Our God is one, yet He is the Triune God. He is one, yet He has many names depending on our experience and enjoyment of Him.
He is called Jehovah in His relationship with man, in coming to be with man and caring for man, especially in the Old Testament. He is the Most High God – as we experience Him as the Possessor of heaven and earth, God is the Most High God to us.
He is the El-Shaddai, the God who bountifully supplies us with everything that we need in order to live a life for His purpose, a life by grace and in grace. God is Jehovah-Jireh (Gen. 22:11-14), the One who provides Christ as the all-inclusive replacement for us (as He provided a ram for Isaac’s replacement).
As we experience God in His many aspects, He is the same God but in different facets and with a different name; the same all-inclusive Christ yet experienced in many of His riches in our daily life. He is our shield, our support, our supply, our life, our light, our food, the air we breathe, the source, and the reality of every positive thing in the universe.
In Gen. 21:33 we see a particular aspect of God: He was enjoyed and experienced by Abraham as El-Olam, the Eternal God. Abraham redeemed the well in Beer-Sheba and he planted a tamarisk tree there; then, he called on the name of Jehovah, the eternal God. He drank from the well, expressed the bountiful riches of this water, and experienced God as the Eternal One, the One who is secret, concealed, hidden, and yet could be experienced by him as his eternal life.
Today our God is El-Olam, the Eternal One, the One who is secret, mysterious, hidden, veiled, and yet He is so real, so available, and so full of life. He is ever-existing, ever-living, without beginning or ending, and His life is eternal both in time and in quality.
We can experience such a God in our daily life by simply calling on His name, O Lord Jesus! When we call on the name of the Lord, He is to us the Eternal God, the eternal life.
Enjoying and Experiencing the Eternal God with His Eternal Life
In Genesis 21:33 there is a special title of God – El-Olam, the Eternal God. The footnote in the Recovery Version on this name helps us understand what “El-Olam” means,
Heb. El Olam. “El”, meaning the Mighty One, is one of the names of God. “Olam”, meaning eternal or eternity, comes from a Hebrew root meaning to conceal, to hide. The divine title El Olam implies eternal life (cf. John 1:1, 4). Hence, by calling on the name of Jehovah, the Eternal Mighty One, Abraham experienced God as the ever-living, secret, mysterious One, who is the eternal life.
In Abraham’s realization and experience, at that moment in time, God was to him “El-Olam”, the Eternal God. He experienced God as the secret and mysterious One who is his life inwardly and eternally.
We also can experience God as the El-Olam: He is the secret and mysterious One, yet He is so real, ever-living, and ever-existing, with no beginning and no ending. Before the mountains were brought forth, and before God gave birth to the earth and the world, indeed from eternity to eternity, He is God (Psa. 90:2). Our God is the Eternal God (Isa. 40:28).
The God whom Abraham experienced in Gen. 21 is the same One revealed in John 1, “In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was God…in Him was life”. The fact that God is eternal implies the eternal life.
We can experience and enjoy God as the Eternal God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus
When we were born again by repenting and calling on the name of the Lord, we received the eternal life. The eternal life we have received is a divine person who is, on the one hand, so concealed, veiled, hidden, mysterious, and secret, and yet, at the same time, He is so real, ever-existing, and ever-living, constantly imparting life to us all the time.
As we advance in our experience and enjoyment of God in our Christian life, we will enjoy Him as the Eternal One, the One who is hidden, mysterious, and concealed, but at the same time He is our life inwardly. The One we have in us today is El-Olam, the Eternal God, the God who hides Himself and yet is our life day by day.
We can enjoy and experience God as the Eternal One by simply calling on His name, O, Lord Jesus! From eternity to eternity God is God, and this One is our life! This is the life of which the Apostle John testified and witnessed of in 1 John 1:2 and 2:25, and today we who have the Son have the life, the eternal life of God (1 John 5:11-13).
The eternal life is mysterious because the eternal life is God Himself. This life is concealed yet it is eternal in time (everlasting), in space (vast and unlimited), and in quality (perfect, complete, with no defect or shortage).
This eternal life, which is God Himself, encompasses the entire universe and at the same time is in our spirit. Whenever we call on the name of the Lord, O Lord Jesus! from the depth of our being, we can enjoy and experience God as the Eternal God with the Eternal Life. Hallelujah!
Praise You, Lord, for Your incorruptible, indestructible, unconquerable, and unsubduable divine eternal life. You are life itself, and You as the eternal life came into us to be our life today. Lord, even though You are concealed, mysterious, hidden, and veiled to our human senses, we can enjoy You and experience You in spirit as the Eternal One with the eternal life by simply calling on Your name! From eternity to eternity You are God, and now You live in us! Praise You! O Lord Jesus! We love You! We worship You!
A Well, a Tamarisk Tree, and Calling on the Name of the Lord, the El-Olam
There must have been many other things that Abraham did at Beer-Sheba, but the Bible records mainly three things: redeeming the well, planting a tamarisk tree, and calling on the name of Jehovah, El-Olam.
In the same way with us, there are many things we may do daily, but in God’s eyes what really matters and is worthy of being written in the divine history is our drinking of the redeemed and covenanted water, expressing the bountiful riches of the divine life, and calling on the name of the Lord, the Eternal One.
The Bible is a record not merely of history but of life: how life grows, develops, is experienced and enjoyed, spreads, and reaches its climax. In Genesis 1-2 we see a record of life consummating with the tree of life signifying God Himself as life for man to enjoy and live by.
Now in Genesis 21 we see that Abraham experienced and enjoyed the tree of life, he drank from the well of water, experienced the eternal life flowing with all its riches (like a tamarisk tree), and called on the name of Jehovah, the Eternal God.
This should be our Christian life and church life also: enjoying and experiencing the tree of life, drinking the water of life, richly expressing the bountiful flowing life, and calling on the name of the Lord, the Eternal One.
In order for us to “write the divine history within the human history” we need to just eat the tree of life, drink the water of life, call on the name of the Lord, and let Him be expressed through us.
If we are passive and not active, we will end up like Lot: losing everything and having a shameful ending. But if we are active in seeking the Lord and experiencing Him, He will lead us to Beer-Sheba, the place of eating and drinking Him (both personally and corporately), calling on the name of the Lord, and expressing Him richly.
Lord, You are the Eternal God – the mysterious, secret, veiled, hidden, and concealed One yet You are so real, ever-existing, and ever-living! Hallelujah, the Eternal God is now our very life! And we can experience this divine eternal life flowing and supplying us by calling on the name of the Lord! O, Lord Jesus! May we be those who are active in seeking to enjoy You and experience You as the tree of life and water of life so that You may be richly expressed through us. O Lord Jesus, we call on Your name! You are the El-Olam, the Eternal God with the eternal life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chan’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (msgs. 56-57), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 10 / msg 10, Two Wells — Two Sources of Living.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Life is uncreated. / It’s divine and it’s eternal. / And this is the life that’s indestructible. / And this life came in us / In our spirit through the Spirit; / This is where we were made alive! / Now this life is spreading. / Lord, don’t stop—just keep invading. / For this, Lord, we must be daily revived. (Hymn on the Eternal Life)
# O my God, within Thee there is eternal life / And this life is expressed in the Son / He has risen, today, as the Spirit of life / Which in us quickens us, gives us life. (Source: hymnal.net)
# I’ve given up the world because / I’ve found something more: / He’s better than anything / I’ve ever found before. / Yes, I have found the Living One, / Oh, how my spirit soars! / I called His name, I’m not the same, / I am for the Lord! / I’m for the Lord! / I’m loving Jesus! / I’m for the Lord! / I’m calling O Lord Jesus! (new song on Calling O Lord Jesus)
# O how nigh the Lord is unto all who call on Him! / When we call, His very presence strengthens us within. / Seeking Jesus, He is found, and calling, He is near— / O what a comfort to our hearts to call His name so dear! (Hymns #1083)
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