The God Who Always Is
Before the Beginning, Beyond the End
“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.” — Isaiah 48:12 (ESV)
Have you ever read a familiar passage of Scripture and suddenly found yourself looking at something else in the Bible with entirely new eyes? That happened to me while reading Isaiah 48:12. God declares, “I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.” I've read those words before; this time, I found myself thinking about the opening words of Genesis.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, ESV).
A question began forming in my mind: If Genesis tells us about the beginning, what does Isaiah tell us about the One who was already there?
We tend to think of everything in terms of beginnings and endings. Every person has a birthday. Every journey has a starting point. Every story has an opening chapter. Even the oldest things we know have an origin somewhere; but God doesn't.
Genesis doesn't begin by telling us where God came from. It simply tells us that when creation began, God was already there. The beginning marks the arrival of creation, not the arrival of God.
When Moses encountered God at the burning bush, he asked a question that seemed perfectly reasonable. If he was going to tell the Israelites that the God of their fathers had sent him, what name should he give them?
God answered, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14, ESV).
Not a history of His origins, and not an explanation of how He came to exist. God revealed Himself by declaring who He is. The words are profound, and the Hebrew expression carries nuances that aren't easily captured in English. But the surrounding conversation helps us understand something important. Before Moses ever asked God's name, God had already promised him, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12, ESV). God wasn't merely giving Moses information to remember. He was assuring Moses of His presence. The God who had called him would be the God who accompanied him.
I feel that's where our understanding of God's eternal nature becomes more than an intellectual exercise. We can spend a lifetime wondering how God could exist without a beginning. Our minds are accustomed to measuring time, tracing origins, and looking for causes. Yet Scripture directs our attention toward something we can know: God's identity, His character, and His faithfulness. He doesn't ask Moses to understand eternity before trusting Him. He says, in essence, I will be with you.
Psalm 90:2 tells us, “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Notice what that doesn't say. God did not become God when He created the universe. He wasn't waiting for creation to give Him a purpose or humanity to give Him someone to love.
John's Gospel opens with words that echo Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1, ESV). John goes on to tell us that all things were made through the Word, whom he later identifies as Jesus Christ. Before anything was made, the Word already was. In John 17:24, Jesus speaks of the Father's love for Him before the foundation of the world.
Think about that for a moment. Before there was a sunrise, a mountain, an ocean, or a single human heartbeat, there was already love. God did not create because He was incomplete. He did not need the world in order to become loving, powerful, or worthy of worship. Acts 17:24–25 reminds us that the Creator is not dependent upon what human hands can provide. Yet this self-sufficient God chose to create. He chose to reveal Himself. He chose to invite humanity into relationship with Him.
The One who depends on nothing invites us to depend on Him.
Let's return to Isaiah.
When God says He is the First and the Last, He is declaring more than the length of His existence. Isaiah 44:6 connects those words to His unique identity: there is no God besides Him. He is not simply the first among many or the last one standing. No one came before Him as God, and no one will come after Him to take His place.
Isaiah 46:10 speaks of God declaring the end from the beginning and accomplishing His purposes. History is not something God merely watches unfold. He remains sovereign over it.
Now, I must confess something. While pondering the words the first and the last, my mind wandered somewhere rather unexpected. Barry White. Yes, that Barry White.
His classic song, You're the First, the Last, My Everything, came to mind. It's a romantic love song, of course, not a worship hymn. But I found myself wondering how those familiar words might sound if they were spoken to God. He declares Himself the First and the Last. What a beautiful response it would be for us to say, You are my everything.
I rather like that connection. Sometimes a familiar song, a conversation, or an ordinary moment can send us back to Scripture with fresh curiosity. There's something especially meaningful about the thought that God is not only the First and the Last. He is our everything in between.
The God who existed before our first breath is present during every moment of our lives. He isn't waiting somewhere at the finish line, detached from the journey. He is the God who calls, leads, provides, corrects, comforts, and remains faithful. The eternal God is also the present God.
So what about the other half of Isaiah's declaration? What does it mean that God is the Last?
We often associate an ending with something being finished, disappearing, or ceasing to exist. Yet when Scripture speaks of the end of this present age, it does not describe the end of God. Revelation 21 tells us of a new heaven and a new earth. God declares, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5, ESV). And in Revelation 22:13, we hear the familiar declaration again: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” The Bible opens with God creating the heavens and the earth. Near its close, we see the promise of creation renewed and God dwelling with His people. What a beautiful picture.
The One who was present before the beginning remains when the present order of things has passed away. His purposes have not failed. His faithfulness has not expired. His relationship with His people has not come to an end. The end does not mark God's departure. It reveals the fulfillment of His purposes.
There is a reason I keep returning to those three little words: I AM. We describe our lives by what we were, what we are, and what we hope to become. We change. We grow. We age. We experience seasons of certainty and seasons when we wonder what comes next. But God's identity is not subject to those changes. He was not more God yesterday than He is today. He will not become more God tomorrow. His character does not improve with experience or diminish with time. He is the God who always is.
That truth should encourage us. The God who was faithful to Moses is not a distant figure confined to an ancient account. The God who spoke through Isaiah has not lost His voice. The God revealed in Jesus Christ has not ceased to be worthy of our trust. We may not understand everything about eternity. I certainly don't. We aren't meant to fit an infinite God neatly inside our finite understanding, but we have been given Scripture so that we can know what He has chosen to reveal about Himself. We can read it. We can ask questions. We can examine how one passage illuminates another. We can discover that words we've read many times still have something to teach us. And as we do, we begin to see that God's eternity isn't simply a theological idea to contemplate. It is a reason to trust Him. Because the God who existed before the beginning, who remains beyond the end, is also the God who meets us right where we are.
We measure our lives by beginnings and endings. God reveals Himself as the One who is beyond both; and present in every moment between.
He is the First. He is the Last. He is the God who always is.
Creation as a concept is MASSIVE, and to understand our place in that creation, we must first recognize whose creation it is. The God who existed before the beginning is the same God who established the order, rhythms, and purpose of everything He made. While we may marvel at His eternal nature, there is also much to discover about the world He entrusted to our care. In Nothing New Under the Sun - All Things Under the Son, we'll explore how understanding God's design can change the way we see creation, use its resources, and fulfill our responsibility within it.
