From these passages we see that God is everywhere. He is in all parts of the universe and near each individual. In Him each individual lives and moves and has his being. He is in every rose and lily and blade of grass.
7. There is one other thought in the Christian conception of God that needs to be placed alongside of His omnipresence and that is His eternity. God is eternal. His existence had no beginning and will have no ending, He always was, always is and always shall be. God is not only everywhere present in space, He is everywhere present in time. This conception of God appears constantly in the Bible. We are told way back in Gen. 21:33 that Abraham called "On the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God." In Isa. 40:28 we read this description of Jehovah: "Hast thou
not known? Hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding." Here again He is called "The Everlasting God." Habakkuk in Hab. 1:12 sets forth the same conception of God. He says, "Art not thou from everlasting, O Jehovah my God, mine holy one?" The Psalmist gives us the same representation of God in Ps. 90:2, 4: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. (4) For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night." We have the same representation of God in the 102nd Ps., verses 24-27: "I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: Thy years are throughout all generations. (25) Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. (26) They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; (27) But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."
The very name of God, His covenant name, Jehovah, sets forth His eternity. He is the eternal "I am," the One who is, was and ever shall be. (Cf. Ex. 3:14, 15.)
II. THERE IS ONE GOD
One more fact about the Christian conception of God remains to be mentioned and that is: There is but one God. The Unity of God comes out again and again in both the Old Testament and the New. For example, we read in Deut. 4:35: "Jehovah he is God. There is none else beside him." And in Deut. 6:4 we read: "Hear O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah." Turning to the New Testament in 1 Tim. 2:5 we read: "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus." And in Mark 12:29 our Lord Jesus Himself says: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
But we must bear in mind the character of the Divine Unity. It is clearly revealed in the Bible that in this Divine Unity, in this one Godhead, there is a multiplicity of persons. This comes out in a variety of ways.
1. First of all, the Hebrew word translated "One" in these various passages given denotes a compound unity, not a simple unity. (Cf. 1 Cor. 3:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:13; John 17:22, 23; Gal. 3:28.)
2. In the second place, the Old Testament word most frequently used for God is a plural noun. The Hebrew grammarians and lexicographers tried to explain this by saying that it was the "pluralis majestatis," but the very simple explanation is that the Hebrews, in spite of their