“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)
“To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Timothy 1:17)
If you were to look back at old issues of the Romford Recorder from around 1980, there you would find a black and white photo of what I can only describe as a cherubic choirboy. There, above an immaculately starched ruff, stood the head of an angelic chorister. Large eyes gazed off in heavenly rapture, the perfectly formed mouth stood open in soundless praise. Rich, lush hair finished off this vision of sublime youth. Above the image, the headline informed you that this youth, this best of Essex, was to compete in the final of the Redifussion sponsored Choirboy of the Year.
If it were possible for me to go back in time, I would go up to the young boy. Would, I wonder, he recognise the once handsome face, now ravaged by time? I would addressed my ten year old self, and said: “don’t bother mate, you won’t win. The trip to London, and the visit to Hamleys, will be great but don’t hold out your hopes for the first prize. All you’ll be getting is a small single-speakered cassette player”. Fortunately for the innocence of youth, time travel does not happen.
When we speak of God being eternal, we mustn’t imagine a deity whizzing back and forth through time. God’s eternity means he is beyond all limitations of time, and is present at all times. We may have yesterdays, todays and tomorrows, but God does not. For him all eras of history are now. As Peter describes it: “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 Peter 3:8)
We needn’t look back to the events recorded in Scripture and think that they deal with a different God from whom we are separated by millennia. God is as present to us as he was to them. He is much “I AM” now as he was then. For God, forever is simply now.
