what does the bible say?

As mortal human beings we are accustomed to living in a temporary physical world. We are limited by our physical senses to detecting only that which is physical. Everything physical has beginnings and endings. We understand what it means to be born and what it means to die. We observe the creation around us and see plants, insects, and animals come to life and we see them die. We even speak of the birth and death of civilizations, volcanoes, and planets and stars. We measure time with clocks and calendars. We measure the progression of time in seconds, hours, days, and years, decades, centuries, and millennia.

Humans are accustomed to seeing things get old. Our homes, automobiles, and our clothing, even our physical bodies wear out over time. As wise king Solomon once said: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8).

God is not limited by the things we are as humans. He is eternal. God has always been and always will be. He inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). Our physical minds cannot truly comprehend what it means to be eternal, because we have nothing in the known physical universe in which to relate eternity to. In fact, we cannot even fully comprehend the physical universe God created.

That is precisely the problem we have as humans; we are trying to relate what cannot be related to in physical terms. We are trying to apply the limitations of the physical existence we know to the unlimited spiritual plane of existence on which God lives. It cannot be done.

One of God’s names in Hebrew is Yahweh which means the “Ever-living One.” He is the Creator of all that exists: “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17). The Creator is not bound by the laws of space and time as we are. To our Maker “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (II Peter 3:8). He is the author of space and time. There is no beginning or end for God because has always existed (John 1:1-3; Hebrews 7:3). “In the beginning God…” (Genesis 1:1). Whatever point in the past we wish to consider as “the beginning” God already existed. Where did God come from? He didn’t come from anywhere. He was always there!