How can God never have a beginning?
God never had a beginning because He exists outside of time itself. Unlike everything created, God is eternal—without beginning or end. Exodus 3:14 reveals His name as "I AM," not "I became" or "I will be." This self-existence (what theologians call "aseity") means God depends on nothing for His being. As Psalm 90:2 declares, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God."
The 1689 London Baptist Confession states that God is "eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will" (Ch. 2.1). God's eternity isn't merely endless time, but existence beyond time altogether. He created time itself as part of His creation. Augustine said, "You, O God, preceded all past times by the heights of Your ever-present eternity, and You exceed all future times."
Calvin taught that God's eternal nature is essential to His deity. He wrote that God "fills eternity and is therefore eternal" by necessity of His divine essence. For Calvin, God's eternality wasn't simply one attribute among many, but foundational to who God is. God cannot be God without being eternal, for a beginning would imply dependence on some prior cause.
Spurgeon preached that God's beginningless existence surpasses human comprehension, saying, "As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God." Yet Spurgeon insisted this mystery should drive us to worship rather than doubt. The God who exists before all beginnings is the same God who sovereignly determined to save His people before time began (Ephesians 1:4).
Jonathan Edwards compared time to a line and God's eternity to an infinite plane that touches every point on that line simultaneously. This helps explain how God can act in time without being confined by it. His beginningless existence means He sovereignly stands above the timeline of history, decreeing all things according to His perfect will without ever starting to exist Himself.
Your salvation rests securely in the hands of this eternal God. Before you took your first breath, before creation's dawn, He already was - and His eternal plan already included Christ's redemptive work for those He chose. The God without beginning has promised never to end His love for His people.
For Further Reading:
The Attributes of God, A.W. Pink - Classic text exploring God's eternal nature.
Knowing God, J.I. Packer - See especially chapter 7 on God's immutability and eternity.
The Glory of Christ, John Owen - Puritan classic on Christ's eternal deity.
God Without Parts, James Dolezal - Scholarly defense of divine simplicity and its relation to God's eternal existence.