Hymns of the Church – The Eternity of God – 30 January 2024, Anno Domini (In the Year of our Lord)

 

 

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EOFRE the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.       (Psalm 90:2)

 

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HOU, O LORD, remainest for ever; thy throne from generation to generation. 20 Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, and forsake us so long time? 21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.     (Lamentations 5:19-21)

 

            This thoroughly reverent and biblical hymn is the work of the great hymn writer of England, Isaac Watts. It was published in William Gadsby’s hymnal of 1814. Hymn tune is DUNDEE. The title seems over-simplified as the very concept of God dictates an Eternal Existence, but we may at times forget the infinite measure of God’s Being. He has neither mother nor father despite the heretical ruling of the Council of Ephesus. Mary, revered mother of Jesus, was just as human as you and me, and did not exist in eternity past to lay claim to ‘Mother of God.’ This hymn, as do most of the old hymns of the Church, reinforces our biblical view and doctrine of God.

 

The Eternity of God

 

Lord, raise my soul above the ground,

And draw my thoughts to thee;

Teach me, with sweet and solemn sound,

To praise the eternal Three.

 

Long ere the lofty skies were spread,

Jehovah filled his throne;

Or Adam formed, or angels made,

The Maker lived alone.

 

His boundless years can ne’er decrease,

But still maintain their prime;

Eternity’s his dwelling-place,

And ever is his time.

 

While like a tide our minutes flow,

The present and the past,

He fills his own immortal NOW,

And sees our ages waste.

 

The sea and sky must perish too,

And vast destruction come!

The creatures! look how old they grow,

And wait their fiery doom.

 

Well; let the sea shrink all away,

And flame melt down the skies,

My God shall live an endless day

When the old creation dies.

 

1 Lord, raise my soul above the ground, And draw my thoughts to thee; Teach me, with sweet and solemn sound,  To praise the eternal Three. We are made of dust, and these bodies return to dust – but the soul of man lives on after the bodies have returned to the simplest elements of the soil – either to the Paradise of God, or the barred gates of Hell. Our souls are lifted above the mundane material world when our hearts are fixed on God. This hymn reminds us that God is Triune in nature – that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost have existed from Eternity Past to Eternity Future with no lapses in between.

 

2 Long ere the lofty skies were spread, Jehovah filled his throne; Or Adam formed, or angels made, The Maker lived alone. It is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend a time when there was no time, space or matter. All of our sensible awareness is based on these three dimensions, but these were created at the early dawn of Creation by our Triune God who exists outside these confines of His Creation. But before the existence of time, decisions were made in the council of Heaven to create all that we know, and to prepare for the salvation of fallen man by sending His only Begotten son to redeem those whom He would elect. “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Eph 1:3-5) The mystery of an Eternity Past will remain so until we see our Lord face-to-face.

 

            3  His boundless years can ne’er decrease, But still maintain their prime; Eternity’s his dwelling-place, And ever is his time. If eternity could conform to the measurement of days, we could say that today is the first day of a new eternity, but with God, His abiding presence is not measured in days for His the ‘Great I AM’ – the eternal Present. He has never been ‘I WAS’ or I WILL BE’, but exists in the forever Present tense.

 

            4  While like a tide our minutes flow, The present and the past, He fills his own immortal NOW, And sees our ages waste. God owns, not only our present in the scale of time, but our past and future. All submit to His Sovereign Will. In a sense, there is some validity to the theory proffered by quantum physics, that really all things are presently happening across the scale of time in the universe, or parallel episodes of events past and future. But the prerogatives of the Great ‘I AM’ are not confined by scientific theories. He is the Maker and Master of the Laws of nature as well as of true science.

 

            5 The sea and sky must perish too, And vast destruction come! The creatures! look how old they grow, And wait their fiery doom. At the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ there will be no doubting Thomases nor bearded pseudo-scientist asserting there is no God. “10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.  (2 Peter 3:10)

 

            6 Well; let the sea shrink all away, And flame melt down the skies, My God shall live an endless day When the old creation dies. That old creation - the worldly prison of pain, suffering, and death – will be vaporized and the gathering mist will lift to reveal a new creation and a Paradise. Not only will these mortal bodies be made new and not subject to pain or death, but all else will be made new in the perfection of God’s divine omnipotence. “5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Rev 21:5-8)