Lines 6-7 of the Creed taught us that the glory of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equal, and their majesty coeternal. This means that: What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. In other words, the three Persons of the Trinity share the same divine attributes.

So far, we have seen that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are alike uncreated—which supplies the attribute of aseity, or self-existence. Then we have seen that the Father, Son, and Spirit are alike immeasurable—infinite and incomprehensible. This supplies the divine attributes of omnipresence (everywhere present), omniscience (all-knowledge), omnisapience (all-wise), and omnipotence (all-powerful). Infinity means a God without limitations.

Now, the Creed will speak of the attribute of eternity.

Lesson from the Creed

The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal,
the Holy Spirit is eternal.

Athanasian Creed, Line 10

Explanation from Scripture

These divine attributes we’ve seen are negations. In other words, they teach us what God is not.

To say that God is uncreated means God is not a creature. There’s no being greater than God to whom He owes His existence. No one to whom He is accountable, no one who instructs Him. Positively, this means God is self-existing, self-sufficient, and self satisfied.

To say that God is infinite means that He has no limitations. He is incomprehensible, but Himself comprehends all things in Himself. Thus He is everywhere present, all-knowing, all-wise, and all-powerful. In other words, His presence is not bound to space; and His knowledge, wisdom, and power are boundless. All that He has and is, is perfection.

Now, we see that God is eternal. Eternal means without a term. In other words, without beginning or end. And yet, even that says too little. God, as the Maker of time, is outside of time. The creation and its creatures are bound to time until the consummation of all things. We read of the heavenly city, New Jerusalem, in the new heavens and earth: And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there (Revelation‬ ‭21‬:‭25‬ ‭KJV‬‬). Days and nights are how we mark time; but in glory, we shall have life eternal. Now we are in time—that is, we live in an unfolding succession of nows. This helps us understand, by contrast, God’s eternity. Because God is outside time, for God all times are now.

The Creed declares that all three Persons of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—possess this attribute of eternity.

The Father and the Son are eternal, that is outside of time. John 1:1, 3 reads: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made (KJV‬‬). The Word is the Son. He is in the beginning with the Father, and all things were made by Him. Time is a creation. Time was created when God separated the day from the night, and there was the first Day. Since the Son was the Word through whom time was spoken into being, He Himself must be timeless, for He cannot be the Creator of time, if He is Himself in time.

This is further confirmed by Colossians 1:16, which declares: For by Him—that is, by the Son—all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible … All things were created through Him and for Him (NKJV‬‬, emphasis added). Time is invisible, and it was created by, through, and for the Son, for God’s good purposes.

Again, Jesus Christ the Son, in His Incarnation, prayed: And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was (John‬ ‭17‬:‭5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). We see then that the Father and the Son are indeed equal in glory and coeternal in majesty. For again, before the world was means before time was. That is, outside time, in eternity.

But what of the Holy Spirit? Well, Genesis 1:2 that in the beginning, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (NKJV‬‬). This was before time was created (Genesis 1:3). Thus, the Spirit, like the Father and the Son, was before time, outside of time, and therefore eternal. This is explicitly confirmed in Hebrews 9:14 where the Holy Spirit is called the eternal Spirit.

So, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all eternal, as the Creed commands us to confess.

So when the Scripture says from everlasting to everlasting, You are God (Psalm‬ ‭90‬:‭2‬ ‭NKJV‬‬); that means Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Triune God is eternal.

This helps us see something rather magnificent. In Jeremiah 31:3, God tells His Bride, the Church: I have loved you with an everlasting love. The old Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos said of this passage: The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began. The love of the Triune God for His people is an eternal love, without beginning or end. Thus Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us the Father chose us in [Christ, the Son] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (NKJV‬‬). And again, St. Peter says the saints are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). Likewise, Revelation 13:8 says that the names of God’s people have been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain (Revelation‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬).

In other words, the Triune God has known and loved each believer by name from eternity; and purposed your redemption from before the foundation of the world. And so we read, each of us with confidence: in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them (Psalm 139‬:‭16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).