This seems to last forever . . .

 

 

We are in a cold snap. This morning it is -23F or -31C with a wind that makes the air feel like -38. What is it about days like this that make summer sunshine feel so far away? Almost to the point of forgetting what it feels like? Winter gives a sense of eternal, even though I know better. While I use the words eternal or forever to describe things that only seem to go on and on and on, the Bible speaks more literally of the eternal.

The OT word actually means “ancient, forever, everlasting.” It can be used to describe days long past, or the future. When applied to God, it could mean “always” for our God is ETERNAL. In that sense, this OT word is about His faithfulness, trustworthiness, and goodness. It also means that He always is.

1 Chronicles 16:34. “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

Psalm 90:2. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Isaiah 60:19. “The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”

There is more, but most interesting is Ecclesiastes 3:11: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” I know that eternity is a reality, yet I cannot quite figure it out. How can there be no beginning or end? How can God always exist? What is life like beyond the grave, outside of or without time?

The NT word for eternal is an adjective that defines the everlasting God and His realm; the blessings of salvation; and everlasting conditions that have neither beginning nor end. In more than half the times this word is used, it is linked with “life” creating more questions. How can I be given something that has no beginning? The NT has the answer.

This word is used to describe God, His glory and Spirit, and that He is immortal and the source of our eternal salvation and eternal life. He also delivers us from eternal judgment.

1 Timothy 6:14–16. “Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

Hebrews 5:9. “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

This eternal life is a gift from God to all who believe in Jesus. It is His life that I am given.

John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

1 John 5:11–12. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1 Timothy 1:16. “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

Receiving this gift through faith puts us in a different realm that has neither beginning nor end. Colossians 1:13–14. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

His kingdom is eternal and the life we are given is eternal. 2 Corinthians 5:1 says I “know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” yet while I know it, full understanding eludes me for I still walk in the realm of time with beginnings and endings. In that dual existence, God tells me to “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” I’m to look forward to that day when my “resurrected body will also be eternal, dwelling forever in heaven” because my eternal Savior has so “richly provided for me an entrance” into His eternal kingdom. I don’t understand it, but I can believe it — because my Eternal God said it!

 

Knowable yet Unsearchable

 

Nearly every morning I do a Sudoku puzzle and a word search. At times, a word seems to be missing. Even after a careful search, it eludes me. Then when I finally see it, it seems so obvious that it’s a wonder that my search took so long.

Searching out God is like that. At least sometimes. The wonder of who He is and what He does eludes me and then, a great wonder of all, He reveals something that I did not discern in my search and that truth is so obvious that it seems a wonder that I didn’t see it before.

But not always. There are things about God that are UNSEARCHABLE, even with the most painstaking study and earnest desire. God is beyond my finite mind and beyond my capacity to grasp even should He spell out everything there is to know about Himself.

Scripture authors knew this. Job, the psalmists, and the NT writers exalted the wonder of God being far greater than our ability to search Him out.

Job 5:8–9 and 36:26. “As for me, I would seek God, and to God would I commit my cause, who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number . . . . Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable.”

The psalmists also knew this and declared it:

Psalm 90:2. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Psalm 102:25–27. “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.”

Psalm 145:3. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”

The prophet Isaiah seems surprised that others had not realized the wonder of who God is and the mystery of His ability to bless His people with what all they needed:

Isaiah 40:28–31. “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

In the NT, Paul also understood that the study of God was rich and deep yet also beyond our ability to grasp. For this, he gave God glory:

Romans 11:33–36. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

But Paul also understood more about God and His plan than the ancients. He knew that God was using His church, the Body of believers, to make His wisdom known to the spiritual realm:

Ephesians 3:8–12. “To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.”

 GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. These verses fill me with awe as they reveal what I know and what I don’t know. If I could fully search out God, that would put me in a higher place than is possible and it would make God a lesser being than He is. For God to be God, He must be more that I can know or grasp or search out. At the same time, He reveals enough of Himself to draw me again and again into His presence that I might know Him in a greater way. What a wonder and a joy to be His child!