God, Time, and the Eternal “Now”
One of the most profound teachings of the Church is that time is real, but it is not ultimate. Time belongs to creation, while God belongs to eternity. This distinction helps us understand how events separated by centuries in human history can all be immediately present to God, and how Christ can be revealed in moments both before and during His earthly life.
The Church teaches that time began with creation. When Scripture says, “In the beginning,” it does not merely describe the start of material things, but the beginning of time itself. Time is linked to change, movement, and sequence, realities that belong to the created world. Before creation, there was no “before,” because there was no time. God alone existed, not in an endless stretch of moments, but in a state beyond succession altogether.
This means time is real and meaningful. Human life unfolds within it. Salvation history happens within it. Christ was born, taught, suffered, died, and rose again at specific moments. The Church does not treat time as an illusion, but as the arena in which human freedom and divine salvation meet.
While time is real for creation, God does not move through time as we do. We experience reality in a flow: past becomes present, present becomes future. God, however, does not pass from moment to moment. All of history is immediately present to Him in what the Fathers describe as an eternal “now.”
This does not mean God sees the future the way we remember the past. Rather, He sees all of time directly. What is past to us and future to us is simply present to Him. He is not predicting or recalling, but beholding.
An image often used is that of a parade. A person standing on the street sees only one section at a time. Someone viewing from above sees the entire parade at once. The parade still unfolds in sequence for those within it, but the observer above is not limited to that sequence. Likewise, history unfolds for us in time, but God beholds it in its entirety.
This understanding sheds light on biblical events involving the Son of God before and during His earthly life. The one who spoke to Moses from the burning bush is the eternal Word the same Person who later became incarnate as Jesus Christ. These are not different beings, but the same divine Person acting at different points within created time.
Similarly, Moses receiving the Law, Elijah in despair on the mountain, the Transfiguration, and Christ’s trial before His crucifixion are separated in human history. Yet all these events are equally present to God. From the divine perspective, they are not distant episodes but realities immediately known.
However, this must not be imagined as Christ “moving around” history like a traveler in time. Within creation, events still occur in sequence. Christ’s human life unfolded normally: He was born, grew, ministered, suffered, and died at particular moments. His humanity lives within time. But His divinity is not confined by it. The one Person of Christ acts in history while also eternally transcending it.
The Transfiguration especially reveals this mystery. Moses and Elijah appear with Christ, though they lived centuries earlier. They are not summoned from non-existence or transported through time as characters in a story. They are alive in God. Death does not remove a person from divine presence. What is “past” for us is not past for God.
In this event, the disciples are allowed to glimpse reality as it is from the side of eternity. The Law (Moses), the Prophets (Elijah), and Christ stand together, showing that all of salvation history converges in Him. The moment reveals that earthly chronology does not limit divine life.
This understanding explains the Church’s language in worship. Services speak of events as happening “today”: today Christ is born, today He is baptized, today He is crucified. This is not poetic exaggeration. In the liturgical life of the Church, believers participate in God’s eternal reality. The saving acts of Christ are not locked in the past; they are eternally present and effective.
It also explains how prayer unites believers across centuries. Saints who lived long ago are alive in God and can pray for those on earth. God hears prayers from every era without waiting for them to “reach” Him in sequence.
The Church holds together two truths: time is real, and God transcends it. History unfolds meaningfully, yet all of history stands open before God. The same eternal Son who spoke to Moses, strengthened Elijah, shone on Tabor, and stood before Pilate is one and the same Person, acting within time while eternally beyond it.
This is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be entered. It reminds us that our lives, though bound by hours and years, are always lived before the face of the eternal God, for whom every moment is present and every person is alive.
“In Your eternity nothing passes away, but the whole is present.”
St. Gregory the Theologian
“God always was, and always is, and always will be or rather, God always is. For ‘was’ and ‘will be’ are fragments of time, and of changeable nature.”
Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I
“God, then, is infinite and incomprehensible… without beginning and without end, everlasting and eternal, uncreated, unchangeable… beyond time.”
St. Maximus the Confessor
Ambigua
“Time belongs to things that are subject to change; eternity belongs to God, who is beyond movement.”
“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.”
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
“For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.”
“For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.”
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
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