This is by and far, the 2 attributes that were the most awe inspiring and the most difficult to wrap my mind around. But it increased my love for God exponentially!

What is Aseity? It’s not a theological term we are used to. I know I certainly never heard that word until I read a few articles on the Doctrine of God. However, the definition is something I knew – God is self-sufficient, independent of anything outside of Himself.

The word comes from a Latin phrase “a se” meaning “from or by Himself”.

God IS life in and of Himself. Another phrase often used is that God is “Pure Act”. As Pure Act God needs to
“do” nothing further than “be”, No one brought Him into being and He depends on no one to be. Before the beginning of the world, of the cosmos itself, there was nothing but God. Eternally. There was nothing. Try to think about nothing. Were you able to do that? No, because we can’t imagine what nothingness was. But God was there. Our Triune God was there – and perfectly happy and fulfilled – in an empty nothingness. As Anselm puts it, “God has of Himself all that He has”. Ultimately that means He is perfect. Pure Act.

GOD DOES NOT NEED YOU OR ME, OR THE WORLD.

He has ZERO needs. If God “needed” something, that would imply that He is missing something and needs it provided. This is what it means for God to be “a se”. Therefore, His aseity distinguishes Creator from His creatures. All creatures – us, animals, any life – derive life from the One who IS Life itself. And that logically leads to the understanding that we are 100% dependent on God for our next breath, For the next beat of our heart. Only He sustains us. That’s an attribute that no human will ever be able to attain. Ever.

God showed Moses His aseity, His Being at the burning bush. In Exodus 3: 6, after telling Moses to remove his sandals because he was standing on holy ground – standing in the presence of God, God said “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He already then shared the I AM of Himself. But in verse 14, God goes all out so there is zero guessing as to Who God is.

“God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”. And He said, “Say this to the people of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses (this is the 3rd explanation – the number 3 often being associated with completeness or fullness) “Say this to the people of Israel, “The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has sent me to you’. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” In these few sentences God revealed that He is self existent, eternal, and immutable – or unchanging. As the writer of Hebrews says in 13:8 , “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

In connection with God’s attributes, His name Yahweh or I AM reveals who God is – what His character is – because He IS the sum of all His attributes.

If God “has of Himself all that He has”, then aseity must also mean God is perfectly fulfilled and happy in Himself. This then also speaks to the Trinity – our God is one in essence, yet three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Because of God’s aseity (and eternality), the Three in One had perfect communion with one another as the One, undivided God, eternally self existent and self sufficient, unchanging, and dwelling in perfect fellowship –needing nothing.

Matthew Barrett, in his book “None Greater” quotes Jonathan Edwards:
“God is infinitely happy in the enjoyment of Himself in perfectly beholding and infinitely loving, and rejoicing in, His own essence and perfections.” ” (57)

Barrett goes on to say: “Notice what this entails: if God had never chosen to create the world – and it is important to remember that He did not have to create the world – He would have remained perfectly satisfied and content in and of Himself. This also means that God’s choice to voluntarily create the world was not because He felt a hole within Him, as if He were in need of us to somehow fill up the joy otherwise lacking or give meaning to His otherwise meangingless existence. He was and continues to be self-sufficient as the One who IS life in the most absolute sense of that word.” (58)

The Apostle Paul teaches God’s aseity in Athens in Acts 17: 16-34. In this story Paul is waiting for Silas and Timothy to arrive, and while waiting for them in Athens, “he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols.” He then began to “reason” with the Jews present (and others who worshipped God). He ended up in a debate with the philosophers of that age – Epicureans and Stoics. Someone called him an ignorant show off (vs 18: “What is this ignorant show off trying to say”.) And some thought he was teaching about foreign deities even though he was preaching Jesus. They took Paul to the Aeropagus and asked him to explain this strange teaching. I love what verse 21 says “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.” Seemed like busy bodies to me! In response Paul preaches – a “knock you over” kinda sermon. He first tells them that he sees how religious they are (guys…..waaayyyy too many idols here!) – and said “I even found an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an Unknown God’. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.” Here’s what he teaches in point form:

1. God is the Creator and Lord over all
2. He doesn’t need anything
3. He Himself is the Author of life
4. He is Sovereign
5. God wants people to seek Him

I could go on. But there it is. God’s Aseity and Eternality. No theological words in Paul’s writings, but the meaning is quite clear!

Some will argue that while God doesn’t need anything, as Christians we still serve Him, so doesn’t that mean He needs something from us? The important thing to remember here is that we can only give to God what is already His. In the parable of the steward in Luke 16, Jesus teaches stewardship as citizens of His Kingdom. And later in Luke 17 we are told that even when we do what we’re told to do – we have only done what is required of us. God needs nothing from us. And He doesn’t owe us anything!

I love the book of Job. I relate to Job well. And I get what he was feeling and wrestling with. So often I too just want to know WHY, I want to argue with God, I want answers. But God’s reply in questions puts me in my place.

“Where were you when I established the earth?” (38:4) “Do you know the laws of heaven? Can you impose its authority on earth?” (38: 33) “No one is ferocious enough to rouse Leviathan; who then can stand against me? Who confronted me that I should repay him? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (41:10,11)

God: I AM WHO I AM. Self sufficient, self existent, eternal, sovereign. Boom.

NOW: Eternality. Still with me? We often think of God being “forever” when we hear the word eternal.

Eternality is God’s aseity with respect to TIME. He is Lord of time – He exists above and apart from it. He is not bound by time. Time is never a limit. He exists outside of space and time – which is His transcendence. Lord of time. Now, time goes too slow or too fast for us. We think about our days as long, our years as short. Our existence in time involves limits. We are in time, bound to it and formed by it.

God’s eternality is very evident in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God….“

John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Revelation 1:8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Revelation 22: 13: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.“

Alongside God’s aseity and eternality is his immutability – or the fact that He does not change. See Malachi 3:6: “Because I, the LORD, have not changed, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.” (he’s referring to the covenant He made long ago, the promises that an unchanging God will be faithful to). Because God is unchanging, He has a very different experience of time. Here is where God’s Omniscience ties in (see? can’t have one without not being connected to others!). Since God is omniscient, God sees ALL of time – the past, the present and the future. He sees ALL time AT once. He sees things as they occur in time – a succession of moments – and sees all events laid out before Him. He is ABOVE time.

Psalm 90:4: “For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by like a few hours of the night.” So time is never too slow for Him,

2 Peter 3:8: ” Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” So time is never too fast for Him.

He is fully in control of time all the time. God who is not limited by time, but transcends time, is external to time, and is timelessly eternal, Sit and chew on that for a bit. 🙂

Let’s look further into the Word for descriptions of God’s eternality:

Everlasting – Isaiah 40:28, Holy One (inhabits eternity) – Isaiah 57:15. Immortal – Romans 1:23. Sovereign, King of kings, Lord of lords – who has immortality – 1 Timothy 6: 15-16.

We often struggle to process the concept of God’s eternality because we only know the limits of time – we can’t do anything but take each moment as it comes. We have a past, present and future – we are assessable, computable, measurable. We are always becoming, changing. In contrast, an infinite, eternal God cannot be measured by time. There is just no comparing our knowledge of time with God’s! If we tried to make sense of God’s eternality using our concept of time, we would put limits on God – which means He would now have potential. Potential to go from bad to better, good to great. But having potential is uniquely human. If this was the case for God, then He would not be perfect. Or a se. Or simple – without parts. If we thought that God could reach His potential, He would be a changing God. Do we want a God who can change? Either for better or worse? We couldn’t trust a God like that, could we?

So how can we understand all this? Think of it this way. Time has a beginning and an end with a succession of moments, but God has no beginning, no succession of moments, or ending. (Genesis 1:1, Job 36:26). So – the 3 marks of eternity then is “no beginning, no end and no succession of moments.” So we can see then how eternity and time are entirely different, even antithetical to one another. Aquinas said “Eternity measures permanent existence and time measures change.”

Eternity is needed for all the other attributes as well. Apart from it, all the other perfections of God would cease to be. Such as omniscience, immutability, love — if not eternal then all will fade away eventually.

Stephen Charnock says in Barrett’s book: “Eternity is contrary to time, and it is therefore a permanent and immutable state, a perfect possession of life without any variation. As the nature of time consists in the succession of parts, so the nature of eternity is an infinite, immutable duration.” No parts, no change, no time. All three inseparably tied together. (147)

Almost done!

God is not only the self existent, eternal God (His aseity and eternality), but He is also omnipotent life itself. For He has power over ALL of his life AT ONCE – whereas we are restricted to experience life one instant at a time. And the life He has power over is an infinite life: unlimited and unbounded.

In conclusion, since God is eternal, then our enjoyment of God will never cease! We will NEVER get bored of enjoying God. Why? Because He is infinite! All His attributes are infinite- His love, grace, holiness, power….it will literally take an eternity to enjoy God because He is infinitely eternal! And if God is unchanging, then the eternal joy, happiness, satisfaction we’ll experience will never fade away or end. And – the eternal Son of God – Jesus the Christ -who was and is in need of nothing, knowing all things, possessing all things – entered time so that we might have eternal life! He came willingly and experienced all of the limits of time – so we could one day live forever in eternity. Praise our Self existent, self sufficient eternal God!