How Old Is God?

I was reading a novel that saw the phrase "the Ancient of Days" (Dan 7:13, 22) as proof that God is old. Our drawings (like the Sistine Chapel) portray God as an old man. God must be really, really old. We've seen the pictures.

It is, of course, a fallacy. We figure He's like us. He lives in time. He was young once, but now He is aging. Oh, sure, slower than we do, obviously, but aging just the same. It's just not so. God said, "I the Lord do not change." (Mal 3:6). James tells us there is no variation in God (James 1:17). The theologians' term is "immutability." So if God is immutable, He cannot change and, therefore, He cannot age.

Instead, God is described as "eternal." Scripture says He is "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psa 90:2). God describes Himself as the one "who is and who was and who is to come" (Rev 1:8). Now, "eternal" isn't natural to our thinking. Everything we know in our experience has a beginning. We can imagine things that don't end (although that, too, is a stretch), but when God says He is eternal, it means in the other direction, too. Always was; always will be. God is not old; He is timeless. He doesn't operate in the stream of time as we do; that would be "changing." So, although He interacts with us in our timelines, He is not relegated to them. He knows the past and the future because they are eternally present with Him. Some ask, "Who made God?" God always was. And that makes Him absolutely unique.

There is great practical application in God's eternal nature. In Deuteronomy we read, "The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut 33:27). Paul said that God's "eternal power" is revealed in nature (Rom 1:19). God is Omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning (Isa 46:10) because He's in all those times presently. He's not sweating the outcome. He's not curious to find out what we'll do or if He can salvage it. God doesn't change. God doesn't age. He isn't losing His memory or strength. God is perfect at keeping His promises partly because He never changes and already knows. He isn't worried about tomorrow. We can't mess up His plan. He cannot fail. That's comfort. How old is God? Job says, "Behold, God is great, and we know Him not; the number of His years is unsearchable" (Job 36:26). And that is a really good thing.