmonize Darwinism and the Bible nearly always end up harmonizing Darwinism with something less than biblical theism.[7]

3. Creation is Foundational

Dr. Henry Morris correctly notes, “The true religion must necessarily be based on worship of the world’s true Creator.” In contrast, false religion is worship of the creation rather than Creator.[8] Creation also establishes the foundation of Christology. Jesus is the very Source of the creation (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2). Jesus, before He became the incarnate Redeemer, was the One through Whom God fashioned the heavens and the earth. Creation is also the foundation of faith itself. Without faith it is impossible to please God. The Book of Hebrews tells us it is by faith that we understand that the universe was created (ex nihilo) by the word of God. Creation is the foundation of the home, the family, and human flourishing. And creation is the very foundation of our worship:

Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. (Ps. 33:8-9).

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[1] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, Introduction and Bible (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2002), 69.

[2] Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 69.

[3] D. H. Meyer, “American Intellectuals and the Victorian Crisis of Faith,” American Quarterly 27, no. 5 (Dec. 1975): 57.

[4] Marsden, 50.

[5] Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone, eds., Charles Hodge: What is Darwinism? And Other Writings on Science & Religion (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994), 56.

[6] Ibid., 31.

[7] For a prime example, see Karl W. Giberson, Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (New York: Harper Collins, 2008).

[8] Ibid., 114.

“What enters your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.”[1]

The Central Axiom of Worship

True worship is founded upon the ontological distinction between Creator and creation. The creature is commanded to offer worship to the Creator precisely because he is the creature. The Creator is worthy to receive the worship of His creation precisely because He is Creator. It is that fundamental metaphysical distinction between the Infinite and the finite, the Absolute and the contingent, the Uncaused Cause and the effect that underscores the very nature and obligation of worship. Worship is not merely what we experience when we sing certain songs. Worship is not just an emotional response we have to musical stimuli. Nor is worship ultimately about us. How misguided of us to think that worship is some experience we are supposed to benefit from, and then complain when we do not receive the expected benefits.

True Worship

Positively, we can define worship as the celebration of God, often in song, that expresses the proper distinction and relationship between creature and Creator. That worship is often expressed in song is seen in the simple fact that the Book of Psalms repeatedly enjoins us to “sing” or “shout” our praises to and about God.  Many great hymns similarly charge us:

All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing Alleluia, Alleluia!

Let all things their Creator bless,

And worship Him in humbleness, Alleluia, Alleluia![2]

Another way we could define worship is the cognitive awe and reverence of a Holy God that focuses on Him. Worship is cognitive. That is, worship is an act that involves the mind (Matt. 22:37; John 4:24). Worship is not just emotive; it is intellectual and theological. Worship that does not heartily engage the mind is superficial and most likely, idolatrous. Worship also involves awe and reverence. Worship is not about cozying up to God. Too often the words to modern “worship” songs give no explicit indication that God is even the object of the devotion. Often there is little content that identifies it as an actual Christian worship song. Without cognitive content that moves the worshiper to reverence the Creator, a song probably should not be considered “worship.”

True worship also focuses on God, our Holy Creator. While not neglecting feelings and response, the focus is not on those as much as it is on God and Christ. We might even say that worship is a preoccupation with God in all of life. It is a preoccupation with loving the things God loves, which means we must know, through His Word, what He actually loves. Worship is also a preoccupation with ordering our lives in accordance with God’s will. The Creator has imposed an order on this world. The Creator has established certain human institutions, and expects us to worshipfully order our lives, our families, and our churches in a manner commensurate with His blueprints. Worship is also a preoccupation with joining God in His work. We worship when we are consumed in our lives to do the things God has called us to do. Worship is a preoccupation with the beauty of God’s creation. The Bible tells us to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth” (Ps. 96:9).

But above all, worship is a preoccupation with God Himself. In an age of utter self-fixation, a cognitively driven, purposeful preoccupation with God is probably not what most people are looking for in their church experience. However, according to Jesus, that is exactly what God is looking for: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).

Five Truths About God and Worship

Worship is at root the creature recognizing his own smallness and at the same time the infinite worth of the Creator. It is the ontological distinction between Creator and creature that fuels worship. This is clearly expressed in Psalm 33:

Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast (Ps. 33:8-9).

There are five truths that come out of a study of Genesis 1:1-2 that inform our view of God and worship.

1. God is Transcendent

God is above and beyond all creation. Creation doesn’t contain God. God is ontologically distinct from creation. God and creation are not the same being. King Solomon put it this way: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). God’s transcendence also implies his holiness. God is transcendentally separate from His creation. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us.[3] The prophet Isaiah had one of the most profound (and personally traumatic) encounters with the living God recorded in Scripture: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isa. 6:1). God’s transcendence induced a spirit of awe and worship in Isaiah, who would later describe the transcendent God as “the high and lofty One” (Isa. 57:15). John Calvin thus remarked: “Away, then, with all gross conceptions of God; for his greatness far exceeds all creatures, so that heaven, and earth, and sea, and all that they contain, however vast may be their extent, yet in comparison of him are nothing.”[4]

2. God is Immanent

The latter part of Genesis 1:2 says: And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Conceptually, immanence is the opposite of transcendence. Literally, immanence means to be “within” or “near.” But to say that God is “within” is not to suggest that He is a part of the universe, but rather He is “within” as the Sustaining Cause of the universe.

Genesis 1:2 says that the Spirit of God was “hovering” over the waters. In Deuteronomy 32:11, God is likened to an eagle that “hovers” or “flutters” over its young. This is a picture of a mother’s protective care of her young. The passage describes God’s care and provision for His people in the midst of a wasteland (Sinai wilderness) that could not by itself support life. Similarly, in Genesis 1:2, the same word describes God’s care and provision for the earth that could not yet provide habitation for man without divine intervention. Apart from God’s loving “construction,” the earth would not be suitable for human habitation. Thus, the Spirit of God “hovered” over the face of the deep.

We must understand God’s transcendence and immanence in their proper balance. If God were only immanent, He would be indistinguishable from creation. In such a case, there would be no reason not to worship the creation, nor a compelling reason to worship God as Creator, because in such a scenario God and creation would be ontologically indistinguishable. On the other hand, if God were only transcendent, He would be remote and foreign. He would be the God of the deists, in which no basis for relationship between God and man exists. We might hold such a Being in rationalistic awe, but we would not love or worship Him. But God is both transcendent and immanent.

These twin truths are evident within the first two verses of the Bible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is infinitely over and above creation; He is therefore worthy of worship. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. God is also intimately involved in every detail of creation. He feeds the birds of the air, He clothes the grass of the field, and He knows all our cares and needs. He hovers as a mother eagle protecting her young. God is both transcendent and immanent, and therefore worthy of our worship.

3. God is Responsible for the Origin of the World

Genesis 1:1 speaks of God’s act of creation as a past event: “in the beginning God created.”He is responsible for creation’s origin. That makes Him worthy of worship. The word for “create” is used six times in the creation account (1:1; 1:21; three times in 1:27; 2:3). The six uses describe three significant creation events: the creation of matter, the creation of living things, and the creation of man.

God is always the subject of the verb “to create.”[5] God or humans can “make” something. God alone can “create” something out of nothing (ex nihilo). He alone calls into existence things that do not exist (Rom. 4:17). The very fact that God is the cause of the origin of the world means that the world was created for a purpose. Genesis 1:1 was written with an eschatological purpose in view. The beginning of creation already has an “end” in view. Physicist Paul Davies made this startling admission: “I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate…. We are truly meant to be here.”[6] He is correct. The world began with an end already in view. Paul wrote that eternal life itself was promised before the ages (Titus 1:2), and that the saints in Christ were chosen before the foundation of world (Eph. 1:4). Human beings were created with purpose. We were created to glorify the Creator (Isa. 43:7), and to enjoy God’s creation (1 Tim. 6:17). The fact that there was a beginning implies that there is a purpose, or an “end” to creation. God, who alone is responsible for the origin of the world, is therefore worthy of our worship.

4. God is Responsible for the Operation of the World [7]

He did not just bring the world into existence. Rather, He sustains the world’s existence, upholding it by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). God – specifically Jesus Christ – holds the world together (Col. 1:17). God wills the world’s continued existence (Rev. 4:11). And He produces life in the world.

I find this verse laden with meaning: “You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate” (Ps. 104:14). God causes the grass to grow. Now there are two really big mistakes we can make here. One error goes like this: “God causes the grass to grow. Therefore, other factors such as agriculture, water fertilizer, photosynthesis are relatively unimportant. It’s really all God.” The other error is the spirit of our age: reject the First Cause as superfluous because we know now about the “real” causes: “Since we have discovered the roles of soil, water, fertilizer, and the sun, we no longer need to invoke some divine cause for events that are simply and purely natural.”

The truth is, God causes the grass to grow, but He does so through natural agents. Natural agents or causes do not exist in their own right. Peter Kreeft put it this way: “Everything except God needs a cause of its existence. God needs no cause of His existence because [His existence] is His essence – as a triangle needs no cause of its three-sidedness because that is its essence.”[8] God is the Cause of the origin of the world (its coming to be) as well as the operation of the world (its continuing to be). God has not retreated and allowed “nature” to completely take over. Thus each one of us is truly God’s creature; we each owe Him the worship that the creature owes the Creator.

5. God is Responsible for the Order of the World

Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey make a salient point: “If God created all finite reality, then every aspect of that reality must be subject to him and his truth. Everything finds its meaning and interpretation in relation to God…. Both friends and foes of Christianity realize that everything stands or falls on the doctrine of creation.”[9] Because God is Sovereign Creator, every aspect of reality (which includes our lives) is subject to God and His truth. And here it is that we find the ultimate test of our worship. Chuck Swindoll wrote: “Worship is a human response to divine revelation.”[10] And divine revelation includes an order the Creator has imposed upon His creation. The true quality of our worship is measured in large degree by our willing and joyful subordination to the Creator’s blueprint for human life. That blueprint includes the following.

The exalted place of mankind within creation. Under God the Creator, man the creature has an exalted place within God’s creation. Man was created to “resemble” God in His moral and intellectual characteristics. Moreover, man was created to “represent” God on the and partner with Him in executing His dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:28; Ps. 8:6-8).

The sanctity of marriage. When Jesus was questioned on His views on divorce, he went back to creation itself to establish the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matt. 19:4-6). Failing to treat marriage as sacred is a failure of worship.

The burden of male leadership in the church. The Apostle Paul grounded his reasoning in Genesis 1-3: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2:12-14). God created Adam before He created Eve. God gave a command to the man before He even created the woman. And God held Adam, more so than Eve, responsible for violating that command.

The burden of male leadership in the home. This teaching is made explicit in 1 Corinthians 11:3: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wifeis her husband, and the head of Christ is God.” That this order is grounded in creation is made clear further down in 11:7-9: “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” The model New Covenant home is in many respects a recovery of what humanity lost in Eden.

Ultimately, we are duty bound to worship our Creator. While we indeed have the choice to refuse the Creator His due, we cannot evade the consequences of such refusal that are built into the very order of things. R.C. Sproul puts it this way:

God does not have to enter into a voluntary covenant with us, in which we agree to certain terms, before we are obligated to give him his due. By the nature of his perfection and holiness, I already owe him everything. I have an inherent obligation to obey, worship, honor, and glorify God because exultation from the lips of the creature is his due.[11]

At the heart of worship is the conscious, preoccupied recognition of God’s greatness, overtly displayed in God’s creative power and might. But worship is also the conscious, preoccupied recognition of God’s goodness, “for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5). Indeed, God is the First Being. And as His creatures, our first duty is to render unto Him the worship He is due.

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[1] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God: Their Meaning in the Christian Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 1.

[2] “All Creatures of our God and King,” words by Francis of Assisi, paraphrased by William H. Draper.

[3] R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Minneapolis: Grason, 1985), 55.

[4] Calvin, John, and William Pringle. Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010.

[5] “The striking feature of the word is that its subject is always God. It therefore conveys the idea of a special activity accomplished only by deity that results in newness or a renewing.” Mathews, K. A. Genesis 1-11:26. Vol. 1A. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996.

[6] Paul Davies, The Mind of God (London: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 232. 

[7] Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, 500-517.

[8] Peter Kreeft, ed., The Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), 79.

[9] Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1999), 95.

[10] Swindoll, 395.

[11] R.C. Sproul, Truths We Confess: A Layman’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith, vol. 1, (Phillipsburg, NJ: R&R Publishing, 2006), 65-66.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1)

I am the first and the last (Rev. 1:17)

The Bible commences with a simple yet profound declaration of inexhaustible theological, philosophical, and literary significance. There are two vital truths we can glean just from Genesis 1:1. The first truth is that this is a theistic world. To help better understand the term “theistic,” we should contrast it some other worldviews. 

Atheism is the view that there is no God or gods, or as Carl Sagan asserted: “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”^[1] In this view, since there is no God or gods, the universe itself must be eternal, or matter itself in pure form must be eternal, or there must be some eternally existing thing that somehow brought the universe into existence. Some have gone so far as to suggest that “something” (the universe) inexplicably popped into existence from “nothing.” Brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking has recently counted himself among this number.^[2] However, almost every attempt to argue that the universe popped into existence from nothing involves an equivocation on the word “nothing.” In other words, while one uses the word “nothing,” he really means “something.” But nothing is “no-thing,” “non-being,” or as Aristotle put it, “what rocks dream about.” In fact, if there were ever was truly nothing (absolute “non-being”) then there would still be nothing, because non-being cannot cause being. Or to put it another way: nothing cannot cause something because nothing is nothing. But something does exist, so it stands to reason that something has always existed. The theist would argue that “something” is in face a Someone: God. 

Pantheism is the view that all is God and God is all. There is no distinction in being (“ontology”) between God and the universe. There is only One. This is the view that undergirds many forms of Eastern religion, Christian Science, and the New Age. The first statement of Genesis contests pantheism by unequivocally claiming an ontological distinction between God and the world that He created. God and the world are not the same being: one exists eternally, the other came to be; one is uncaused, the other an “effect,” owing its existence to another; one is necessary and absolute, the other is contingent and relative.

Polytheism is the view that there are many gods, not just one. This was the dominant view of the ancient, and one that is making a comeback in our own day. This is the false ideology most often opposed by the pages of Scripture because in the ancient world, polytheism was the dominant rival to Hebrew monotheism. Biblical apologetics, beginning with Genesis 1:1, attacks polytheism head on. 

Deism is a relatively recent view, peaking in seventeenth-century England and eighteenth-century America. Minus the Trinity and miracles, a deist would affirm much of the same classical attributes of God as the theist. But notably, deism rejects God’s “immanence,” that God is present to and involved with His creation. The deist believes that God created the world, and then let it go. He wound up the clock then left it to tick off time all on its own. The God of deism never interacts with His creation. Therefore revelation, intervention, and interaction are all eliminated. There is no prophecy, no Scripture, no miracles, no virgin birth, no incarnate Son of God, no resurrection, no consummation of history. The god of deism falls well short of the God of the Bible. 

Finally, there is theism, the view that there is one God, who exists from all eternity, who brought the universe into existence, and therefore is ontologically distinct from the creation. This God exists independent of the creation. The creation adds nothing to the Creator. On the contrary, the creation could not exist without the Creator, and is fully dependent on the Creator for its continued, moment-by-moment existence. 

Genesis 1:1 is distinctly theistic. That is the first point to note about this verse. Contra atheism, God is the reason material reality exists (not to mention immaterial reality such as souls, minds, ideas, and angels). Over and against pantheism, God is not the world, and the world is not God. There is God, and everything else. As opposed to polytheism, God alone is Creator and Sovereign. He has no rival and does not share His glory with another. And finally, unlike deism, the theistic God exercises providential care for His creation and intervenes at His pleasure and discretion, without thereby “violating” the laws of nature that He Himself established. 

THEREFORE, THIS IS A THEISTIC WORLD

The world is theistic because the God who created the world is infinite, personal (not a mere “force”), transcendent, immanent, omniscient, sovereign, and good. It is a theistic world because, as Gerard Manley Hopkins memorably penned, the world “is charged with the grandeur of God.”^[3] The world is orderly, full of beauty and purpose, and reveals the moral nature of the Creator. C.S. Lewis famously recounted how he once rejected God because of the suffering and injustice in the world. It at last dawned upon Lewis that he could only identify injustice if he had some idea of justice. But where had he gotten that idea of justice? How does one know that a stick is crooked unless one has some concept of straightness? He eventually realized that in order to call anything “unjust,” there must exist an ultimate standard of “Justice,” and that could be none other than an Ultimate and Moral Person: God.^[4]

GENESIS 1:1 REVEALS AN ETERNAL GOD

The second vital truth we learn from Genesis 1:1 is this: God is eternal, and this reality should keep us in perpetual awe. This is clear in the ontological contrast between God and the world. The world had a beginning; God did not. Psalm 90:1-2 reads as follows: 

A prayer of Moses, the man of God…. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 

God is a dwelling place in all generations. God is not just the God of the old, or the God of the young, or the God of the medieval monks, or the God of the pilgrims, or the God of the apostles, or the God of the ancient Israelites. He is the God of all generations, a dwelling place for all who seek refuge under His wings. This speaks of the boundlessness of His duration: He is not a temporary God, but an eternal God. The seventeenth century English Puritan Stephen Charnock put it this way: “Thou hast always been God, and no time can be assigned as the beginning of Thy Being.”^[5] God neither began in time nor will he expire with the end of it. That is what it means to be the eternal God. Eternity describes a permanent and immutable state. And with specific reference to God, eternity is a perfect possession of life without variation.

God, as eternal, has no beginning. If God had a beginning one of two things would follow. He either had His beginning from Himself or from another. But God could not have His beginning from Himself, for self-creation is a logical absurdity and metaphysical impossibility. For something to create itself, it would have to exist and not exist at the same time and in the same way. It would have to exist in order to bring itself into existence, an obvious absurdity. On the other hand, if God had His beginning from another Being, then that Being would exist prior to and therefore be greater than God. And no being is truly supreme if it owes its being to the power of another. So it cannot be true that God, the greatest of all possible beings, owes His existence to a greater being. There cannot a greater than the greatest. 

Neither does the eternal God have an end. God always was, is, and will be what He always was, is, and will be. His nature is “to be.” Consider another psalm that highlights the startling contrast between Creator and creation. 

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end (Ps. 102:25-27).

While creation perishes, God remains. As none has given Him life, so none can deprive Him of it – He has no end. God has no “yesterday, today, or tomorrow.” Eternity is not something. Rather, eternity describes the mode of God’s being – I AM, an unbounded sea of Being.

THREE REASONS THIS MATTERS

1. Sin is Utterly Irrational

Sin offends an eternal God. Charnock observed: “There is in the nature of every sin a tendency to reduce God to a not being.”^[6] In the psychology of sin, there is a tendency, often subconscious, for the sinner to act as if God doesn’t even exist. Yet, the exact opposite is true: He is eternal; He has never not existed. Therefore sin is utterly irrational. It is folly for us to love a temporal, perishing thing with the same or greater affection than we love the eternal God. 

2. The Unrepentant Hater of God Has Much to Dread

Very few people think they actually hate God. But the Bible says that until we are born again and forgiven of our sins through faith in Jesus Christ, we are in fact His enemies (Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:1-2). Charnock therefore warns: “His eternity makes the punishment more dreadful than his power; his power makes it sharp, but his eternity renders it perpetual.”^[7]

3. The Lover of God Has Much to Offer Him Comfort 

What hope and consolation would we have if God if He had an expiration date? It is under His everlasting wings we take refuge. He is a “dwelling place in all generations.” This provides true comfort against all present distresses. The Apostle Paul encouraged us to think this way: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17). It is when we perceive our temporal circumstances in light of the eternity of God that we can consider those afflictions to be light. And we take great comfort that the pleasures of God will be as fresh and spontaneous after ten thousand years of eternity as at the first. 

A DEVOTIONAL TAKE-AWAY

If everything is to be valued according to the greatness of its being, then what should be our valuation of the eternal God compared with anything else in creation? As Charnock wrote: “In devoting ourselves to God, we serve Him that is, that was, so as that he never began; is to come, so as that he never shall end; by whom all things are what they are; who hath both eternal knowledge to remember our service, and eternal goodness to reward it.”^[8] In devoting ourselves to God, we accomplish what is our very first duty, to which we turn next. 

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^[1] Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), 4. 

^[2] Hawking claims: “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”  See Lennox, John (2011-02-18).God and Stephen Hawking (p. 16). Lion Hudson. Kindle Edition.

^[3] Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur.” The poem in its entirety can be found here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44395. Last accessed 12/10/2016. 

^[4] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: MacMillan, 1952), 45. 

^[5] Stephen Charnock, “On the Eternity of God” in The Existence and Attributes of God, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 277. 

^[6] Charnock, 277.  

^[7] Charnock, 277.  

^[8] Charnock, 309.