God Was Always God

2023-08-13

Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. (Isaiah 43:10)

God (“Elohim”) was always God. Nobody created Him. He always was, and He was always the same. He never changes. “But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end” (Psalms 102:27).

If He was from eternity past, and there is no other authority over Him, and He always was good and without sin, then what does that make us? We are not from eternity past. We are sinful and not good, because we have rebelled against Him. And because we were created by Him, we are under His authority. At least we are supposed to be.

God is not like Santa Claus or some grandfather-like figure that exists for our benefit. If He is good and we are not, we are His enemies. This should be scary. Pertaining to God, it says, “Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:7).

He will not clear the guilty. Because we are rebels against Him, He will judge us before His throne, sending us to the lake of fire that burns without end.

Because God is holy and always good, we will always be condemned before God. Reading the Law of God, we find out quickly we are sinners. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) and “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Nobody has ever done this ever. Do you spend every nanosecond of every day serving God? Even in this we are condemned. Because of this, we are hell-bound. And hell does not end.

However, though God may be the righteous judge that will never clear the guilty, He loves the people He created. He had compassion on us. He must judge sin, but His love demands a pardon. But He cannot just ignore our sin like it never happened.

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is fully deity, to become a human being. He entered the human race, being born of a virgin. Like His Father, He is from eternity past, He always was, He is always good, and is always the same. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). “...whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2). Jesus Himself said, “...for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). And again, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:1-3). In the beginning of what? Everything, including time. Jesus was with the Father, being distinct from Him, yet He is also God. He was with God the Father from eternity past. He is the creator of everything that was created.

This Jesus became a man, and He lived the life we never could. He loved His Father with all His heart, and with all His soul, and with all His might. He performed miracles in the sight of all to authenticate His Sonship. He loved others like we never could. The sick were healed, the dead were raised.

However, the religious and political leaders, because of envy, destroyed Jesus. They set up a series of sham trials and convicted Him. They tortured Him and killed Him.

But this was not some surprise to God or some accident. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).

And why was this? He was punished for our sins. The wrath of God for our sins was put on His Son instead of us. He “...bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:4-6).

It was the blood of Jesus Christ that saves us. When the Father saw the blood of Jesus, He was satisfied regarding the punishment for our sin once for all, forever. “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11). “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Peter 1:18-20).

If Jesus the Son stayed dead, He would be different than no other man in human history. He rose again the third day. “Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24). “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6). Hundreds of eyewitnesses saw Jesus risen from the dead. There was no mistake. Five hundred people were not all delusional with the same delusion. At the time of the writings of the Bible, contemporaries could have interviewed those eyewitnesses, and many did.

We have no confidence that we can do anything to please God in our own right. Jesus accomplished His saving unilaterally. “Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word” (Isaiah 66:1-2). He created all. He is completely holy. What can you do to appease His wrath? He owns everything! You can’t offer Him anything because He made it all and owns it all. We cannot control Him. We are helpless before Him.

But He grants us amnesty in His Son. He extends peace to everyone who trusts in Jesus Christ the Son and not on their own resources, because those resources cannot save.

“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18). And again, in the past tense, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). “For we which have believed do enter into rest” (Hebrews 4:3). Since Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead, we are born again into a new family, a new kingdom, that cannot be undone. It is the gift of God. It ceases to be a gift if I must do anything to earn it, be it promising to stop sinning, get baptized, do this, do that. No, we have freely received the gift of God, which is Jesus dead and now risen.

Jesus is coming a second time. How confident are you that you are ready to face Him? He is God in the flesh and cannot and will not accept any concessions in that day. You must be born again into His kingdom once for all. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever” (1 Peter 1:23). The only peace there is with God is resting in the fact that He accomplished everything you need to be saved in Jesus Christ. Enter into that rest.