Have you ever tried to explain the word “eternity” to a child? Perhaps the word has cropped up in a Bible reading in family worship. Or, perhaps you were lining up in a queue and exclaimed with barely concealed impatience, “this will take from now to eternity.” Then comes the question, “But what is eternity?”
We might be tempted to respond that eternity is waiting in a queue for something that takes ages to happen. Or it might be sitting in the back seat of a car during a long road trip. Were we to do that, we would seriously misrepresent a very important biblical word. We would also dishonour God, for he is “the eternal God.”
Eternity is an attribute of God which we find hard to understand and explain because it describes him as infinite. By contrast we are finite and everything around us is finite. On a road trip to Sydney, we may clock up many kilometres and it may last for many hours, but it is finite. It is not eternal.
Moreover, when the Bible describes God as eternal it is not simply putting him onto a longer timeline than anything else that we have we have experienced. Instead, it recognises that he is outside and beyond any timeline we have ever experienced. When Isaiah 57:15 tells us that God inhabits eternity, he does not mean that God inhabits a distant solar system, or even every solar system, but that God inhabits a dimension we have never experienced.
Such distinctions may seem to be too abstract and difficult to explain to our children, or even to ourselves. We might ask why we would want to discuss them anywhere outside a theology class. Some who have sat in a theology class may remember how some of God’s qualities, eternity being one of them, are described as “incommunicable.” This term which may make them seem remote and inaccessible. Yet, there are three good reasons why we need to think about eternity and what it tells us about God.
The first reason is that the Bible uses the word “eternity” (and other words which describe the immensity of God) to encourage God’s people. In Deuteronomy 33:26-29 Moses concludes his blessing of the twelve tribes of Israel as they were about to enter the uncertainties of the land of Canaan. In verse 26 Moses describes the uniqueness of Israel’s God, and then in verse 27 explains the wonderful comfort which flows from this truth. “The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
In Isaiah 57:17, the prophet speaks to a nation which will go into exile and encourages them to remember that God will hear them when they repent and cry out to him for mercy. “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” It would be many years before they humbled themselves before God, but when they do, they are to remember that their God inhabits eternity.
This brings us to the second reason why we need to think about eternity and what it tells us about God. God’s eternity and his other “incommunicable” attributes help us grasp the dimensions of those attributes which we find easier to understand and relate to, such as God’s goodness, love, kindness and wisdom. Not only is God good, he is eternally good. Not only does God love his people, his lovingkindness lasts forever. Not only is God wise, there will never be a situation when he does not know what is best. When God saves his people, he gives them eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3).
There is a third reason why we need to consider what it means for God to be eternal and we find it in 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.” This does not mean that God has put something infinitely big into a finite space. It does mean that God, who made us in his image, has placed in our hearts a hunger for something infinitely bigger than ourselves and the world around us. That is one reason why our children ask questions which we struggle to answer.
Nothing illustrates this fact of human nature better than the curiosity aroused by the word “eternity.” It captured the imagination of the Sydneysider Arthur Stace at a time when he was out of work and living on the street. He went for a free lunch at St Barnabas’ Church and heard an evangelist speak on the words of Isaiah 57:15, “For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity …”
Stace was convicted of his sin and soundly converted to Christ. But that text never left him. “Eternity went ringing through my brain and suddenly I began crying and felt a powerful call from the Lord to write Eternity.” For the next thirty-five years he wrote the word Eternity in a distinctive copper-plate type on pavements all over Sydney. That was his way of telling others about the majesty of God.
When the city of Sydney wanted to celebrate the beginning of the new millennium on 31st December 1999 it lit up the word “Eternity” with fireworks on the Harbour Bridge. This was more than just a nod to one of its more colourful citizens, or a way of noting the passage of time. It was a testimony, perhaps subconscious, to the captivating allure of God’s eternity. Theologians may refer to this as one of God’s incommunicable attributes, but Paul tells us in Romans 1:20 that even secular people can clearly see the invisible attributes of God – including his eternity.
May those of us whose hearts and minds have been captivated by the immensity of our great God learn how to speak about eternity, not only to our children, but also to each other, and to a world that, in spite of itself, cannot avoid asking itself the big questions about God.