“Christ is God.” Eternity is the property of God, but it is ascribed
to Christ: “He is before all things” (Col. i. 17), _i. e._ all created
things; he is therefore no creature, and if no creature, eternal. “All
things were created by him,” both in heaven and in earth, angels, as
well as men, whether they be thrones or dominions (ver. 16). If all
things were his creatures, then he is no creature; if he were, all
things were not created by him, or he must create himself. He hath no
difference of time; for he is “the same yesterday, to‑day, and forever:
”[574] the same, with the name of God, “I Am,” which signifies his
eternity. He is no more to‑day than he was yesterday, nor will be
any other to‑morrow than he is to‑day; and therefore Melchizedec,
whose descent, birth, and death, father and mother, beginning and end
of days, are not upon record, was a type of the existence of Christ
without difference of time; “Having neither beginning of days nor end
of life, but made like the Son of God” (Heb. vii. 3). The suppression
of his birth and death was intended by the Holy Ghost as a type of
the excellency of Christ’s person in regard of his eternity, and
the duration of his charge in regard of his priesthood. As there
was an appearance of an eternity in the suppression of the race of
Melchisedec, so there is a true eternity in the Son of God. How could
the eternity of the Son of God be expressed by any resemblance so
well, as by such a suppression of the beginning and end of this great
person, different from the custom of the Spirit of God in the Old
Testament, who often records the generations and ends of holy men;
and why might not this, which was a kind of a shadow of eternity,
be a representation of the true eternity of Christ, as well as the
restoration of Isaac to his father without death, is said to be
a figure of the resurrection of Christ after a real death?[575]
Melchisedec is only mentioned once (without any record of his
extraction) in his appearance to Abraham after his victory, as if
he came from heaven only for that action, and instantly disappeared
again, as if he had been an eternal person. And Christ himself hints
his own eternity: “I came forth from the Father, and am come into
{a294} the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father” (John
xvi. 28). He goes to the Father as he came from the Father; he goes
to the Father “for everlasting,” so he came from the Father “from
everlasting;” there is the same duration in coming forth from the
Father, as in returning to the Father. But more plainly: he speaks
of a glory that he “had with the Father before the world was” (John
xvii. 5), when there was no creature in being. This is an actual glory,
and not only in decree; for a decreed glory believers had, and why
may not every one of them say the same words, “Father, glorify me
with that glory which I had with thee before the world was,” if it
were only a glory in decree? Nay, it may be said of every man, he
was before the world was, because he was so in decree. Christ speaks
of something peculiar to him, a glory in actual possession before
the world was: “Glorify me, embrace, honor me as thy Son, whereas I
have now been, in the eyes of the world, handled disgracefully as a
servant.” If it were only in decree, why is not the like expression
used of others in Scripture as well as of Christ? Why did he not use
the same words for his disciples that were then with him, who had a
glory in decree? His eternity is also mentioned in the Old Testament:
“The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works
of old” (Prov. viii. 22). If he were the work of God, he existed
before himself, if he existed before all the works of God. It is so
not properly meant of the essential wisdom of God, since the discourse
runs in the name of a person; and several passages there are which
belong not so much to the essential wisdom of God, as ver. 13: “The
evil way and the froward mouth do I hate,” which belongs rather to the
holiness of God, than to the essential wisdom of God; besides, it is
distinguished from Jehovah, as possessed by him, “and rejoicing before
him.” Yet plainer: “Out of thee,” _i. e._ Bethlehem, “shall he come
forth to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting,” מימי עולם “from the ways of eternity” (Mic. v. 2).
There are two goings forth of Christ described, one from Bethlehem, in
the days of his incarnation, and another from eternity. The Holy Ghost
adds, after his prediction of his incarnation, his going out from
everlasting, that none should doubt of his deity. If this going out
from everlasting were only in the purpose of God, it might be said
of David, and of every creature; and in Isa. ix. 6 he is particularly
called the “everlasting,” or “eternal Father;” not the Father in the
Trinity, but a Father to us; yet “eternal,” the “Father of eternity.”
As he is the “mighty God,” so he is “the everlasting Father.” Can
such a title be ascribed to any whose being depends upon the will
of another, and may be dashed out at the pleasure of a superior? As
the eternity of God is the ground of all religion, so the eternity
of Christ is the ground of the Christian religion. Could our sins be
perfectly expiated had he not an eternal divinity to answer for the
offences committed against an eternal God? Temporary sufferings had
been of little validity, without an infiniteness and eternity in his
person to add weight to his passion.
2. If God be eternal, he knows all things as present. All things are
present to him in his eternity; for this is the notion of eternity,
{a295} to be without succession.[576] If eternity be one indivisible
point, and is not diffused into preceding and succeeding parts, then
that which is known in it or by it is perceived without any succession,
for knowledge is as the substance of the person knowing; if that hath
various actions and distinct from itself, then it understands things
in differences of time as time presents them to view. But, since
God’s being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither does
his knowledge; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends
infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his
eternity in one simple knowledge, as if they were now acted before him:
“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world;”
ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος, _à seculo_, “from eternity” (Acts xv. 18). God’s knowledge
is co‑eternal with him; if he knows that in time which he did not not
know from eternity, he would not be eternally perfect, since knowledge
is the perfection of an intelligent nature.
3. How bold and foolish is it for a mortal creature to censure the
counsels and actions of an eternal God, or be too curious in his
inquisitions! It is by the consideration of the unsearchable number
of the years of God that Elihu checks too bold inquiries: “who hath
enjoined him his way, or who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?
Behold, God is great, and we know him not; neither can the number of
his years be searched out.”[577] Eternity sets God above our inquiries
and censures. Infants of a day old are not able to understand the
acts of wise and gray heads: shall we, that are of so short a being
and understanding as yesterday, presume to measure the motions
of eternity by our scanty intellects? We that cannot foresee an
unexpected accident which falls in to blast a well‑laid design, and
run a ship many leagues back from the intended harbor; we cannot
understand the reason of things we see done in time, the motions of
the sea, the generation of rain, the nature of light, the sympathies
and antipathies of the creatures; and shall we dare to censure
the actions of an eternal God, so infinitely beyond our reach? The
counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a
silly worm, that hath breathed but a few minutes in the world. Since
eternity cannot be comprehended in time, it is not to be judged by
a creature of time: “Let us remember to magnify his works which we
behold,” because he is eternal, which is the exhortation of Elihu,
backed by this doctrine of God’s eternity (Job xxxvi. 24), and not
accuse any work of him who is the “Ancient of Days,” or presume to
direct him of whose eternity we come infinitely short. Whenever,
therefore, any unworthy notion of the counsels and works of God is
suggested to us by Satan, or our own corrupt hearts, let us look
backward to God’s eternal and our own short duration, and silence
ourselves with the same question wherewith God put a stop to the
reasoning of Job――“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the
earth?” (Job xxxviii. 4), and reprove ourselves for our curiosity,
since we are of so short a standing, and were nothing when the eternal
God laid the first stone of the world.
4. What a folly and boldness is there in sin, since an eternal God
{a296} is offended thereby! All sin is aggravated by God’s eternity.
The blackness of the heathen idolatry was in changing the glory of
the incorruptible God (Rom. i. 23); erecting resemblances of him
contrary to his immortal nature; as if the eternal God, whose life is
as unlimited as eternity, were like those creatures whose beings are
measured by the short ell of time, which are of a corruptible nature,
and daily passing on to corruption; they could not really deprive God
of his glory and immortality, but they did in estimation. There is in
the nature of every sin a tendency to reduce God to a not being. He
that thinks unworthily of God, or acts unworthily towards him, doth
(as much as in him lies) sully and destroy these two perfections of
his, immutability and eternity. It is a carriage, as if he were as
contemptible as a creature that were but of yesterday, and shall not
remain in being to‑morrow. He that would put an end to God’s glory
by darkening it, would put an end to God’s life by destroying it. He
that should love a beast with as great an affection as he loves a man,
contemns a rational nature; and he that loves a perishing thing with
the same affection he should love an everlasting God, contemns his
eternity; he debaseth the duration of God below that of the world. The
low valuation of God speaks him in his esteem no better than withering
grass, or a gourd, which lasts for a night; and the creature which
possesses his affection, to be a good that lasts forever. How foolish,
then, is every sin that tends to destroy a being that cannot destroy
or desert himself; a Being, without whose eternity the sinner himself
could not have had the capacity of a being to affront him! How base is
that which would not let the works of God remain in their established
posture! How much more base is not enduring the fountain and glory of
all beings, that would not only put an end to the beauty of the world,
but the eternity of God!
5. How dreadful is it to lie under the stroke of an eternal God!
His eternity is as great a terror to him that hates him, as it is
a comfort to him that loves him; because he is the “living God,
an everlasting king, the nations shall not be able to abide his
indignation” (Jer. x. 10). Though God be least in their thoughts, and
is made light of in the world, yet the thoughts of God’s eternity,
when he comes to judge the world, shall make the slighters of him
tremble. That the Judge and punisher lives forever, is the greatest
grievance to a soul in misery, and adds an inconceivable weight to it,
above what the infiniteness of God’s executive power could do without
that duration. His eternity makes the punishment more dreadful than
his power; his power makes it sharp, but his eternity renders it
perpetual; ever to endure, is the sting at the end of every lash.
And how sad is it to think that God lays his eternity to pawn for the
punishment of obstinate sinners, and engageth it by an oath, that he
will “whet his glittering sword,” that his “hand shall take hold of
judgment,” that he will “render vengeance to his enemies, and a reward
to them that hate him;” a reward proportioned to the greatness of
their offences, and the glory of an eternal God! “I lift up my hand to
heaven, and say, I live forever;” (Deut. xxxii. 40, 41): _i. e._, as
surely as I live forever, I will whet my glittering sword. {a297} As
none can convey good with a perpetuity, so none can convey evil with
such a lastingness as God. It is a great loss to lose a ship richly
fraught in the bottom of the sea, never to be cast upon the shore;
but how much greater is it to lose eternally a sovereign God, which
we were capable of eternally enjoying, and undergo an evil as durable
as that God we slighted, and were in a possibility of avoiding! The
miseries of men after this life are not eased, but sharpened, by the
life and eternity of God.
_Use 2._ Of comfort. What foundation of comfort can we have in any
of God’s attributes, were it not for his infiniteness and eternity,
though he be “merciful, good, wise, faithful?” What support could
there be, if they were perfections belonging to a corruptible God?
What hopes of a resurrection to happiness can we have, or of the
duration of it, if that God that promised it were not immortal to
continue it, as well as powerful to effect it? His power were not
Almighty, if his duration were not eternal.
1. If God be eternal, his covenant will be so. It is founded upon
the eternity of God; the oath whereby he confirms it, is by his
life. Since there is none greater than himself, he swears by himself
(Heb. vi. 13), or by his own life, which he engageth together with his
eternity for the full performance; so that if he lives forever, the
covenant shall not be disannulled; it is an “immutable counsel” (ver.
16, 17). The immutability of his counsel follows the immutability of
his nature. Immutability and eternity go hand in hand together. The
promise of eternal life is as ancient as God himself in regard of the
purpose of the promise, or in regard of the promise made to Christ
for us. “Eternal life which God promised before the world began.”
(Tit. i. 2): As it hath an ante‑eternity, so it hath a post‑eternity;
therefore the gospel, which is the new covenant published, is termed
the “everlasting gospel” (Rev. xiv. 6), which can no more be altered
and perish, than God can change and vanish into nothing; he can as
little morally deny his truth, as he can naturally desert his life.
The covenant is there represented in a green color, to note its
perpetual verdure; the rainbow, the emblem of the covenant “about the
throne, was like to an emerald” (Rev. iv. 3), a stone of a green color,
whereas the natural rainbow hath many colors; this but one, to signify
its eternity.
2. If God be eternal, he being our God in covenant, is an eternal
good and possession. “This God is our God forever and ever” (Ps.
xlviii. 14): “He is a dwelling‑place in all generations.” We shall
traverse the world awhile, and then arrive at the blessings Jacob
wished for Joseph, “the blessings of the everlasting hills” (Gen.
xlix. 26). If an estate of a thousand pound per annum render a man’s
life comfortable for a short term, how much more may the soul be
swallowed up with joy in the enjoyment of the Creator, whose years
never fail, who lives forever to be enjoyed, and can keep us in life
forever to enjoy him! Death, indeed, will seize upon us by God’s
irreversible order, but the immortal Creator will make him disgorge
his morsel, and land us in a glorious immortality; our souls at their
dissolution, and our bodies at the resurrection, after which they
shall remain forever, and employ the extent of that boundless {a298}
eternity, in the fruition of the sovereign and eternal God; for it
is impossible that the believer, who is united to the immortal God
that is from everlasting to everlasting, can ever perish; for being
in conjunction with him who is an ever‑flowing fountain of life, he
cannot suffer him to remain in the jaws of death. While God is eternal,
and always the same, it is not possible that those that partake of his
spiritual life, should not also partake of his eternal. It is from the
consideration of the endlessness of the years of God that the church
comforts herself that “her children shall continue, and their seed
be established forever” (Ps. cii. 27, 28). And from the eternity
of God Habakkuk (chap. i. 12) concludes the eternity of believers,
“Art not thou from everlasting, O Lord, my God, my Holy One? we shall
not die, O Lord.” After they are retired from this world, they shall
live forever with God, without any change by the multitude of those
imaginable years and ages that shall run forever. It is that God that
hath neither beginning nor end, that is our God; who hath not only
immortality in himself, but immortality to give out to others. As
he hath “abundance of spirit” to quicken them (Mal. ii. 15), so he
hath abundance of immortality to continue them. It is only in the
consideration of this a man can with wisdom say, “Soul, take thy ease;
thou hast goods laid up for many years” (Luke xii. 19, 20): to say it
of any other possession is the greatest folly in the judgment of our
Saviour. “Mortality shall be swallowed up of immortality;” “rivers
of pleasure” shall be “for evermore.” Death is a word never spoken
there by any; never heard by any in that possession of eternity; it
is forever put out as one of Christ’s conquered enemies. The happiness
depends upon the presence of God, with whom believers shall be forever
present. Happiness cannot perish as long as God lives; he is the first
and the last; the first of all delights, nothing before him; the last
of all pleasures, nothing beyond him; a paradise of delights in every
point, without a flaming sword.
3. The enjoyment of God will be as fresh and glorious after many ages,
as it was at first. God is eternal, and eternity knows no change;
there will then be the fullest possession without any decay in the
object enjoyed. There can be nothing past, nothing future; time
neither adds to it, nor detracts from it; that infinite fulness of
perfection which flourisheth in him now, will flourish eternally,
without any discoloring of it in the least, by those innumerable ages
that shall run to eternity, much less any despoiling him of them:
“He is the same in his endless duration” (Ps. cii. 27). As God is,
so will the eternity of him be, without succession, without division;
the fulness of joy will be always present; without past to be thought
of with regret for being gone; without future to be expected with
tormenting desires. When we enjoy God, we enjoy him in his eternity
without any flux; an entire possession of all together, without the
passing away of pleasures that may be wished to return, or expectation
of future joys which might be desired to hasten. Time is fluid, but
eternity is stable; and after many ages, the joys will be as savory
and satisfying as if they had been but that moment first tasted by
our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise upon you,
it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions {a299} of
years are expired, as numerous as the sands on the sea‑shore, the sun,
in the light of whose countenance you shall live, shall be as bright
as at the first appearance; he will be so far from ceasing to flow,
that he will flow as strong, as full, as at the first communication
of himself in glory to the creature. God, therefore, as sitting upon
his throne of grace, and acting according to his covenant, is like
a jasper‑stone, which is of a green color, a color always delightful
(Rev. iv. 3); because God is always vigorous and flourishing; a pure
act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the
creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most
capacious desire; forming your interest, pleasure, and satisfaction;
with an infinite variety, without any change or succession; he will
have variety to increase delights, and eternity to perpetuate them;
this will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite and eternal God:
he is not a cistern, but a fountain, wherein water is always living,
and never putrefies.
4. If God be eternal, here is a strong ground of comfort against all
the distresses of the church, and the threats of the church’s enemies.
God’s abiding forever is the plea Jeremy makes for his return to
his forsaken church: “Thou, O Lord, remainest forever; thy throne
from generation to generation” (Lam. v. 19, 20). The church is weak;
created things are easily cut off; what prop is there, but that God
that lives forever? What, though Jerusalem lost its bulwarks, the
temple were defaced, the land wasted; yet the God of Jerusalem sits
upon an eternal throne, and from everlasting to everlasting there is
no diminution of his power. The prophet intimates in this complaint,
that it is not agreeable to God’s eternity to forget his people, to
whom he hath from eternity borne good‑will. In the greatest confusions,
the church’s eyes are to be fixed upon the eternity of God’s throne,
where he sits as governor of the world. No creature can take any
comfort in this perfection, but the church; other creatures depend
upon God, but the church is united to him. The first discovery of
the name “I am,” which signifies the divine eternity, as well as
immutability, was for the comfort of the “oppressed Israelites in
Egypt” (Exod. iii. 14, 15): it was then published from the secret
place of the Almighty, as the only strong cordial to refresh them: it
hath not yet, it shall not ever lose its virtue in any of the miseries
that have, or shall successively befall the church. It is a comfort as
durable as the God whose name it is; he is still “I Am;” and the same
to the church, as he was then to his Israel. His spiritual Israel have
a greater right to the glories of it, than the carnal Israel could
have. No oppression can be greater than theirs; what was a comfort
suited to that distress, hath the same suitableness to every other
oppression. It was not a temporary name, but a name forever; his
“memorial to all generations” (ver. 15), and reacheth to the church of
the Gentiles with whom he treats as the God of Abraham; ratifying that
covenant by the Messiah, which he made with Abraham, the father of the
faithful. The church’s enemies are not to be feared; they may spring
as the grass, but soon after do wither by their own inward principles
of decay, or are cut down by the hand of God (Ps. xcii. 7‒9). They
may be instruments of the {a300} anger of God, but “they shall be
scattered as the workers of iniquity by the hand of the Lord, that
is high for evermore” (ver. 8), and is engaged by his promise, to
preserve a church in the world. They may threaten, but their breath
may vanish as soon as their threatenings are pronounced; for they
carry their breath in no surer a place than their own nostrils, upon
which the eternal God can put his hand, and sink them with all their
rage. Do the prophets and instructors of the church “live forever”
(Zech. i. 5)? No: shall, then, the adversaries and disturbers of
the church live forever? They shall vanish as a shadow; their being
depends upon the eternal God of the faithful, and the everlasting
Judge of the wicked. He that inhabits eternity is above them that
inhabit mortality; and must, whether they will or no, “say to
corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother,
and my sister” (Job xvii. 14.) When they will act with a confidence,
as if they were living gods, he will not be mated; but evidence
himself to be a living God above them. Why, then, should mortal
men be feared in their frowns, when an immortal God hath promised
protection in his word, and lives forever to perform it?