Theological Term of the Week

eternality
That perfection of God whereby he transcends “all temporal limits and all successions of moments”;1 the infinity of God in relation to time; also called God’s eternity.

• From scripture:
  

  Lord, you have been our dwelling place
  in all generations.
  Before the mountains were brought forth,
  or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
  from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2 ESV)
  

  But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Timothy 3:8 ESV)

  “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8 ESV)

• From The London Baptist Confession 1689, Chapter 2:

  The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself; … who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite….

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  We generally think of God’s eternity … as duration infinitely prolonged both backwards and forwards. But this is only a popular and symbolical way of representing that which in reality transcends time and differs from it essentially. Eternity in the strict sense of the word is ascribed to that which transcends all temporal limitations. That it applies to God in that sense is at least intimated in II Peter 3:8. … Our existence is marked off by days and weeks and months and years; not so the existence of God. Our life is divided into a past, present and future, but there is no such division in the life of God. He is the eternal “I am.”

Learn more:

1. Rev. D. H. Kuiper: The Eternity of God
2. Notes on the Attributes of God: Eternal
3. R. L. Dabney: God’s Eternity
4. A. W. Tozer: The Eternity of God
5. S. Lewis Johnson: Attributes of God: How Old Is God?, or the Eternity of God (mp3)
6. From my attributes of God posts: God’s Eternality

Related terms:

• aseity
• immutability
• infinity

Filed Under God’s Nature and His Work.

1 Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof

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