El Olam – The Eternal God

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

            Last year a couple of teenagers asked a challenging question, in fact, one that many adults have not asked. First, I would like to go back a couple of weeks ago, when I preached about Elohim, the creator God. We are reminded in Scripture: (Heb 3:4 NIV) For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.   We can look at a house and know someone built it. We look at the world and know somebody was behind it all. That person is God. Now the question the teenagers asked was, “Who made God?”   That’s a good question. Everything that has come to be has a maker as the cause behind it.  But who caused God to be? The answer is nobody or no one. See God never came to be, he is eternal, and he has no need of a creator. Remember the name of God that Pastor Brohn spoke about, “I Am”. God always existed. We can put it this way; there never was a time he wasn’t. The fact that God claims to be eternal has a definite impact on his being, but also how he relates to us.   As we continue our study of the names of God, we will focus today on El Olam – The Eternal God.

I. The Nature of Being Eternal

            The first place in the Bible we meet this name for God is (Gen 21:33 NIV) Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of the LORD, the Eternal God. The concept of eternal can be used in two ways. It can mean something that has a beginning and no end, used for example with believers experiencing eternal life. When talking about God we have words that look back, from everlasting and look forward to everlasting.    From everlasting to everlasting is hard for our minds to grasp or get a handle on it. We are so bound by time. We have a birthday, we live so long, and we have a day of our death. You can walk through the cemeteries and read the dates of births and the dates of death.   As the eternal God time is not a factor in his being. Though the eternal God created time he is not subject to time or its laws. For example he created space, but cannot be limited to space, rather he can  be everywhere. 

What is hard to picture is how God views the events here in time from his perspective of being eternal.   He does not work with a time line as we are accustomed. For example, how do we put this into our mind when the Bible speaks about Jesus this way: (Rev 13:8 NIV) … the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. Another uniqueness of the timelessness of God is when he gives a prophecy of the Savior and puts it in the past tense. For example 750 years before Jesus would die we read in Isaiah 53: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Because of the timelessness of God he knew it was an accomplished fact. He also from our perspective looks ahead and sees the resurrection of all flesh as a present fact as Jesus explained: (Mat 22:32 NIV) 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

When we struggle with the concept of eternity, I remember a picture I learned in confirmation. “How long is eternity? There is a little bird that returns every thousand years to a mountain of granite, whets its beak (pecks three times) three times and flies away. When that little bird has whetted down the mountain, then one second of eternity shall have passed. – So the legend has it.”

II. The Impact of God being Eternal on my life.

When God’s word reveals the concept of an eternal, everlasting God we find it has meaning for our lives. For example: (Isa 40:28 NIV) Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. How many of you come to church tired or weary?   How many come with a burden of life?   Our eternal God is here ready to lift the load and strengthen us. When we struggle with the meaning of what God is doing? When we don’t understand ourselves, our eternal God is at work in our lives.   He knows what he is doing. 

            When we contrast our lives with his eternity we are reminded: (Psa 31:15 NIV) My times are in your hands.” So often we forget who is in control, we read: (James 4:13-15 NIV) Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." {14} Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. {15} Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

            The Psalmist wrote:  (Psa 90:4 NIV) For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. The Apostle Peter follows that thought when he writes: (2 Pet 3:8-9 NIV)  But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. {9} The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. The eternal God has given us so much time to come to know him, to love him and to live for him until we live with him eternally.

III. The Impact of our Eternal God on our eternity.

            When we think of the attributes of God, there are implications of law and Gospel. For example, God sees me…he sees all the evil I have done, the good news, he is watching over me to protect me. So how does the concept of an eternal God having meaning for me? The eternal God is then in charge of eternity. In the Old Testament we read people who have died and what is their future: (Dan 12:2 NIV) Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

            Hell: The Bible makes it clear there is a hell with eternal punishment: First for the evil angels: (Jude 1:6 NIV) And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home--these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.  Then for unbelievers: (Mat 25:41 NIV) "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Mat 25:46 NIV) "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." When it comes to the fate of unbelievers God does use the words “eternal and everlasting.”   The purpose of such warnings is that we take seriously our sins and repent before it is too late.  What is so dangerous is the thought that for 10 minutes of foolishness we could spend an eternity suffering.  We do not have an eternity to wait. Now is the time for repentance, now is the time for faith. 

            Heaven: What a contrast eternal life gives. In the Old Testament we read: Psa 16:11 NIV) You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. That was descriptive of Jesus.

But then we are assured we will be forever with the Lord. Forever! God’s word does not want us to live with doubts or worries. The promises are clear what we have through faith in Jesus: (John 3:16 NIV) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:36 NIV) Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. This is his gift to us. Remember if we have to pay for it, it ceases to be a gift. (John 10:28 NIV) I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. (Rev 7:16 NIV) Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. Eternal joy in the presence of the eternal God. Amen.