LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. (Psalm 90:1)
As part of the SEEP program for FSM, I've been watching recordings of a class on the attributes of God taught by Stuart Greaves. The teaching is excellent (of course, it's Stuart!), and the content is amazing. It is significantly enlarging my perception of Who I'm talking to when I sit in the prayer room and say "God, give us Your Spirit of wisdom and revelation" over and over again. I keep getting hit with moments where I think "We have NO IDEA!" If we really believed God was who He says He is... well, I think almost everything about the American Church would be different.
One of those "We have no idea" moments came a few days ago while listening to Stuart talk about the eternity of God. I have a feeling that I'm going to have trouble communicating this with the same impact that it had on me, but I'll give it a try.
First, a quote by Stephen Charnock, from The Existence and Attributes of God:
God is his own eternity. He is not eternal by grant, and the disposal of any other, but by nature and essence. The eternity of God is nothing else but the duration of God; and the duration of God is nothing else but his existence enduring. If eternity were anything distinct from God, and not of the essence of God, then there would be something which was not God, necessary to perfect God. As immortality is the great perfection of a rational creature, so eternity is the choice perfection of God…
In Isaiah 57:15, it says that God "inhabits eternity". In other words, eternity is not merely time extended out forever, but eternity is actually outside of time.* But as Charnock correctly observes, eternity cannot be "the 'time' where God dwells" or else it would be something greater than God. God is His own eternity. And therefore, God dwells in God.
What else dwells in God? Well, for one thing, time. Here's how Stuart expressed it in his class notes:
Eternity is the realm in which God dwells. There is no time in the realm of eternity because time is subject to measurement. There is no past, present, or future in eternity. The very name of God is I AM. Time dwells in God.
Follow that through to its logical conclusion. If time itself exists in God, then what else exists in God? Everything.
As I realized that, verses that I read dozens of times and even prayed a few times came back to me one after another, all with one little two-letter word in big bold letters: "IN"
Acts 17:28
28 for in Him we live and move and have our being...
Colossians 1:17
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
John 5:26
26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,
Let that sink in for a moment. All of creation exists inside of God. Not in some mystical, spiritual sense. Literally. Physically - as much as it makes sense to talk about the Infinite God having a physical existence. A literal translation of the Greek for Colossians 1:17b would read, "the all in Him has stood together." In other words, the universe was "put together" within God (actually, within Jesus!).
Now, keeping this in mind, let your thoughts go back to the world as you have known it. You know all those people who don't like God? Who don't want Him to be in charge of their lives? How about the devil - the greatest creature the God made who is now in open rebellion against God? Every creature that rebels against its Creator is fighting against its own existence. Satan is inside of God, rebelling against the very One who continually upholds his existence.
And yet, God will not ultimately grant the request of suicidal, self-destructive creatures. Granting a terrifying dignity of choice to His creatures, He has decreed that every angel and every human being is going to exist forever - either in the eternal joy of fellowship with their Creator, or in the eternal torment of His wrath. It's up to you which one will be your destiny. In the words of the Apostle Paul:
...we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God! (2 Corinthians 5:20)
* The idea that the Creator is outside of time matches with the predictions of General Relativity. Einstein predicted the beginning of the universe in a Big Bang, before which not only space, but also time itself could not have existed.
