Our God is Eternal (Part 3)

Based upon that knowledge, which is related, of course, to omniscience, his, his, his, the fact that he knows all things, that is the basis for the, for prophecy, because he tells us in advance, he inserts himself, as it were, into time and he tells us things before they happen and, and he then of course, he records them in scripture. And we know that in Deuteronomy, we saw this as well, that fulfilled prophecy or, or true prophecy is one of the sure signs of a true prophet and a true message from God.

We also saw from Job how that Satan cannot know the future because that is a function of an eternal nature. All right. And so we saw that. The reason why the devil does not know all things or know the future, and we’ve seen, we actually saw scripture where he reveals that he did not know what would happen. And so that is because he is not eternal. He sees things and comes upon things similar, I guess you could say, similar to the way we do, that is, as they, as they occur.

So lastly, we were in Acts chapter 2 verse 23 and Luke 22 verse 22. We will not rehash those, but we will pick up there. And that’s where, that’s where the study gets interesting. When we start to, we start to see this, this tension between what we view, the way we view things in time and the way God view things, views things outside of time. And there, there seems to be a tension between those two things, a balance, if you will.

And we also have seen from those verses that there is a great deal of mystery the way that those two things interact. And so we’ll see more of that in just a minute. We’re going to be going to begin to 1 Peter chapter 1. So if you want to go ahead and go there, 1 Peter chapter 1, and we’re going to pick up there and hopefully finish our study on this attribute today.

1 Peter chapter 1, let’s pray together. Our Father, Lord, You are a great God and a great King above all gods. There is none like You. And Lord, as we study these attributes, Lord, some have invented gods, gods newly brought up, newly created, that are the work of men. And Lord, we know that You are not like them. You are incomprehensible and Lord, You are a God who is all wise and You are the God who inhabits eternity.

And as we look at this subject, Lord, we pray that You would help us to strike a biblical balance for these difficult and mysterious truths that are in Scripture, that we would just stick close by what the Scripture says and not exceed it. But Lord, also, even more important than that, we pray that You would help us, Lord, to just be awestruck with who You are because You are a great God.

And so, Lord, teach us Your ways, but also teach us about the gospel, teach us about the Savior and teach us about the ways we can take these truths and apply them, Lord, that it might help us to grow in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse number 19, if you’ll look at that, the Bible says verse 18 picks up a running start to get to verse number 19.

For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who...this is the lamb now, but who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. Now look at this verse 20.

You see this duality. What do I mean by duality? You see the way God views things and the way man views things, both in this single verse. Look at verse 20, if you would again. He says foreordained before the foundation of the world, that is, we’ve seen this over and over and over, that is language that the Lord uses to describe before time was, before creation, that is, when only God existed.

If you can, we can say it like that. That’s the language for that. And so this is God’s view. And then he says what was manifest in these last times, note the word time, the last time for you, and that’s our view. And of course Christ, we know that Christ was manifested at a particular time in history after a particular succession of events from our point of view.

But both of them exist at the same time. That’s what I mean by duality. But notice that Christ...so this is what we have to get. And this is the hard part that we’ll spend the rest of our life trying to make sense of it, trying to fully comprehend it, which is this, that although the Lord Jesus Christ came at a particular moment in history, right? Although He was born and came and all the events surrounding His life happened at a particular moment in history, yet those events, the Bible says, were foreordained before the foundation of the world.

And both of those things are true at the same time. Now we saw last week, we saw how that when Christ went to the cross, we saw this in Acts chapter 2. And Acts chapter 2 verse 23, it says that even though Christ was foreordained to go to the cross, and that work of the cross, not just the cross itself, that event, but all of the resulting blessings of the cross, which are connected to it, right?

All of those things were in God’s mind and ordained of God before the world was even created. Now, that’s hard to get. That is hard to understand. But it is a fact of Scripture. So again, you have man’s view in time and God’s view, and the things that God has done are things that, because He is outside of time, He doesn’t view it in the succession that we do.

Those things are not contradictory. They go together. And as we saw last week, the events that led up to the cross, whether it’s Judas or whether it’s the Romans or the Jews or whatever human means were used to bring those things to pass, from man’s perspective, we look at it and we can say, well, Pilate did this and the Pharisees did this and we can go through the process.

And each one of them will be blamed for their part in that evil, right? But at the same time, it is also true that God foreordained it before the world was created, right? Does everybody see that? Does everybody understand how hard that is to reconcile together? But again, I’m repeating a little bit, just reviewing. We expect this kind of difficulty when we deal with an attribute of God like this, that it is incomprehensible.

And we are also going to be very careful that we don’t go beyond what the Scripture actually tells us in this area. Because how many of you have heard of systematic theology? You have biblical theology, that is, you take what the statements of Scripture and you see those, and that’s biblical theology. Systematic theology takes those statements and then deduces other things based upon them. And some of that’s good and some of that’s not.

And a lot of it is gray. A lot of it is theory. And that’s when you start getting into trouble, when the theory becomes all Scripture must be interpreted to fit the theory because we must have a system that makes sense and is rational and we can tie all the loose ends up and we must make Scripture fit that. The moment you do that, though, the moment that you think you have a system into which God fits is the moment that you will find outlying Scripture verses.

And that’s okay. You have to learn to get over it because that’s okay. And that’s not only true, and I’m mainly obviously referring to Calvinism, but that’s not only Calvinism. It’s also true for us. Even though we don’t accept the system of Calvinism as biblical, if we take our position and what we think of the Scripture matches, we have to understand that there are Scripture verses that are outliers to us too, that are hard to make sense of.

And so I think it’s important to grapple with that in an honest way. Now let’s go to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation chapter 13. Revelation 13. This is speaking of the beast, which is a symbolic reference to the Antichrist, verse 8. And all that dwell, Revelation 13, verse 8, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Now let me ask you a question. When was Jesus slain? Historians say Jesus died in 29 AD, according to our current Gregorian calendar, which is what we have, right? Because it changed in the 1400s? 1400s? Anyway, whenever it changed. I think it was when they switched from the Julian to the Gregorian. Anyway, they say that Jesus, the historians say Jesus died, was born around 4 BC, died in 29 BC.

Okay, 29 AD. I’m sorry, 29 AD. So we say Christ died in 29 AD. Is that accurate? Is that true? As far as, yeah. But he died at that time, right? This verse says that he died before the foundation of the world. So something’s going on here, right? Something’s going on here. And this is, I think this is part of the key to really unlocking or at least maybe acknowledging the mystery of it, is that you have to understand that when God makes certain statements, he’s making them from his perspective.

And sometimes that doesn’t look the same as our perspective. And the harder we try to shove those two things into the same box, the more problems we create for ourselves when God is making a statement from his perspective versus when we’re making, we’re looking at the same event, if you will, from our own, right? And we’re going to see more examples of this, but I’ll give you a perfect example.

In fact, let’s just not do it. Let’s just let the scripture lead us. So this is a mysterious statement that is expressive of God’s dwelling in eternity. Now so as we see in these couple of verses, as well as Acts 2 that we saw last week in Luke 22, the Lord mentions his foreknowledge and also his foreordination in time and with use of human invention and human activity to produce the outcome that God both knew and determined.

This is, I don’t think looking at the verses that we’ve looked at so far, I don’t think that anything that I’m saying there is outside of what the scriptures actually say. Those people in their zeal to dispute certain doctrines look at the word foreordain and see foreknow, but they don’t mean the same, all right? They don’t. But that fact does not then lead us to a whole system of doctrine over here that we’re so zealous to avoid.

It doesn’t lead to that. It’s just, again, we have to take the scripture as what it says and understand that there’s All right, now look at Acts chapter 15 for the next one, and then if you want to go ahead and go forward a little bit, you can go to Hebrews chapter 4, Acts 15, Acts 15, and Hebrews 4, Acts 15. Acts 15 is interesting. The context of Acts 15 is the question over the Gentiles.

Are they required to keep the law? Are they required to be circumcised after they have believed in Christ? Are they required to then keep all the dietary laws and holidays and all that, this found in the law of Moses? That’s the question before them. Now in verse number 14 of Acts 15, it says this, Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out a name of them, a people for his name, and to this agree the words of the prophets.

As it is written, after this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof and set it up, that the residue of men might seek after the Lord and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Now notice James here quotes an Old Testament prophecy, which again is dependent upon God as eternity.

So here’s the logic that James is using. Here’s the logic. Here is before James all of these Gentiles who have believed in Christ, and the question is do they have to keep the law of Moses? So James says, let’s go back and look at the scripture. The scripture tells us that there would be Gentiles that would put their faith in Christ. That’s what he’s just reading. He’s quoting that.

And also said it. And notice what he says in verse number 18, immediately following that. He says in verse number 18, he says, known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. And so after that he says, so what my sentence is, or my judgment in this is this, no, they do not have to keep the law of Moses nor be circumcised. That was the judgment.

But why did he make that decision? He made that decision based upon the eternity of God. Here’s what I mean. He has these Gentiles before him with this open question. He looks back in the scripture and says, look what God said back here. So he’s going back in time. He says, if God knew that back then the Gentiles would believe and at that time did not require them to keep the law, because he knew.

He knew from that time all of his works that he would do. And if he didn’t prescribe that they also keep the law, then why am I going to? Because he said they would believe back then. He’s known that all this time. And yet at no point did he say anything different. So based upon the eternity of God, the fact of the eternity, he’s going to say, well God knew.

And if God knew and didn’t tell us these things, then that means we can’t tell them they have to keep the law if the Lord didn’t, who knew all things in advance. So that’s the eternity of God. And the truth is, we also can take the eternal character of God and we can kind of apply it in our life. Like for instance, when something comes up in your life, one of the greatest, one of the great comforts that you have is to say, well God knew that would happen.

How many of you have ever had comfort in that? Well God knew. He was way before this. And that’s comforting. You know why? Because of verse 18, he says, known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. There’s a certain trust in God that comes from that. God, you’re there. You were there beforehand. You already knew all this. You already knew what men’s decisions would be.

You already knew the outcome. And you know the outcome later. The benefit is that sometimes the outcome even beyond us in the future, he tells us now. What a comfort of a God who dwells in eternity. Go to, if you would, Hebrews 4, Hebrews chapter 4, verse number 3. Now this is referring to the children of Israel entering into God’s rest. And then of course, the author of Hebrews goes into something, kind of applies that to something else later.

But I just want to point out one thing in verse 3. For we, Hebrews 4, 3, for we which have believed do enter into rest as he said, as I have written, as I have, I’m going to skip the page, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest. Now I want to tell you something. The word if is a human word.

You know, the word if is a human word. Word if is a time word. It’s not really a God word. I’m not saying God never says if. He does. But the idea of the word if to God, like he doesn’t, he doesn’t have to say if. And that’s actually what this verse is saying. He says, if they shall enter into my rest, talking about the children of Israel, when they would go, would they go into the promised land or not?

And then he follows it with this. Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. So did God know that they would enter into his rest or not? Because to God, it’s a done deal. Everybody on the same page here? Now here’s for you apologists. What do you call a logician? Is that the right word? Logician? Someone who deals in logic? Something like that. Is that right?

Okay. It does not however follow that because the works are finished, like the verse says, that the Lord then prescribed every action that was taken. That doesn’t follow. Okay. Now, so take a step back. Is it possible for God to create a universe where he knows the results, the works are finished from the foundation of the world? Is it possible for God to create a universe in which he knows those things but did not determine them?

Yeah. Is it also possible for that God to step into that and determine things? Yes. Is it also possible for God to step into that and determine things using individual choices of human beings? Yes. I want somebody to explain this to me. Andrew’s not going to do that. He’s not going to try. He has something different. Go ahead.

So you’re saying God’s running simulations. AI simulations is what I’m hearing. And the example is Pharaoh in Exodus. Is the Lord repeatedly says that he hardened Pharaoh’s heart. In other words, the Lord drove Pharaoh’s decision making. But that doesn’t necessarily follow. He does that for every single human being on earth. Yeah. Actually, I looked up because I’ve been reading through that portion of scripture just in my Bible reading and I actually counted that there are an unbelievable number of times the word hardened is in the first part of Exodus.

But when you follow them, it’s probably 75, 25, 75% of the time God says he hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then a few times it says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Really the point is not who does what. That’s not the point because they were working in tandem. The point is that the Lord does at times insert himself into time to cause things to happen. He absolutely does it.

And furthermore, there are scriptures that indicate that God knew not only what would happen but under any other set of circumstances what would happen. Like when he said if the men of Sodom and Gomorrah had heard the things you had heard, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. That is God speaking of a potential that did not ever happen. That had it happened, he even knew that outcome.

This question is really the core of what I think is one of the problematic parts of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the basis of the London Baptist Confession which is a very influential thing among Baptists. There’s one item on it that says that essentially God ordains everything that happens in the universe. Everything that happens, I mean without exception, every event God is the active doer of it.

That’s what it says. But that’s problematic. I would encourage you to do this. You look up the London Baptist Confession of 1689 or the Westminster Confession and get to that, go to that item, I forget what they call it, chapter, whatever it is. You go to that article and you read it and then you run the references that they cite to support it. Then come back and say, do the references that they cite in support of that point say what they say it says?

Because it doesn’t. And yet that is a foundational point upon which... Alright. Upon which the... Something’s weird. Something’s going on here. Hello. Hell. There we go. It’s like radio interference. But that point, what I’m trying to say is that point is one of the points that is the foundation for a lot of other doctrines like fatalism, determinism, divine determinism and all these other things that are really the foundation for the Calvinistic doctrines all the way up to the five points of the Calvinistic idea.

So anyway, so let’s move from that. I want to go to Psalm number 90 now if you’ll go there as well as 2 Peter. Kind of get them both in hand because they say very similar things. Psalm 90. Psalm 90. Of course we’ve been in Psalm 90 during this study because Psalm 90 verse 2 is the proof text for the eternity of God. From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

But notice in that same context verse number 4 says this, for a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past and as a watch in the night. So what the Lord is dealing with is in this verse he’s kind of describing the way the Lord views time as compared to us. Now the New Testament version of that is in 2 Peter chapter 3.

You’re familiar with this but let’s go ahead and turn to it. 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter chapter 3 verse number 8. 2 Peter 3 says this, but beloved be not ignorant of this one thing that one day is the day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Now this chapter, what is the context of this chapter? Those of you that have studied this before, it’s the coming of Christ, the coming of the Lord.

And in particular there’s a question of where is the promise of his coming in verse 4? And then there’s a mention of the long suffering of the Lord. In other words why hasn’t he come if he’s coming? Why hasn’t he come? Why the delay so long? What Peter’s reminding us of is the Lord doesn’t look at time like you do. You think it’s been a long time but it’s been just a wink to him.

But it goes both ways. Not only are long periods of time as a wink, and this is important, short periods of time are also long. That’s what the verse says. And I’m going to get to that in just a second. And so the Lord operates in his own way in relation to time, not in our way. Not in our way. And again that truth can kind of set our mind at ease knowing that when the Lord says, take any time reference that you find in scripture, behold I come quickly.

I don’t know about you but it’s been a long time since Jesus said that at the end of Revelation. Why? Well, because the Lord’s speaking from his own perspective. Right? And so we should expect that that’s relative to his terms rather than ours. And so, okay, so as we move from there, that’s God’s view of time. We’ll see more about that in a second. But there’s a couple of the things I want to wrap this up before we go into the practical aspects which is this.

The eternity of God, God’s eternity is indivisible from all of his other attributes. Think about this now. We haven’t gotten to immutability which is the fact that God doesn’t change. But think about this. Immutability depends upon God’s eternity. The God of then is the same as the God of now. His immutability is based in his eternity. If God at any time changes, then there would be a change from past to present and present to future.

In other words, any change in God is a mark that is a loss of his eternal nature. Because at some point it was different. There’s a succession. Right? Not only that, but his omnipotence is also dependent upon his eternity. If God had a beginning, then at some point he was nothing. And nothing is not almighty. Everybody kind of staring at me blankly a little bit. Now, I didn’t come up with these originally.

These are some of the things I’ve read. I’m passing on to you. His omniscience is also dependent upon his eternity. Because God, because of his eternity, he can view all things as totally completed. It’s like having an exhaustive encyclopedia of every event, mode of thought, or word that has ever existed, but then having it before any of those things existed. That’s what the Lord is. His omniscience.

And then lastly, his aseity. That is, his self-existence. Because nothing cannot bring something into being. Right? So if God, if at some point God did not exist, there’s no way he could have been brought into existence. And so God’s self-existence implies and demands his eternity. That he has existed forever. Always. I know. You guys are, just get the recording after and just mull over it. Again, these are not original.

These are much smarter people than I have really put some time and thought into this. Alright, now in relation to practice, here’s a few points that I’d like you to just take with you. The first point is this. Because God is an eternal God, whatsoever we see in God in the past is exactly as he will ever be. Present and future. That is why the scriptures are so valuable to us.

Even though they’re far removed in time from us. Is that the same God in every way existed then as now. So the Lord is in some way, at least in his character, predictable to us. We know how he will be. Because of God’s eternity, we can trust the prophetic portions of scripture and we can set our hope in them. For God is not just for telling and then going to try to bring it to pass.

No, God is telling us the prophetic portions from the place of all of them having been totally accomplished. Amazing. In Daniel, the Lord is referred to as the ancient of days. In this way, the Lord is likened to a person who is old of ancient age. What would a person of great age know? That person would have the benefit of personally being there during all these past events and knowing the outcome of them because of the age.

And the Lord uses that to describe himself. Not that he has a limit to his age, obviously. And so in our practice, the way we view time, the way the Lord does is different. Now let me bring one thing to your attention. We talk about, just think with me. How does our mind react to long periods of time? Say an event happens. Think about something that happened in your life a long time ago.

And a lot of time has passed since that event. That’s the effect of time on us because we live in time. That event, a lot of time has passed between that event. What happens? The reality, the realness of that event fades, does it not? Even when I got saved, I remember when I got saved rationally. I remember that moment. But I don’t feel that moment now. I can’t stir myself up to feel a certain, because that’s been a long time ago.

It’s 20, 26, 27 years ago now. And so time has faded those things. Think about events. Think about sinful things. How does time affect our view of sinful things? It has the same effect. The thing happens and we’re up in arms and we’re zealous and we’re whatever, or even we’re sorry, we’re regretful, whatever the case might be. And as time passes, all of those feelings fade. You know what we do?

We react not based upon the truth of what happened, but we react based upon the way we feel about what happened. Think about, I’ll give you an example, crimes against children that have happened long, long ago. Those things fade and most people say, hey, don’t worry about it. That’s long ago. No big deal. Now consider it from God’s perspective. How does God view something that happened 30 or 40 years ago?

Or 200 or 2000 years ago? It is like he is there now. Watching it happen. Because he’s not subject to time. Yes sir? What about if some of the things happen that happened in the beginning? I don’t know where it is, but some place in the beginning, God remembers them. The Lord has the ability somehow, this is a mystery, to delete from his mind those things. I don’t understand that.

Because if he didn’t have that, think about it logically now, spiritual logic if you will. If God did not have the ability to remember something no more as an act of his will, he would always remember it as if it happened at that moment. That means God would always be mad at you and me for good reason. Yes sir? I don’t understand that. I don’t understand that.

So I’m glad you understand that. That’s a very interesting aspect I had not thought about. But again, when you talk about this, we have to close, but when you talk about things that have happened in the past, you think about the big things like Hitler and the Holocaust, or you think about different events in history that are extremely wicked and evil. As time goes under the bridge, we lose the feeling of how evil that was.

But to God, it’s not like that. And so come Judgment Day, I’ll say it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Because when God judges, someone, I don’t know, I’m just reading into it a little bit, someone stands before God and says, Lord, that was so long ago. And the Lord says, no, it wasn’t. No, I’m there at this moment. I’m watching you nail, put those nails in his hands.

That’s a grave thought, is it not? And listen, all of that, not just the evil parts, but the good too. You could flip that on its head and you can go into a whole different avenue of meditation. But the point is, all of that is based upon the eternity of God. All of that is based upon the truth of the eternity of God. We have to close.

We didn’t finish, but maybe we can do the tail end next week before we move into our next attribute. Let’s pray together.