The Eternal God (1)

Psalm 90 is, as the heading indicates, the earliest known Psalm and the only one of the 150 written by Moses, plus it is Scripture’s most profound meditation on God and time. There is something entirely appropriate about this in the divine wisdom. Moses is the greatest historian in the Bible. The five books he penned, Genesis to Deuteronomy, span over two and a half millennia. When he wrote, Moses covered the whole period of time that the world had then existed. He even recorded the creation of the universe and time, and the ordering of time in Genesis 1.

Moses wrote of many generations: Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve sons of Jacob, etc. Moses recorded the generations before the flood and after the flood. From Genesis 12 to Deuteronomy 34, he wrote of the generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as sojourners in Canaan; the generations of Israelites as strangers and slaves in Egypt; and the generations in the wilderness wanderings. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Ps. 90:1)!

Moses wrote of people who lived a long time, some almost a thousand years, such as Methuselah 969 (Gen. 5:27), Jared 962 (20) and Adam 930 (5). After the flood, peoples’ ages declined to the 600s, then the 400s, the 200s and the 100s. In Moses’ day, 70 was a good old age; 80 was rarer and brought additional pains (Ps. 90:10).

Moses himself lived to the ripe old age of 120: 40 years in Egypt as Pharaoh’s daughter’s adopted son; 40 years in Midian as Reuel’s son-in-law and shepherd; 40 years in the wilderness as the shepherd of Israel, God’s first-born son (Ex. 4:22). Psalm 90 was written in the wilderness by an old man who had seen much in his long life. Its tone is thoughtful, meditative, reflective, solemn. It is beautiful poetry as befits the silence and horizons of the wilderness.

In Psalm 90, Moses writes of man’s experience of time, whether as good days of gladness in God’s mercy (14-15) or sorrowful days, as when Israel was consumed by God’s wrath and anger in the wilderness (7). Man’s days on earth end with death, as Moses saw in the hundreds of thousands of carcasses which fell in the wilderness. Psalm 90 also speaks of the eternal God and the relationship between Him and time.

First, God’s eternity includes His being without beginning: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (2). God is before the mountains, which seem so ancient, and even before the earth itself as the One who created the world. But it is not as if God were merely one thousand years or one million years before the world. For what would be before God? No, God is without beginning.

Second, God’s eternity includes His being without ending: “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God (2).” You could say, man is without ending and angels are without ending (for both men and angels will be everlastingly in heaven or hell) and the creation is without ending (for it will exist forever in the new heavens and the new earth). But there are vital differences between God the creator and His creatures. God is without ending necessarily and by His own power. Men, angels and the creation are without ending only according to God’s decree and as sustained by His omnipotence.

Moreover, God is without ending and without beginning of and through Himself, whereas men, angels and the creation not only are sustained everlastingly by God, but also were formed by God and have a beginning.

So far, we have seen that God is without beginning and without end, but Jehovah’s eternity is even more astounding, for it includes, third, His being without succession. What is time? Time is the succession of moments. The future becomes the present which becomes the past; what is past was present and was future. Time is something that flows or moves and can be measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. With regard to time, we speak of now or before or after and the present or the past or the future. Time involves succession, with one moment coming after another and another, remorselessly, unstoppably.

In affirming that the true and living God is not only without beginning and without end but also without succession, we mean that there is no time in God. Of course not! If time were in God, time would be God, for everything in God is God, since He is absolutely one or simple. There is no past, present or future in God; there are no succession of moments in God. Moreover, God is not in time, in the sense that there is some sort of clock external to God that measures Him. Thus God never grows older.

Psalm 90:4 teaches that God has a different relationship to time than we do: “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” To man, a thousand years are a thousand years. To God, a thousand years are as a day, as “yesterday,” or even “as a watch in the night,” just three hours or so, only an eighth of a day. Psalm 90 is alluded to in II Peter 3:8: “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Here we are told that for God both one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as one day. Even while noting that similitude is used (“as”), it is clear that Jehovah has a different relationship to time than we do.

These three texts from Paul’s letters indicate that God is before (and hence outside and above) time. First, I Corinthians 2:7 refers to “the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world,” literally, “before the ages” and so before time. Second, II Timothy 1:9 speaks of God’s “own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” literally, “before the times of ages” and so before time. Third, Titus 1:2 states that God promised “eternal life ... before the world began,” literally, “before the times of ages” and so before time. Since God is before the ages, times and time, then time has a beginning and time is not in God.