Eternity

Genesis 2:9

And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I began a series on The Will of God at the beginning of this year and am still preaching on it at my church in Korea. It has been a long while for you, but I would like to continue on it during this summer as well. I hope you would be able to remember what I had preached last time.

One of the things that I mentioned was that many Christians, generally speaking, misunderstand the will of God as if it is hidden somewhere far away from them so that they have to go on a journey to search for it. Sometimes it takes a lifetime, but they fail to discover it for them. The will of God for them is something secretive, mysterious and even agnostic. They are in a sense used to not knowing the so-called will of God for themselves.

It is a natural religion not a Christian faith. All the natural religions out there essentially are the same and therefore one in their nature, that is, agnostic! When the apostle Paul visited Athens, which was full of idols, he saw an altar with “To the unknown god” inscribed on it. The Athenians were known for their religiosity but it was only of agnostic kind. For them, obviously the will of god is something agnostic and secretive hidden far away from themselves. It is so common with all the people out there until they have true faith in Jesus Christ. 

The first thing I emphasized on the will of God was that it is revealed in the Bible. We Christians in many cases are not so trained with the Word of God. In other words, we are not so tested with the Word as we remember from the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.  The armors of King Saul were not “tested” for David. Rather, David went out with the name of the Lord Almighty and defeated Goliath. David was tested with God’s way than “the wisdom of the world” (1 Cor. 1:20). What I find is that many Christians are not so well tested with the Word of God. But I encourage you to remember that the will of God is not hidden in secret but revealed in His Word. Deuteronomy 29:29 reads, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” So you must read the Bible. I am sure you do. Please be “tested” with the Word. 

The next thing to remember is, when you read the Bible, to read it from the author’s point of view. To read the Bible is to hear from the Lord. The proper attitude is to listen first and then apply it to your life than to reverse the order to be blessed with or take advantage of reading. It may sound obvious but the best evidence illustrating the problem in view is the so-called Q.T. (Quiet Time). I encourage you to do QT but do it right way. We are not to read the Bible in order to be blessed with it first (of course it is one of very important purposes of reading the Bible) but to learn more about God for who He is. To know God is the greatest happiness for us. The eternal life lies in the knowledge of God and His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3). You want to read the Bible from the perspective of what God wants us to hear first than what we want to hear. To align your mind with God’s perspective is a very first step to prepare yourself as you come to hear Him in your daily devotion. 

In that regard I want to think about what the Bible says from the very beginning of the Bible. Do you know that the very first word that appears in the Hebrew Bible is “in the beginning” (breshit). What is signified by “in the beginning” is the duration in which God performed the activity of creation. So often we raise a question, like when is this beginning? And often the answer to that is it was before the time, meaning eternity. So it is more like “before the beginning.” Genesis 1:1 tells us two things; (1) God was in the beginning, and (2) He created the heavens and the earth. What does that mean that He was in the beginning? He was before the time and therefore in eternity. So the first word in the Bible pronounces that God is eternal. We have a tendency to take that God is eternal in temporal sense, as if God exists in an infinite stretch of time before and after our time. However, I suggest that we should perhaps think about “what” instead of “when” for “in the beginning” of the very first word of the Bible.

Here, we should take a huge break before we continue on with reading. “In the beginning …” Do you get it? Did you just understand what it meant when it said “In eternity was God.” Eternity is something about God. It is something uniquely divine that separates God from everything else, for example, the heavens and the earth. The eternity of God is not just the time for God, it is some quality of God, and we often fail to appreciate the meaning, significance, or even feel of it. We just move on to the next verse. However, it is a kind of habit of the Bible that it often adds a word that goes with it “life.” So it becomes “eternal life.” Eternal life in the Bible is an equivalent to the eternity of God. Eternity with God is not just the infinite stretch of time but some qualitatively different nature that eternally fits with the life of God for who He is. And I suggest that it is the very first thing in the Bible that God directs our attention to see with our own eyes. Eternity or eternal life! So, I would like to guide you through the Bible and show you how eternal life or eternity is repeatedly brought up to our attention throughout the Bible. 

The first evidence that I would like to draw your attention to is the Garden of Eden itself. We see how the second chapter of Genesis reveals the layout of the garden. It is interesting to see how the Bible deliberately stages the tree of life at the center and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil next to it. So you cannot miss the tree from any directions in the garden because it is right at the middle of it. Not a coincidence! Two trees as a pair symbolically reveal the will of God that there comes life or death at the end of the so-called garden life. Of course, at this stage Adam and Eve do not know about death. They simply know it as that which is not life. Even us as well we do not know what this tree of life represents other than what the Bible reveals at the end of it. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:1-2).” We learn that the Garden of Eden was never intended to be the final destination for the garden people but simply to remind them of the eternal life that is depicted as a place called “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1). Eternity is translated into eternal life and now to a new place. The central concern of the Bible is to bring us there through Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus Christ came and died in our place so that we may have eternal life or to have eternity with God or to go to a place where He is. Or simply salvation. So, the Lord prays this way to the Father, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). This is the life of fellowship that the Father and the Son had enjoyed in eternity and now he wants to take us to where he himself is with the Father. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (v. 24). It reminds us of “in the beginning” of Gen. 1:1. 

I would like to challenge you through the message that it is the will of God that you comprehend what is really signified and revealed in the Bible whenever eternity is brought up. God’s will is not only that you understand it but also that you seek and desire it. The Bible provides us with evidences, clues and hints that eternity is something so peculiar about God. Other words that often associate with eternity in the Bible is “heaven,” “from above” or “of/from God.” It is nearly impossible to explain about all those biblical terminologies within one sermon length. So I must leave it to another occasion but would like to emphasize that it is the divine will of God that we as creatures belonging to this heaven and earth must be able to perceive that which is called a new heaven and a new earth in the Bible. Simply, we are to look up and see eternity beyond the horizon for our eyes to see. It is what this religion is about, and this religion is a supernatural religion and a religion that meditates upon the eternal God. 

It may sound ambiguous and abstract but there is a great deal of truth in it. Have you thought about why the Bible begins in the way that it does? Is it simply a chronological order that you see in the beginning chapters of the Bible? Nothing special or intentional? Why would God write in the way He does as we read now? For Him the beginning point of the whole Bible was “in the beginning.” And it uniquely describes what, where, when, who, why and how God is that He is (Exo. 3:14). Even the Eden manifests what eternity is in the earthly ways. The beginning of the Bible and the ending of it are deliberately echoing one another, and it is precisely the Author’s intention as He writes for us. God created Adam and Eve in the Garden, which is an earth not a heaven. So, the very first thing that God teaches Adam and Eve is eternity where God is. Eternity is what God is, who, where, etc. that He is. Adam and Eve belong to the earth only for a while but not so long because God is to bring them up to join Him in eternity, where they enjoy eternal life and fellowship with God.

Christianity is a supernatural religion. God supernaturally revealed Himself to us so that we may know Him that is supernature Himself. It is very hard for us as ones who reside on the earth. But the Bible tells us throughout that what we see is not everything. Therefore, we must see the things beyond the horizon of the earth. I am not simply saying that there is another life to come after this one. I am pointing out the difference between them. Nature and supernature! Time and eternity! Finitude and Infinitude! Earth and heaven! Now and then! Before and after! Old and new! Here and there! This and that! That is Christianity, the religion of supernature, the religion of eternity, the religion of God, the religion of the Trinity. We live in the nature created supernaturally. We have life that is only to have eternal life. We are the creatures created by the Creator. We walk on the face of the earth but feel the liveliness of heaven. We carry a passport, but our citizenship belongs to heaven. We are temporal, but God is eternal. We are earthly, but God is heavenly. I may go on and on. Do you feel Him? Do you feel the eternity of God?

What do you read in the Bible? Actually, what do you see in the Bible? Do you see and read the will of God clearly iterated in the Bible? The will of God wants you to see Him for who He is. May God bless your time of reading and you may enjoy the knowledge of your God! 

Praise the Lord!​