Eternal God – Bill's Bible Blog

**H2a4 Names of God** **from the Beginning**
4. **El-Olam,** **“The Eternal God” or**
**“The Everlasting God.”**

“The Eternal God” is the fourth Name of God from Genesis that I’ve been looking at. I ended up with too much material for a single blog, again, so I’m splitting it into four devotionals.

📜 I. HISTORICAL READING 1: Genesis 20:

SETTING THE SCENE
In Genesis chapter 20, Abraham and Sarah had moved into the Philistine city of Gerar for a while. Even though Sarah was old by our standards, she was still a very beautiful woman and the King, Abimelek, sent soldiers to bring her to the palace to add to his harem. Abraham had been telling everyone that Sarah was his sister instead of his wife.

That night, God appeared to King Abimelek in a dream and told him that he was a dead man for taking the wife of His chosen one. Since the king had not known, God said he would allow Abraham to pray and end the plague of barrenness for everyone in his household, as the sentence of death included no future generations would be born either.

King Abimelek made a generous restitution to Abraham and Sarah and they moved away. See the following blog for a more in-depth treatment.

D10 – Generational sin 2 – Genesis 20

However, in Genesis chapter 21, after Isaac was born, Abraham moved the family close to the city of Gerar and when King Abimelek heard about it, he became a little worried… (continued in the next blog.)
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📜 IIa. OLD TESTAMENT VERSE 1, Psalm 90:2

The actual Name in Hebrew, El Olam, appears only twice, but the word, ‘olam,’ meaning eternal or everlasting, is frequently applied to God in the OT. We’ll look at four of the key verses, one in each devotional.

Psalm 90 is considered the oldest psalm, since it was written by Moses. In verse 2, he uses this phrase, “…even **from everlasting to everlasting,** You are God.” In the Hebrew, that is *“ume‘Olam* ad **Olam**,” the same Hebrew word as our theme Name.

🤓 COMMENTARY: I think we can say that Moses understood or came to understand what God meant when He revealed Himself to Moses as “YHWH,” ‘I am that I am;’ meaning He was the self-existent God.

*YHWH* was not the product of people’s imagination, as the historical cultural gods were. He was not an idol made by someone’s hands and declared to be a god. He was the God who initiated creation of the Universe, with the implication that He exists outside of His creation and is not subject to its limitations, including time.

God as the ‘Initiator’ can be seen throughout the Bible in that He initiated contact with the people he chose in Genesis, then with Moses, with prophets throughout the nation of Israel’s history, and finally by sending His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, the Christ.

📃 IIb. NEW TESTAMENT VERSE 1. There are also many NT verses with the same idea of the ‘Eternal God.’ We’ll also look at four key ones, one each in the four devotionals.

1. In Romans 1:20, Paul’s dissertation to the Christian believers in Rome, he states that the basic characteristics of God, that is, the invisible Supreme being, should be obvious by His visible creation.

🤓 COMMENT: Although Paul listed those invisible qualities as God’s “eternal power and divine nature,” he could just as easily have reversed the nouns and adjectives to say, ‘His eternal nature and divine power,’ and been just as accurate, and in line with the Hebrew Name, “El Olam.”
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🙌 III. WORSHIP 1. Earlier, I mentioned how the Eternal God was the initiater of Creation and of contact with many of the people in Genesis. It was because He had a plan; a plan to save a remnant from this sin-stained world, and we are the beneficiaries of that plan today. Pray the following from various verses about the Eternal God and His plan as a way to worship and thank Him for His initiative.

Thank You, Jesus and *Jehovah* *El Olam,*
The Everlasting LORD God, ♾️
🅰️ The beginning and the end, ♎️

🤲 Thank You that You came to save me. ✝️
🤲 Thank You that You prayed for me; 🙏
That I would know You, Jesus, the Christ ✝️
And through You Your Father,
          the Everlasting God, ♾️
🤲 Thank You for the Good News
          of Your salvation. ✝️
🤲 Thank You for the gospel of Your love, ❤️
          –Your undying love,
Thank You My Eternal, Heavenly Father. ♾️

Tag: Eternal God

H2a4-a – El Olam, The Everlasting God, part 1