THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

Self-Existent, Eternal

In the previous issue we were introduced to the subject of God’s attributes. The knowledge of God and His attributes are important to our worship of God (John 4:24) and to our following or imitating God (Eph. 5:1). Some of God’s attributes are His alone, such as being eternal and omnipotent, while others, such as goodness and love, He shares with His blood-bought children. In this issue we begin our survey of the divine attributes of God, that is, those that are found in Him alone.

Self-Existent

We take for granted that everything we see around us has been created or made by someone_either by God or by His creatures. But what about God Himself? How did He come into existence? Who made Him? Where did He come from? There are deep mysteries here which our finite minds cannot grasp. At one level, the answers to these questions are simple. "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM [or literally, I am I WHO AM]; and He said, Thus shall thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" (Exod. 3:14). The Septuagint (that is, the early translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek) renders the first part of this passage, "I am HE WHO IS." Jesus reiterated this in His profound statement, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). No one created God; He had no origin. He is "the living, unchanging, self-existent one, necessarily independent of all others" (F.W. Grant). All of His acts are from Himself_issuing from His own will. He does not receive direction from one yet higher than Himself.

At one level this is simple and straightforward. Yet the more we ponder this, the more we meditate upon the awesome truth of God’s self-existence, the more we come to realize that He dwells in "light which no man can approach unto" (1 Tim. 6:16). Yet, let us not thus be discouraged from engaging in such meditations, from letting our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM.

We tend to be a very practical-minded people, and thus may ask, "What is the practical usefulness of delving into such intangible concepts as God’s self-existence? What bearing does this have on my life? One answer to these questions has been suggested by A. W. Tozer in The Knowledge of the Holy:"The natural man is a sinner because and only because he challenges God’s selfhood in relation to his own." Sin is the assertion of man’s self-will. It comes from self being on the throne rather than God. It is acting from oneself, independently of all others_including God. Thus, the sinner unwittingly displaces God from that position He alone can rightly occupy as the self-existent One and puts himself in that position. Thus, as we who are believers in Christ and children of God meditate upon the One who is the alone self-existent One, we should be challenged to search our hearts and lives to identify and root out any vestiges of self-will, self-assertion, independence of God_anything that would suggest that we have not yet fully restored God’s stolen throne to Himself.

Eternal

Closely allied with the attribute of self-existence is that of the eternal existence of God. We who are born-again Christians have the precious assurance that we will be with Christ throughout the endless ages of eternity. What a wonderful expectation we have! But God’s eternal existence goes far beyond this future aspect. He not only has no end, He never had a beginning! I cannot grasp this concept with my finite mind, but it is what His Word tells us:"Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God" (Psa. 90:1,2). "The Lord is … the living God, and an everlasting King" (Jer. 10:10). "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:8; also 4:8). The Old Testament name of God that He used to express His relationship to Israel was "Yahweh" or "Jehovah." This word is a contraction of the Hebrew words "was," "is," and "will be," that is, the eternal One. The French Bible captures this thought nicely by rendering the Hebrew name Jehovah as "1’Eternel," the eternal One.

There would seem to be another aspect to God’s eternal existence, which again we have great difficulty comprehending. He is not limited to the longitudinal scale_the past, present, and future_of time that confines us creatures. He inhabits eternity (Isa. 57:15) and thus is outside of that narrow line we call "time." "I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done" (Isa. 46:9,10). God’s foreknowledge, upon which election and predestination are based (Rom. 8:29 and 1 Pet. 1:2), comes not from His ability to see into the future but from His inhabiting eternity and thus being outside of time altogether and able to observe all things at all times concurrently.

To God the passage of time is quite different from what it is to us. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3:8). "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday" (Psa. 90:4). This, again, is because God is outside the confines of time. I would suggest that this truth may help to answer a question sometimes raised concerning Christ’s suffering to "bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28):How could Christ, in a period of only three hours on the cross, suffer the amount of punishment that millions would have had to endure for eternity had He not died as our substitute. One possible answer is that an eternity of suffering was somehow miraculously, uniquely concentrated into a three-hour period of time. Another possible answer is that while three hours passed in man’s reckoning of time, to the reckoning of Christ it may have been as thousands or millions of years in accordance with 2 Pet. 3:8 and Psa. 90:4. In either case, or even if the truth lies in yet another answer, we are forced to fall down at Jesus’ feet and worship and adore Him who has suffered so intensely on our behalf.

"Spotless Man, uniquely fair,
God Eternal from above,
Suffered infinitely there_
Mighty, quenchless, deathless love!"

Eternal existence does not belong to God the Father alone. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). "And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (John 17:5). "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah 5:2). "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father [or The Father of Eternity], The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6). The Holy Spirit, like the Father and the Son, is likewise eternal. He was active in the beginning, in the creation of the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:2). Also, we read in Heb. 9:14, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience. …"

The practical importance to us of God’s eternal existence has already been alluded to. Because His Son has been raised from the dead and lives forever, we have eternal life in Him, and we too will be raised up to enjoy His presence for eternity. What a comfort this is to us as we experience the trials and sorrows of this present life. How wonderful to know that "the eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:27). (To be continued)