Eternity

  Eternity is “time without beginning or end; infinite time; the state or quality of being eternal, the timeless state following death, the afterlife; immortality.” Eternal is “being without beginning or end; existing outside of time; continuing without interruption; perpetual; everlasting, forever true or changeless; of or relating to spiritual communion with God, especially in the afterlife.”–The Oxford English Dictionary.

“Eternity radiates in every direction from the now. It overlaps and holds all the past, present and future in this handful of life right now.”–Edna Lister

  Eternal is that which has always existed and will always exist. Eternity means being eternal, immortal, such as eternal truths, infinite time, and the future life. Eternity is an absolute and an abstract principle, and a Via Christa Degree. Eternity, combined with the degrees of Space and Time, forms the ninth lesser Via Christa trinity, whose keynote is Immortality through conquering Space and Time.
  Despite the arguments made by the ancient and classical philosophers and scholars, we know that God is all that is. Therefore, you cannot have God and anything else. Since only God is, all things and beings in Creation exist within Him and can derive their being and existence from no other source. “Eternity radiates in every direction from the now. It overlaps and holds all the past, present and future in this handful of life right now.”–Edna Lister.

Edna Lister on Eternity

The soul is eternal and immortal.–Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, December 15, 1935.

Love is eternal and a flame undying.–Edna Lister, June 9, 1938.

Reality is eternal and infinite. Reality is beyond time and space, eternal in duration and infinite in extension. The finite mind cannot grasp infinite reality.–Edna Lister, A Design for Ascension, 1941.

The Priest must bear all life from earth to eternity; in this degree, you become aware of eternity.–Edna Lister, September 10, 1946.

Most people will say, “You have to face the facts,” rather than facing the Light of eternity. Take your “facts of life” from the real facts of eternity, not the facts of past experience, or of outer appearances.–Edna Lister, The Three Phases of Life Through Faith, April 20, 1947.

Cosmic consciousness includes eternal vigilance.–Edna Lister, August 6, 1950.

Wisdom, Love and Joy are eternal, as are Mind, Substance and Power.–Edna Lister, July 16, 1951.

You can’t live in the past, or in the future. You can live only now, which is eternal. Eternity is Now.–Edna Lister, May 22, 1952.

Eternity stretches in every direction. All you have is where you stand now.–Edna Lister, Success Through Prayer, July 7, 1953.

Eternity consists of Light, Life, Power and Substance; this is divine Mind.–Edna Lister, September 9, 1957.

The Light is immortal. This Light is eternal. This Light is true life.–Edna Lister, July 3, 1958.

You will never have greater access to immortality and eternity than you do right now. Now is an escalator to God, walled by Love on one side and Wisdom on the other. Ascend on this.–Edna Lister, Idealization, May 10, 1959.

Eternity radiates in every direction from now. It overlaps and holds all the past, present and future in this handful of life right now. A handful of life is immortal and stretches to eternity. You stand in eternity this very minute, and get out of it what you put into it. The Beatitudes teach how to live in eternity now—not in the future, not in the past, but now. You cannot live one day in eternity without setting something into action.–Edna Lister, The 33 Degrees of Soul Conquering, November 3, 1959.

The road to eternal life is a narrow road of discipline.–Edna Lister, October 21, 1961.

You live in eternity, but you use time and space.–Edna Lister, April 4, 1963.

The essence of Deity is eternal, but only the three original Persons of Deity are unqualifiedly eternal. All other deity personalities have an origin, but are eternal in destiny.–Edna Lister, The Supreme Being: God as Personality, God as the Sevenfold, November 3, 1964.

Infinity is absolute and inseparable from eternity.–Edna Lister, The Three Absolutes Founded on Philosophy, November 10, 1964.

All time is based in and on the principle of Mother Love. All space is based in Wisdom. Time is always now with Mother Love. Space forever opens under Wisdom. Universal Mother Love transcends time and space, being eternal and everywhere simultaneously.–Edna Lister, Eternity Is Now Mine, May 9, 1965.

Patience represents the exhaustless eternities of God expressing, and nothing and no one can stop the Eternal from expressing.–Edna Lister, May 25, 1965.

The eternal now begets the creative future, from the creature to the creator states of consciousness.–Edna Lister, Your Live Wire of Omnipotence, September 7, 1965.

All is One at the Source. In eternity, all is. All has not yet been revealed in time and space.–Edna Lister, The Source Above the Supreme, November 21, 1967.

We live in space here and now, between outer time and inner eternity.–Edna Lister, The Holy Ghost on this Day of Pentecost, June 2, 1968.

Time and eternity must meet at one point in space for us to be flexible and balanced. “In the beginning, God created” means God moved from eternity into time, and brought them together to meet in a miracle of manifestation. You must enfold time into eternity to produce a miracle.–Edna Lister, To Know, To Be, To Do, the Keys of the Kingdom, June 16, 1968.

The minute you think of God, you move from time to eternity. When God descends, He moves from eternity to time. Time is bondage in space, eternity is freedom. The Power and Substance of eternity fill you and you transcend time-space.–Edna Lister, June 17, 1968.

Originally, we moved from infinite eternity into time and space. Unfortunately, we reach for eternity without accepting full responsibility for our own immortality, here and now. All your difficulties arise from this urgency to move back from time and space into eternity and infinity. the Mind of God rules eternity and infinity; time and space are ruled by the minds of humanity—one pulls up and the other down.–Edna Lister, You Are an Ambassador of Peace, July 28, 1968.

Hold your point and place in eternity and everything shall fall into place in time and space where you are serving.–Edna Lister, October 18, 1968.

God is time, space and eternity.–Edna Lister, June 19, 1969.

When you can draw your time and space together, to meet as one, you can live in the eternal now.–Edna Lister, July 9, 1969.

Faith is your direct contact with eternity.–Edna Lister, I Let Life Live Me Now, January 6, 1970.

It was the oddest feeling to face eternity and not to know where your form would be, what it would be or where you would do your work. I’ve always stood between earth and the inner to protect our sponsors there. I’ve appreciated the tremendous work they do. I went and actually lived there, in eternity. It makes you smile at those who say, “God doesn’t feel.” I was taken in until every part of me was there. It was peculiar, not suffering, not actual pain or grief, yet it’s bigger than them all. I cannot explain. You cannot appreciate it without being it.
  However, such a supreme experience does make you know the difference between wanting to give so that the other one will stand with you, seeing, and wanting to give to keep the doors and windows wide open so that at the right time when one is working on the inner and ready, the words will be there for them to guide them, and bring them in as far as possible. Yet if you do not become a witness to what you know as truth, how will the other person have the words, the vibration for the cracking open at the moment of speculation?
  Make certain that you do not take credit anytime, anywhere — this is important. You must not go there (eternity) if you have any sense of “getting” or sense of place or position. You must go there because you cannot bear to be any farther away. According to your depth of desire and need to be there, a golden cord stretches to the Source and the Father pours Power, strength and glory over that. You go there with eyes veiled, but with your heart bursting with love and adoration. Yet when you return, you can open your eyes and ears.–Edna Lister, May 1, 1970.

The Light is yours. You are the Light. The Light is One. There is no time or space. All your work is for the purpose of ascending, not through time and space, but to live in eternity now. You conform to the laws of time and space, but at the height of your Garden of Eden, you live in eternity.–Edna Lister, June 28, 1970.

As a creator, you must lift your time and space into eternity now. “The measure of my love and devotion is the measure of the eternity in which I live daily.”–Edna Lister, Ascension Makes All Things New, July 5, 1970.

God consciousness collapses space and time into eternity now. You know that there is no then and there, only here and now.–Edna Lister, Stand, Endure and Hold Through the Magic Word, November 30, 1970.

The love of the Elect has collapsed time and space—no abysses remain between us and the Sources. The Light shines through them all. There is no consciousness of time or space. On earth, we seem to have time and space, but we really live in eternity. God sent us forth from eternity and our struggle has been to transcend time and space. We have been on earth, but of heaven. We have allowed ourselves to become entangled. As you awaken the thousand-petaled crown lotus, you become aware of this. As Solomon made a thousand days of burnt offerings, so you must live a thousand days without a negative.–Edna Lister, February 14, 1971.

There is no time or space in eternity. It is one. When you reach for eternity, space begins to collapse upon itself and you can stand as you did in the beginning, One with God.–Edna Lister, The High Altar, May 23, 1971.

Plato on the Eternal Forms

In the Timaeus (37E6–38A6) Plato contrasts the eternal forms with the time-bound created world, the world of mutation and becoming, for time was created along with the heaven (38B5), meaning at least that time is the measure of change, and perhaps that it is identical with the movements of the heavenly bodies, a view later critiqued by Augustine (Confessions, Book XI. xxiii) Plato’s idea of eternity in the Timaeus seems to be that of timeless duration, for the Forms endure in the temporal order in which ‘time is the moving image of eternity’. It is possible to trace a similar idea of timeless eternity back to Parmenides, though exactly what he means is the subject of scholarly dispute.
  While in some places at least Plato connected the necessary character of the Forms, including mathematical objects, to eternity, in Aristotle the connection is between necessity and sempiternity. What is necessary is what exists for all times. What is contingent is what at some time might not be. God, being necessary, is sempiternal. Nevertheless it may be said that the sempiternal is not bounded by time (in a weaker sense than Plato ascribes to the Forms) in that what exists sempiternally cannot age. (Physics 221b30) Philo of Alexandria is reckoned to be the first to ascribe timelessness to God, to the God of the Jewish Scriptures. In Plotinus (ca. 185–254) timeless eternity and life are for the first time identified together. Nous is eternal and beyond time, enjoying duration without succession.–Paul Helm, Eternity, 2014.

Scripture on Eternity

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.–Isaiah 40:8.

God inhabits eternity: Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.–Isaiah 57:15.

The Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king:–Jeremiah 10:10.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.–Psalm 41:13.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.–Psalm 90:2.

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.–Psalm 102:25-27.

Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.–Psalm 119:142.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: 24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.–Psalm 139:23-24.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.–Ecclesiastes 3:11.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.–Matthew 25:46.

And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.–Mark 10:29-30.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.–John 3:16.

Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.–John 4:14.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.–John 5:24.

Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.–John 6:27.

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.–John 6:40.

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.–John 6:50-51.

I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.–John 10:28-30.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.–John 17:3.

Who will render to every man according to his deeds: 7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life.–Romans 2:6-8.

But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.–Romans 6:22-23.

Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.–2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.–2 Corinthians 5:1.

Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.–1 Timothy 1:16.

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.–1 Timothy 6:12.

For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.–1 John 1:2.

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.–1 John 2:17.

And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.–1 John 2:25.

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.–1 John 3:15.

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.–1 John 5:11.

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.–1 John 5:13.

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.–1 Peter 5:10.

And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.–1 John 5:20.

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.–Galatians 6:8.

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.–Titus 1:2.

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.–Jude 1:20-21.

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.–Revelation 1:18.

Eternity in Other Sacred Writings

God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity.–Wisdom of Solomon 2:23.

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