Genesis 15:1-21
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
8 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
9 So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
10 Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. 11 Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. 13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. 14 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.15 You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. 16 In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
17 When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
John 4:24
God is Spirit
24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Exodus 6:2-3
God Did Not Make Himself Known to the Three Patriarchs
2 God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD.3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.
John 16:12-15
Jesus Has More to Tell His Disciples, But He Must Leave
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth,comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Hebrews 9:8-15
Jesus Has an Eternal Spirit
8 The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. 9 This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. 10 They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order.
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
The word Spirit to me is a mystique and a mystery....So is thinking and studying about eternal things and eternity...
God is Spirit...And His Spirit is eternal and lives in eternity...And much about the and Spirit does not seem to be explained to us in great detail in the Bible...The Spirit remains much of a mystery, because as men, God has not fully disclosed Himself to us...He comes to us in glimpses...And throughout history, He adds some things (about Himself) throughout the Bible, so that we can get (in my thinking) a personal opinion of Him -but it is only an inkling of who He is....Each of us might draw God or write about God differently...And that is the way He wants it to be...He has revealed Himself only part and parcel, even to His most ardent followers over time...
God came to Abraham, and to his son Isaac, and to his grandson Jacob and yet, He tells Moses that "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them."...He did not give His Name to the first three Patriarchs -three men He was very close to...So God came to our three Patriarchs and had the first covenant with Abraham and yet did not fully disclose to him about Himself, including His Name...He was known to them by Gold Almighty...But when Moses comes God gives us more information about Himself...And that is the way we find out more about God throughout the Bible...Each prophet adds a little about the LORD, our God...But all the authors do not go into any detailed accounts of His Personality, or His Attributes, or His Being, or His Entity...We only get glimpses and slices of Him throughout the whole Bible...Since the first covenant that God had was with Abraham, then one would think that He would make Himself better known (at least to Abraham)...
The most we learn about God is in the New Testament, and especially through Jesus in the four gospels...And also Paul learns much about Jesus through his contact with Him on the road to Damascus, and later through the original Disciples, and other followers of Jesus like Luke, Barnabas, Silas, and others...Paul gives us his epistles about Jesus...But we are told mostly what God is like (by Jesus and others), instead of who God is, and what His Personality and Attributes are, and we are not given a list of them in a one book...
Jesus even told His Disciples that He had much more to say to them (right before His arrest), but He had to leave and go save us from our sins on the cross...But He would send them the Holy Spirit to help fill in some of the gaps and some of the things that He still wanted to say to them, after He ascended to heaven...The mystery of the Spirit and Holy Spirit continued very much with Jesus...Yet, Jesus provided us with more information about His Father, and much about Himself...In fact, Jesus gives us the most information about God and Spirit...
This is how God wants to be revealed to us -and that is over time...Yet, He lives an eternal life and is an Eternal Spirit, and is probably not in time as we know it...He probably always lives in the present moment, and maybe does not have a history or future, since He is the Alpha and Omega...It is very possible that He is so complex a Spirit, that we can only understand Him and get our minds around Him with these small glimpses and slices...Maybe God wants us to be an ongoing work (in each of us) over time so we will have a stronger faith...Faith maybe cannot be given to us in a list or in a detailed fashion, like I would like...Maybe the importance of the Eternal Spirit must be shown to us and can be shown to us only in small parts and over much time in each of our individual lives, and a lengthy time period...
St. Paul tells us that Jesus has died for us and has set us free from the sins of that first covenant with Abraham...Jesus' covenant is the eternal covenant...The blood of Christ on the cross through the eternal Holy Spirit gives us life, so that one day in eternity we may be with God and serve Him and give glory to Him...That is our goal, and maybe then all the dots will be connected about the eternity and the Eternal Spirit...