One True God Pt 1: ETERNAL

THE ONE TRUE GOD: ETERNAL

We believe that there is one living and true God.  He is the infinite, intelligent, personal and loving Spirit, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth. He is inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all honour and praise.   The unity of God co-exits in three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct, but harmonious offices in the Universe.

Psalm 2:7             Deuteronomy 4:35, 6:4    Exodus 20:2-3       Genesis 1:1

         1 Corinthians 8:6            John 5:36-40                           John 1:1-3

This morning we are going to have our focus on Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

There are many attributes of God that is presented to us in the Bible, and there is much we can know about the nature of God in creation itself.

We know the multitude of specifics in the scriptures related to God, what re refer to as the Special Revelation of God: his nature, his character, his being, our need of him and our relationship to him, together with his work in the world and his work to save the world. This is what we refer to as “Special Revelation”, that is the knowledge we gain respecting the nature of God from the Bible.

But there is also another form of revelation that we FIRST gain in nature itself, this is referred to as “General Revelation”, it is the revelation of God that is evident in all that he has made, in creation itself, a revelation to which ALL of mankind is held accountable to see and to know. 

We are going to be dealing through this series on that general revelation, but we are going to dig down into the specifics the Bible speaks to as Special Revelation. 

In other words, we will speak on the attributes of God that is revealed in nature, but then use the Bible to bring out and see how those attributes of God are applied in our own lives.

The topic on THE ONE TRUE GOD, will be a seven-part series that I truly do expect should both teach us more of .

This morning we will deal with the first aspect of God that must be known to all people through General Revelation, and it is titled simply “ETERNAL”. 

1. God is Eternal, timeless. We will speak on that and bring what may seem obscure out to the surface.
2. “GOOD”, why we assume this to be true and how the Bible brings it out clearly.
3. “OMNIPOTENT”, some big theological terms will be explained, Omnipotent meaning that God is “All Powerful”. We will look at implications and applications to our lives for what the world, in General Revelation, also naturally assumes.
4. “OMNICIENT”, another theological term that refers to God being “All Knowing”, that there is nothing outside his knowledge and how that also both applies to and humbles us all.
5. “OMNIPRESENT”, that God is ‘Everywhere Present’, that there is no place where God is not. We will talk about how that does not refer to God being “In” things, but rather demonstrating God as Separate from his creation, yet everywhere present about his creation.
6. “IMMUTABLE”, that God is unchanging, his perfect being is no more or less perfect today that it was in the beginning of time, and this too is assumed as known of God throughout history.
7. “KNOWN”, this last message will demonstrate HOW God is KNOWN by all of mankind who is without excuse to recognise him. It will be a message both about the veracity of the Bible that teaches this truth, and manifest in the world that KNOWS this truth. It will be a fascinating observation that I pray you will be patient to see.

Without any further ado, let’s look at the first attribute of God that we can glean from our text in Genesis 1:1

Eternity Inhabited

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The first few words of the text gives to us an understanding that there was a beginning to creation, that the universe indeed had a beginning, that time itself was not infinite, but it began.

Time is separate from eternity, eternity is not LONG PERIOD OF TIME, but a habitation without TIME.

Time is what is alluded to in the text, “in the beginning” and did itself have a beginning.  

What the passage demonstrates first is that God was already present “in the beginning”, God existed already when the beginning began!

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The world had long believed that the universe went on for ever and ever, that there was no end to the universe. As recently as the late 1980’s this was still the predominant belief among cosmologists.

In 1980, Astronomer Carl Sagan wrote a book simply titled “Cosmos” which was followed up by a PBS mini series called “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”. The most famous quotation in the series was made near the beginning where Sagan said;

“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be”.

Albert Einstein himself, contrary to what he was beginning to see in his own research, held with religious fervour to the idea that the universe was constant and unchanging, eternal.

The universe was held by many as “Static”, and so Einstein developed the Cosmological Constant in his equation on General Relativity, identified by the Greek letter ‘lambda’ (Λ) in 1917. 

He later retracted the idea and stated that it was the biggest blunder in his career.

Mankind was and still is looking for that constant; that one unchanging reality upon which all things depend, that single “Constant” through which EVERYTHING can be measured.

First it was “The Cosmos”, then it was “Time” itself, “The Speed of Light”, long held as a constant, began to be challenged a few decades ago as slowing down. Scientists considering it more of a parameter through which measurements are made rather than a constant upon which measurements can be made (Electron speed in the nucleolus of an atom etc) 

In 1978 Dr Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson accidentally discovered a faint electromagnetic radiation throughout the universe. This background microwave radiationdiscovery identified a thermal energy temperature of 3Kelvin average throughout the universe that gave scientific credibility to the Universe having a Beginning. (Absolute 0 is -273.15 Celsius, = 0 Kelvin)

In short, if the universe NEVER had a beginning, the temperature of the entire universe should be uniform at the lowest possible temperature of 0 Kelvin. 

Heat is an energy source, and so if the universe had a beginning, there should be some residual heat from that moment of creation. 

Penzias and Wilson discovered that residual heat and the Big Bang Theory of the universe, began in earnest.

The idea that “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be” disintegrated as The Beginning began to be believed.

Turn to 

Isaiah 57:15 

¹⁵ For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. 

When the concept of creation and its implications were considered, it came to be understood that Time itself is a product of creation, it is NOT Eternal. 

No longer is the universe identified as space, but as space-time. Even though the phrase “Space-Time” was more related to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in 1908, it was applied now in a manner that recognised both came into existence “In The Beginning”, the implication now is that there must be one who “inhabiteth eternity”, a dwelling place OUTSIDE OF TIME AND WITHOUT TIME.

For so long there was to the atheistic mind, a scientific justification to deny the reality of God, simply due to the notion that “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be”.

Creationists have long spoken of Genesis 1:1, stating categorically that the Bible teaches the precise opposite, the universe HAD A BEGINNING and before that beginning, there is one that inhabiteth eternity who alone could have caused the beginning to begin. Stubbornly the secular world remained resolute in their religious faith that no such beginning could be proved scientifically.

As is usually the case, science eventually catches up to the Bible, and the world now have to contend with the implications of a point in history before which there was no history, a point in time before which there was no time….

More difficult still, a point “In the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth”

Eternity is inhabited by God. Eternity is a timeless dimension that is not possible for timebound creatures to conceive of. 

I would say that not even the angels can understand the concept of eternity. Like you and I, angels were created within a time-bound universe, though they inhabit a dimension additional to ourselves, they do not inhabit eternity.

Turn to 

Mark 13:28–32 

²⁸ Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: ²⁹ So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. ³⁰ Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. ³¹ Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. ³² But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 

The passage teaches us that only God is outside of time and can know when such an event will occur. 

Both man and angels and even Jesus at that time, where bounded by time and could ONLY know that which God had revealed to them about the future.

Jesus did not know the day nor the hour, the angles could not know the day nor the hour and man could only have a hint of it as he looks for the “signs of the times” as we do today.

As we observe the world today, we see practically that which God has already written of in the Bible, as the signs of the times. 

So evident is the convergence of so many events today it is difficult NOT to refer to this historical period we are living in today as The Time of The Signs.

Like Science, HISTORY will soon catch up to what the Bible has spoken of for so long.

It seems that the Bible was authored from a source outside of time, one who inhabits eternity.

Eternity Required

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The bible teaches that all of creation, including both the heaven and the earth and time itself literally came out of nothing, “Creation Ex-nihilo”, that is, ‘Creation out of nothing’. 

For that to be the case there can only have been a being outside of the space-time universe to have gotten it started. 

As one person stated, “For there to be a Big Bang, there needed to be a Big Banger”.

PROFESSING THEMSELVES TO BE WISE THEY BECAME FOOLS

A creator who inhabits eternity is REQUIRED!

Before the discovery that the universe had a beginning, the time when it was believed  “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be”, there was no philosophical problem for the secular truth seeker to contend with;

If the universe was eternal, there was no need to consider creation; how can an eternal creator create an eternal universe? 

But NOW there is a creation of the heaven and the earth to contend with, a time when the beginning began and thereby requiring a beginner!

Rather than simply believing of the Eternal God however, secular man had to try to devise an alternative idea in order to maintain any level of justification to reject God. This is admitted even by the scientists themselves.

Richard Lewontin was a Harvard Geneticist, Evolutionary Biologist and Mathematician, he helped set the stage for the modern field of Molecular Evolution, he held the ‘endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University and retained his role as research professor there until his death in 2021’. ^[1]

In 1997 he wrote an article in The New York Review, referring to a new book by Carl Sagan, in page 31 of the review he wrote acknowledging how Science “falsly so called” says the Bible, how science distorts both logic and the scientific method itself to deny the reality of God. Listen to his own quote: 

“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Turn to Romans 1 in your Bibles please;

Romans 1:21–22 

²¹ Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. ²² Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 

An eternal God is REQUIRED in order to have created the entire universe out of nothing. The secular world recognises that even Big Bang Cosmology presents that the Universe, both Space, Time and all the observable, measurable material and energy in the Universe sprang into existence a finite time in history past.

God is the only logical answer to how we get something from nothing!

But the irrational atheist scientist bravely exalts men who’s foolishness is displayed as wisdom for all to see. 

According to them, nothing does not really mean “nothing”. What occurs when man wants to press people to believe what they want them to believe, is simply to change the definition of words. Just as the modern efforts to redefine pronouns is seen today, so too do scientists redefine Nothing. 

Nothing really isn’t nothing. Todays scientists must have watched the episode of Jerry Seinfeld in his famous show about Nothing, and caught on to an idea when he said, “even nothing is something”.

So Theoretical Physicist and Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, writes a book titled  A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, 

In it he seemed incoherent when he wrote of his rejection of the original meaning of “Nothing”, saying;

“Nothing,” they insist, is not any of the things I discuss. Nothing [they say] is “nonbeing,” in some vague and ill- defined sense….Some philosophers and many theologians define and redefine “nothing” as not being any of the versions of nothing that scientists currently describe. But therein, in my opinion, lies the intellectual bankruptcy of much of theology and some of modern philosophy. For surely “nothing” is every bit as physical as “something,” especially if it is to be defined as the “absence of something.”

In the song “Something Good” taken from the classic movie Sound of Music, the character Maria had more wisdom and logic than the majority of the Atheistic Scientific postulators today, she sings simply “Nothing comes from nothing, Nothing ever could”.

If nothing means something, then we still need a word that means what nothing meant to describe that which was before everything.

It is not logical to say, “First there was nothing, and then it exploded”.

No, ¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Eternity is REQUIRED. There must be a being outside the observable universe who created it all. 

You cannot begin with the Laws of Physics, you cannot begin with Quantum Mechanics if there were no laws to govern those observable and measurable principals. For there to be coherent  laws in the first place, there simply must be a coherent law maker.

He is timeless, eternal. He is not a part of his creation, he is separate from his creation yet is noted in the Bible as being everywhere in his creation.

Psalm 139:7–12 

⁷ Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? ⁸ If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. ⁹ If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; ¹⁰ Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. ¹¹ If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. ¹² Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light areboth alike to thee.

Jeremiah 23:24 

²⁴ Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. 

Proverbs 15:3 

³ The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. 

For all this to be true, for creation to exist and for God to be both separate from his creation and yet free to dwell within it, he must be timeless and eternal.

Eternity Encourages

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

For God to be outside of time, he must therefore know the end from the beginning. There must be a way in which time is not an issue for God. 

Time is a physical property. It is a part of this creation even though that is difficult to explain. Einstein proved that Time itself can change by both speed and altitude. Gravity itself distorts time.

Einstein’s General Relativity demonstrates that Gravity affects time, proving time is a physical property. 

The Atomic Clock at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England ticks five microseconds slower than the identical clock at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder Colorado. Both clocks are accurate to one microsecond per year (That’s 1/1 millionth of a second).  

So both clocks are almost perfectly accurate, yet the one in Boulder Colorado is located one mile difference in altitude to that of the Royal Observatory in England.

What is my point?

God is not physical. The Bible says God is a Spirit.

John 4:24 

²⁴ God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 

Why should this eternal reality encourage us?

Unlike the angels of heaven, God is not a part of his creation and sees all things from the end to the beginning. Angels, like you and I are bounded by a time bound universe, God is not. This is why he can know what is yet to actually happen, but man cannot.

Turn to

Isaiah 46:9–11 

⁹ Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, andthere is none like me, ¹⁰ Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: ¹¹ Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it. 

We are greatly encouraged because we believe God did indeed give us his word which speaks of those things that are appointed to occur, but are not yet done.

The days we live in today are days well documented in the Bible. Everything occurring is described as we see the natural inclinations of man playing out after his rejection of God.

• We see the formation of that final system of world government the Bible speaks of.
• We see division across the world, exactly as the Bible teaches.
• We see deception like we have never seen before, and we see so many people accepting that deception, almost like they love being lied to, just as the Bible teaches.
• We see sexual perversions and immorality like we have never seen before, we see wars and rumours of war, we see the Church rejecting the word of God and appearing just like the world and we see an almost universal loss of hope among the people of the world.
• We see the work toward the creation of the third Temple in Jerusalem well underway, there are 11 Red Heifers potentially being prepared for the cleansing of the priests and the temple. Benjamin Netanyahu is reported and testified as saying he believes it is his destiny to build and open the third temple.

Beloved, we are living in the time of the signs, and we should be encouraged all the more as we see God, who is himself Eternal and Timeless, prove who he is to all of mankind through his word, the Bible.

Eternity Enjoyed

Genesis 1:1 

¹ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Finally we see that Eternity is to be enjoyed by those who have trusted him.

There is a practical experience we look for as we turn to God with our hope. Firstly we rejoice to know that his promise to send his Son into the world to pay for the sin of mankind, was fulfilled two thousand years ago.

For thousands of years, mankind has been awaiting the Saviour of the world. The Jews have recorded in the Old Testament the precise day he would make his apparency to them, and they were held accountable to know that day.

Turn to 

Luke 19:37–44 

³⁷ And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; ³⁸ Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. ³⁹ And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. ⁴⁰ And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. 

⁴¹ And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, ⁴² Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. ⁴³ For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, ⁴⁴ And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. 

God told his people in the book of Daniel exactly when he would present himself as the Messiah the king.

Daniel 9:25 

²⁵ Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 

Isaiah wrote that it would be King Cyrus who would give this command, he was prophesied before he was born;

1 Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him (Isa 45:1)

4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

Of Cyrus God continues to say specifically:

¹³ I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts. 

You can “read all about it” in Isaiah 45, written more than 200 years before Daniel, and 700 years before the coming of Christ.

My friends, knowing God is eternal both encourages us to read of all he wrote, but most importantly it excites us to know that eternity will also be ours to enjoy for ever.

The purpose of Gods creation was man. Man was the reason God created the heaven and the earth. Even science itself actually teaches that the Universe demonstrates characteristics that show it was created for the existence of mankind. They refer to the principle as “The anthropic Principle”. All the universe so finely tuned AND so perfectly observable for mankind to discover his glory.

Psalm 19:1–2 

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. ² Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 

Do you know him?

This is he whom we have placed our faith and trust. I was almost 30 years old when I came to fully trust what I eventually came to see as self evident. There is no question God is, but who he is only came to me when I realised who Jesus was and why he came.

I knew I was a sinner. I knew I would naturally give an account to my creator, and I had no hope of doing so without being condemned for my sin.

It made sense to me that a just God would make me pay

But it also made sense to me that a Loving God would make a way. 

When I heard of Jesus Christ, whom God sent into the world, and that all who believed in him would have eternal life and not perish, I finally took hold of him with BOTH hands.

John 3:16 

¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

That time was told to man before Christ came by God who is eternal in the heavens. 

He did come, two thousand years ago and nailed to a Cross for our sin. It is the greatest story ever told.

God, who sits outside of time and is himself timeless, Pivots the timeline of history on Christ, and every date ever written since is based on that timeline, even your own birthdays!

Will you believe the gospel?

Will you also enjoy eternal life?

Today could be the first day of eternity for you if you would believe Jesus died that you might live!

He is coming again soon, but not as a lamb.

Maranatha. 

^[1] Wikipedia Richard Lewantin