“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalms 90:1–2). Forever is a long, long time, and everlasting is a difficult concept for us to grasp. That’s why it is difficult for us to grasp God, because there never was a time when God did not exist, and never will be a time when God does not exist.
You and I have a beginning. Conception and birth mark the start of our lives, but God didn’t have a start. One of the reasons God is God is because he is eternal. God chose to have his eternal nature step into time to become a person just like us. Although Jesus has a human nature, he also came into this world as everlasting.
Not only is he called everlasting, but he is an Everlasting Father. This is no ordinary father or fatherhood, but this father will be everlasting and eternal. He is one who is eternally a Father. What is divine must be eternal. This indicates a specific kind of relationship to his people. They are his children, the ones that he cares for and nurtures as their Father.
“For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name” (Isaiah 63:16). He fathers his people consistently and constantly, forever. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him” (Psalms 103:13). Jesus shows compassion, as a Father, to us. This is not meant in a Trinitarian way, it simply indicates the nature of the Son as he deals with us.
We can rest and rejoice in his Everlasting Fatherhood toward us. As Stephen Charnock says so well, “Happiness cannot perish as long as God lives; he is the first and the last; the first of all delights, nothing before him; the last of all pleasures, nothing beyond him; a paradise of delights in every point.”
I Commend Joy! 