--When we say God is eternal, we mean a handful of things, some of which are obvious and some of which are not.
--The first is that before this universe was here, God existed.
--The second is that after this universe stop being here (if it does), God will still exist.
--So it’s useful to think of this series of events we think of as the history of the universe as being a big character in the middle act of a three act play. God is the only character in the first act, and we aren’t entirely sure what the third act will be (or if there might be fourth and fifth ones to come). But God will be the central character in all of them, regardless of what happens otherwise. There will never be a time without God.
--But there’s another aspect of God’s eternality that we often overlook. Though it’s very difficult to comprehend, the very experience of events leading from one to another that we call time is something that God created. Just as you might step forward and then step farther forward again, time in many ways is a kind of experience of movement in a direction, the difference for us being that we only go one way. But God not only made all three dimensions of height, length, and width, He also made time. So, although there’s no way for our language to express it, God existed before there was even time, and will exist even after there is time no longer.
--So not only is God first and last (why the Bible calls Him the Alpha and the Omega), God is somehow prior to and also totally beyond even the limit of being in such a series of events like time.
--That’s what we mean when we say God is eternal.
--And when we say that we will be with God for eternity (or in hell for eternity), we mean that our experience of either will go on without an end in time, possibly even beyond time in some way we can’t currently comprehend.
--The first is that before this universe was here, God existed.
--The second is that after this universe stop being here (if it does), God will still exist.
--So it’s useful to think of this series of events we think of as the history of the universe as being a big character in the middle act of a three act play. God is the only character in the first act, and we aren’t entirely sure what the third act will be (or if there might be fourth and fifth ones to come). But God will be the central character in all of them, regardless of what happens otherwise. There will never be a time without God.
--But there’s another aspect of God’s eternality that we often overlook. Though it’s very difficult to comprehend, the very experience of events leading from one to another that we call time is something that God created. Just as you might step forward and then step farther forward again, time in many ways is a kind of experience of movement in a direction, the difference for us being that we only go one way. But God not only made all three dimensions of height, length, and width, He also made time. So, although there’s no way for our language to express it, God existed before there was even time, and will exist even after there is time no longer.
--So not only is God first and last (why the Bible calls Him the Alpha and the Omega), God is somehow prior to and also totally beyond even the limit of being in such a series of events like time.
--That’s what we mean when we say God is eternal.
--And when we say that we will be with God for eternity (or in hell for eternity), we mean that our experience of either will go on without an end in time, possibly even beyond time in some way we can’t currently comprehend.
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