The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation

Episode 117 - The Everlasting God: Why Our Forever Home Isn't a Building

• Paul

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What does it really mean when we say God doesn't change? Does it mean the Trinity exists completely outside of time, or is something else at work?

This meditation takes us deep into how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit experience time—not as something to escape, but as something they experience in a profoundly different way than we do. While we are rushed, limited, and eventually worn down by time's passage, Scripture reveals a God who experiences both vast stretches of time as brief moments and single moments with infinite depth.

The contrast couldn't be more striking. As Psalm 90 reminds us, we might live seventy or eighty years before we "fly away," while God remains "from everlasting to everlasting." We are like grass that withers; God's Word endures forever. We're carried along by time like straw in a stream; God stands as the unchanging rock at both the beginning and end of all things.

Many philosophers have claimed that God must exist outside of time completely to remain unchanging, assuming anything experiencing time must inevitably decay or diminish. But this assumption comes from our fallen experience, not biblical revelation. Even creation before the fall wasn't subject to decay, and Scripture promises a new creation that will endure forever without diminishment.

The gospel doesn't invite us to escape time into timelessness, but to participate in God's eternal life—an everlasting existence without decay, loss, or limitation. Rather than making our temporary homes in this world our "forever homes," we're called to make the everlasting God our dwelling place.

How might your perspective change if you began seeing time through the Trinity's eyes rather than through the lens of your own limitations? Join us as we explore the difference between being truly timeless and being timelessly true.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Speaker 1:

Okay, welcome to the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. And we're right in the heart of a series looking at the way in which the Father, son and Holy Spirit are immutable, confess it. And then how do some Christians like to think about that with more speculative philosophy, and how do we analyze that? So we've got into this section where we're looking at, we've looked at what the Bible seems to say when it talks about that God doesn't change. We've looked at what the creeds mean by that. And now we're looking at these more speculative ideas that are often connected with the idea of immutability, and these three claims is the first God is timeless, therefore cannot change. Secondly, god is simple and therefore cannot change. And third, god is a quote perfect being and therefore cannot change. So we're going to explore these and we're going to begin, then, with the first of these. The first claim is that the Father, son and Spirit exist outside of time and therefore have no change of any kind. Now, this is not the claim that the Father, son and Spirit experience time or experience chronology in a radically different way to us. As far as I can see, every Christian of every kind would say, yeah, the Father, son and Spirit definitely experience time and chronology and history in a radically different way to us. So, for example, in Psalm 90, verse 4, and 2 Peter 3, verse 8, we get the same truth and it said well, we'll use the Psalm 90, verse 4, a thousand years in your sight are like a day that's just gone by, or like a watch in the night. Peter 2, peter 3.8, he says it Don't forget this one thing, dear friends With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. So he adds this extra bit which I love, that a day, because Moses in Psalm 90 emphasizes only that a thousand years is like a day. So the idea that and we can experience something like that where time seems to go faster as we get older, and then this idea that if God is from everlasting to everlasting, with this infinitely long timescale, that a thousand years in the Lord's sight it's just like a day or just like a watch in the night. So that's the idea there in Psalm 90, verse 4. But Peter has this extra thing which I particularly love with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. So that is that wonderful idea that the Trinity can experience a single day so slowly, day so slowly, so intricately, with such intricate detail, that a single day has the feeling of a thousand years. So I love that extra bit that peter brings in the that, uh, for us a day can just disappear and we're like, oh, what was that a day, I don't know what I did with it, whereas the trinity, um, doesn't. Uh, that like.

Speaker 1:

Time can be almost meaningless for us at times, and there are, you know when. If our days are numbered and if the lord says, what did you do with day 7,913? And I'm like, I don't know, I just didn't take my days that seriously, that each day was carefully and intricately used and thought about and experienced. But Peter's saying, no, the Trinity is not like that, it's not like that time, the experience of a day is like can be experienced with this unbelievable intensity and and intricacy, so that it feels like a thousand years might do to us. So a day with, in other words, I like that because it's saying like, when we're involved in the life of the Trinity the Father, son and Spirit like we might say well, you know, what can you do with a day Like a day, there's only, there's not much you can do with a day, but with this living God, to whom nothing is impossible, a day is like potentially anything. There's impossible things, immense things could be done in a single day, like the Psalm 90, verse 4 point is that the Father, son and Spirit may experience a long sweep of a thousand years, as if it was just one quick day. That for us, a thousand years, is like oh, that's an impossibly long time, but from this other perspective, or from the everlasting God, so that a thousand years can seem a small amount of time.

Speaker 1:

And in a way Peter also wants to draw attention to that, because he's saying that if a person says, well, where is this second coming of Jesus, that Jesus and the prophets and apostles speak as if it's very soon, it's almost upon us, it's like there's no time at all before the world ends and we're into the new creation. And yet we're like, but it's been ages, it's been like 2000 years. And then Peter's sort of giving us a bit of realism to say, yeah, you think that's a very, very long time, but to this living God Father, son and Spirit that's just that's no time at all and that we actually he's being patient in order to win more and more people to be part of that new creation future. So let's think of some other examples of what this how the Father, son and Spirit experience time, or history, or chronology, or however. It's difficult to get the right vocabulary sometimes in Revelation, chapter 1, verse 8, but it's also in Revelation 21, verse 6, and Revelation 22, 13, where he says basically Jesus the eternal son declares I am the alpha and the and who is to come? The Almighty. So there there is that sense of whether it's the past or the present or the future. There is this kind of absolute constancy of Jesus the eternal son and we saw that when we thought about Hebrews 13, 8, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. But that is not just there. In Revelation that comes up, that's a repeated wonder of the living God from throughout the Old Testament Also Testament. Also Let me give a couple of examples of that in Isaiah 44, verse 6.

Speaker 1:

This is what the Lord says Israel's King and Redeemer the Lord Almighty. I am the first and I am the last. There's that very much the idea that whether we think about the beginning of everything or the end of everything, he is the only reality. He's the beginning and the end of everything, or Isaiah 48, 12. Listen to me, jacob Israel, whom I have called I am he, I'm the first and I'm the last. Listen.

Speaker 1:

So all Christians happily rejoice in the glory that the Father, son and Spirit are not carried along by history in the same way that we are and that they do not experience history in the same way that we are and we are if we think of, uh, sometimes there's an analogy that time is like a stream or a river, and for us we might think of ourselves as like a bit of straw, that's, that's sort of it getting smashed along and carried downstream without any um agency about it and we might feel out of control in this flow of history and the flow of our lives. And yet we've seen how the Bible constantly asserts how he is like a rock and that there's something solid about him and that he is at the beginning and the end and he's not like just carried along by history in the same way that we are. And Psalm 90, we've thought about in previous meditations, and Isaiah 40. They make clear that I think Psalm 40, isaiah 40. So let's just have a look at Isaiah 40, they make clear that I think Psalm 40, isaiah 40, so let's just have a look at Isaiah 40 and Psalm 90, because there the contrast is that we have very little time, whereas the living God has an endless amount of time. So time is something that is running out for us. We only have a small quantity of time. So in that sense we are well, we're not quite timeless, but we are time limited. It's not that we don't have any time at all, but we only have a little bit of it, whereas he, this father, son and spirit, are time, full, time full.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's have a listen Isaiah 40, 6 to 8. All human beings are like grass and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely, the people are grass, the grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever, lasts forever. The word of our God lasts forever. You see that contrast then. We don't last very long, but the word of our God endures forever, lasts forever.

Speaker 1:

So that contrast between the endurance of the word of God and the advice in Isaiah 40 really is to say, without times running out for us, the time doesn't run out for the Word of God. The Word of God endures at all times, and so we must join ourselves to him so that we will also endure and have the eternal life that he has. This life of the ages, eternal life in the Bible is I own, life of the ages, ages of life, and he has that, so we should join ourselves to him. The same kind of is in Psalm 90, verses 1 to 12. Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. So there again, that idea is the endurance of the Lord. We come and go, as he's going to spell out. We come and go, but this Lord God, let's say it's God, the Son particularly in mind here, but the Father, son and Spirit together. But the idea there is that the Lord Jesus has been our dwelling place throughout all generations. He endures, he's always there, always the same, always available.

Speaker 1:

And then it goes on Psalm 90, before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. So there's this idea that this God has always lasted. Looking backwards there's like everlasting. Looking backwards or looking forwards. Everlasting, this total, infinite endurance. From looking backwards in time or looking forwards in time, we can be confident. We know he's always been there, looking back into the past, and then we can look forward into the future and say, yes, he will, he will always be there.

Speaker 1:

And then psalm 90 goes on all our days pass away under your wrath. We finish our years again that idea that our time runs out. His time doesn't run out. We finish our years with a moan. Our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures. Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away. Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So these verses are wonderful resources, showing us why we need to trust in the Lord Jesus. We're here today and gone tomorrow, but he endures forever. We're invited to make the living God our dwelling place, rather than the fleeting and failing homes that these that this passing age has to offer.

Speaker 1:

And I, just on that, as I'm going through um, there's so many like I don't know whether they're as common now as they used to be that well, there were loads and loads of tv programs that were all to do with um people building their own homes or their dream homes, or taking a home and renovating it to be this dream home, and the vocabulary, particularly at the beginning and the end of these things, it was the idea that this is our forever home. They would even talk like that. We want this to be our forever home and this is the home that will give us the life that you know lasts, or the life that we need, and a home in this passing life that can last forever or that can give us that level of permanence and security. I think nowadays so few of people, say, under 40, will ever own their own home, certainly in the UK that that kind of program is perhaps much less popular than it once was.

Speaker 1:

But the scripture is saying don't do that. Don't attempt to make a house that's decaying and falling down as soon as you've made it. Don't make that your dwelling place. Rather, the lord jesus, this living god, father, son and spirit through jesus, that is your dwelling place, that it always endures. And in these scriptures, then, the father, son and spirit are endlessly enduring, from everlasting to everlasting. There's no time limit on the life of the Trinity. Neither the father, son or spirit grow old. They do not decay, they do not age, and that's very important because we, I think, quite often when I've discussed this with philosophers and I've discussed this with philosophers For them, they get very upset that the idea that the living God endures through time, because they're saying time God cannot be involved in time because everything that is involved in time, or everything that has history or whatever, decays, ages, deteriorates, or it advances and evolves or whatever, but either way, there's this sense in which it isn't the same thing, it's decay.

Speaker 1:

Typically, there's this feeling that time equals decay, time equals aging, time equals the loss of ability. As time goes on, our memory fails, our energy decreases and they're saying you can't have God living in time or however, whatever vocabulary is used, or you cannot have the Lord God enduring like existing in any kind of time or history or chronology, because that would inevitably, in the minds of a lot of philosophers, that inevitably means a diminishment, an aging process, a decaying process or something. But you know, obviously that isn't the case, like even the I mean I, I Even if we just think about the creation as it was before the fall, is it not the case that before the fall, even the heavens and the earth were not subject to vanity and decay? It was possible even to have created life that's going on through time and history that doesn't decay or age or diminish, and we are presumably expecting that kind of existence in the resurrection, that there'll be a new creation that will not decay or diminish or fade away. Uh, so that after like a couple of million years, in the new creation everything will be worn out, decayed, wrecked, non-functioning and everything. Of course that's not true. So we know, in a biblical worldview, even creaturely things, even the heavens and the earth, could exist forever and ever and ever without being, without diminishing, due to decay or age or anything like that. Now, if we know that can happen, even for the created universe can exist forever and ever without diminishment, diminishment then it's obvious. Obviously the father, son and spirit have always lived and always will live without any of the negative effects of aging or decay that are at the core of our mortal life in this passing age. So for us, we and I sympathize if a person says I can't conceive how the father, son and spirit could have a kind of time or a kind of chronology or a kind of history without that involving decay or aging. So I kind of sympathize with that because our imagination is so tied up with decay and aging. In relation to the passage of time. But we have to be able to open our minds up to a logic that is beyond just our little experience and say no.

Speaker 1:

The bible repeatedly insists that the Lord God endlessly endures, without any negative effects of any kind. Experiencing time for us, fallen, sinful, dying creatures, and we only have a tiny bit of time. It all seems essentially connected to decay and also to being rushed or stressed because we again, because we are not time full but we're like, not quite timeless, as I've said, but we are time limited, like only have a little bit of time. So we're rushed or stressed, time running out. We talk about that all the time running out of time because we have so little of it. So there's a stress and we can't fit everything in and we've not planned correctly and we sometimes say time is against me or time's against us. We can't do what we need to do. All of that kind of language. We need to do all of that kind of language. So we have surrounded ourselves with a vocabulary about time and chronology and history and endurance that is completely shaped by our own mortality, our lack of time.

Speaker 1:

And so, when the Bible is inviting us to consider that the Father, son and Spirit have this radically different experience of time, chronology, history, biography, however we wish to, what a language we want to use. I can understand that. Like for a lot of people, it's too hard to imagine such a thing because we are so bound up with the idea that time is a negative thing and it'd be better not to have any. It'd be better to kind of escape the very idea of past, present or future, because having any kind of enduring existence must be negative. But it is important to remember.

Speaker 1:

The gospel is inviting us into the ever enduring, eternal life of God, so that we would never truly die, and that although right now time works against our outward flesh, yet, as 2 Corinthians 4 says, inwardly we're being renewed every day. So already there should be this experience that our inner life is already defying the decay of our outer life and one day there will be a day of resurrection when even our outward bodies and the entire outward environment will also enjoy everlasting endurance, without any sorrow, any loss, any decay, any death, just this kind of overflowing life that endures forever and ever and ever, and that effectively we will live the eternal life, the age of the Ione, ioneon, the life, the eternal life that the Father, son and Spirit have always enjoyed, always lived, and that the whole creation and we as his bride, the bride of God, the Son, will all be drawn into that kind of life. We'll all be drawn into that kind of life. So what we've been doing in this episode, in a way, is simply trying to see what is not being said, because the original claim at the beginning is the philosophical claim is God is timeless and therefore cannot change.

Speaker 1:

And what we've done in this episode is, say, the philosophical idea that God is timeless is not the claim that the Father, son and Spirit experience time or chronology or history in a radically different way to us, time or chronology or history in a radically different way to us.

Speaker 1:

So what we've done in this episode is we have explored how the Bible describes the radically different way that the Father, son and Spirit experience or are involved or connected with time, history, chronology, anything like that, and just in that straightforward way that the negative aspects of time don't apply and so on. But what we need to do next is to examine what those that believe that God is timeless, what for what? Those that believe that God is timeless, what is it that they are claiming. That is quite different to that, quite different to what we expressed in this episode. So the claim that God is timeless is Well, let's not get into it now. We'll save that for our next episode and then we'll find out what it is that people are claiming if they think that God is not time full, but time less.