The Omnipresence of God
Notes
Transcript
Last week
- the omniscience of God
God knowledge is perfect, infinite and personal
God knows his people intimately as He carries out his purposes in us
This leads us to worship Him in humility
We again must see the interconnectedness of these divine attributes of God. King David stated in Psalm 139:5
5 You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.
He connects for us knowledge and action of God. Related to this action is the presence of God so that as God knows us intimately, we will see today that He does not just interact with us from afar. Instead God is everywhere!
We will look at three areas today:
God’s grand presence (outside of space and time), God gracious presence (his presence within his creation and most importantly with his people) and finally some divergent views about God that stand against the
1. God’s Grand Presence
1. God’s Grand Presence
To begin our study today, we want to first consider God’s Grand presence. Theologians often title this feature of God as his immensity as they look to see and understand God’s presence outside the confines of time and space. When considering God in relationship to time and space, as humans we struggle contemplating existence beyond time and space. AW Tozer famously states in his book Knowledge of the Holy that the word NEED ‘is a creature word.” It exists in the created existence alone. God does not need anything. Space and time are also created by God and he operates outside them. These terms, space and time, are also creature words.
Geerhaudus Vos says humanity …
Reformed Dogmatics (Chapter 2: Names, Being, and Attributes of God)
….have time and space not only as real outside us, but they are also created in our mind as forms for representation, so that our inner life is governed by them and we cannot be rid of them. We can only see in space and think in time
You are occupying space on that pew, in this building, on this street, in this city, on this planet, in this universe at this moment in time. We are confined to that which God is not confined to.
God above all else exists in his full being outside of time and space. This is his Grand presence or his immensity. He is exalted above space and time and cannot be contained by it because He is the creator of it. If God was limited to the space and time he created, he would be limited in some way and we could not consider him as infinite or without limitation as well as transcendent, supreme above what he has created.
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!
Solomon was given an understanding in this moment that the presence of the Lord is not contained in the temple that was erected. Far above that temple, He concluded that even the highest places of existence could not contain the immensity of God’s presence.
When we consider his immensity, let us understand also that God exists fully outside and inside space and time. He is not divided in his essence and being between the two, nor does he leave one to enter into the other. Consider the passage in Col 1:16-17
16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
As God, most specifically the Lord Jesus Christ, upholds and sustains all things, he does so only by his divine power and immensity to exist apart from them and above them.
Church, we we consider the immensity of God, let us be reminded that as God communicates to man, he does so in human terms through human authors by the power of the Holy Spirit. But when you begin to consider the passages in the bible, they mainly speak about God’s presence in the earth and heavens.
But we have to by the illumination from God’s word consider his nature as so grand and immense that his glory goes beyond all time and space. There, where out minds cannot comprehend, God is there.
Augustine states,
Before God made heaven and earth, before he made the saints, where did he dwell? He dwelt in himself.”
DEISM
As we consider God’s immensity, let us be warned by those who have take a poor divergence from this truth. I want to highlight two inadequate teachings today about God in relation to his presence. The first divergent teaching that people through history have adopted about God is called Deism.
Deism is the belief that in God’s immensity, he created the earth and all that is contained within it, including time and space and after that creation, God has removed himself from that creation’s function. In other words, the Deist does not believe in the providential and supernatural workings of God in all of creation. Instead, they believe him to have established natural laws contained within creation that do not necessitate God to act within that creation. Instead, he winds the clock and the gears and hands of the watch that are set in motion by him, work independently as he designed.
Of course, the deists believe that the purpose of life is to enjoy that which God has made, to find happiness in that creation, and to live obedient lives to the natural laws that God has stamped on humanity in order to experience the fullness of God’s design. Their denial of God’s personal interaction with creation excludes the need for Jesus to enter into the world to redeem sinners and therefore salvation is based on a moral goodness to the natural laws set in motion by God’s creation.
This view of course is grossly blasphemous to the inspired word and the living word of the God , Jesus Christ. It simply is another form of a effort-based fulfillment and happiness in this life which is contrary to what Scripture teaches about God’s presence, God’s redemption, and God’s grace for sinners.
Now let’s zoom into the truth of God’s presence and consider his omnipresence in creation.
2. God’s Gracious Presence
2. God’s Gracious Presence
On one hand, we can aknowledge that God exists fully and perfectly above all time and space and yet he chooses to present himself within those confines in what I call his “gracious presence.” We must acknowledge that God chooses to be present among his creation as a sheer act of grace within himself because He is truly above all that he has made. But his presence in creation must be understood correctly. Once again, we will look at the omnipresence of God in creation and then look at another divergence from that glorious truth.
Here again is where we look to King David who states,
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
Notice first of all the creature words of David as the describes physical locations in time and space. He mentions “heaven, Sheol, wings of the dawn and the remotest of the sea.” It seems these are to David farthest points of direction in poetic language. Heaven is always thought to be above. Scripture speaks directionally of beings “coming down from heaven” or “heaven above.”
Sheol is opposite of heaven. Literally Sheol means chasm or divide. In Ps 139 David is speaking upwards as heaven and beneath him as Sheol. In Ps 6:5 David equates Sheol with death.
5 For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?
ps 16:10 relates the soul of David not “being abandoned to Sheol” for it seems to be the place of the wicked. When this passage is quoted in the NT, Sheol is replaced with Hades. It is best to interpret Sheol as the place where a person is separated from God. This is the contrast in Psalm 16:11
11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
David continues in speaking of God’s presence as farthest east and farthest west. East being the wings of the dawn where the sun arrives each morning and west must have been considered seas farthest from David’s understanding.
The point for David is God’s presence is everywhere. There is not a measurement of time and space that God does not feel. He does not leave one place to occupy another. He is everywhere.
Again, it is challenging to consider this as people who can only occupy only one place and time. Charles Hodge summaries very clearly,
Bodies are in space circumscriptively. They are bounded by it. Spirits are in space definitively. They have an ubi. They are not everywhere, but only somewhere. God is in space repletively. He fills all space. In other words, the limitations of space have no reference to Him. He is not absent from any portion of space, nor more present in one portion than in another
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 383.
All humanity must know then that God is everywhere within His creation. Some critics of this notion then ask how a holy God can be present in the midst of sinful and corrupted people. The answer is that he can be present among sinners and not be affected or polluted by their sin. It was the great miracle of the incarnation that Jesus put on human flesh and yet a human body that was not corrupted by sin. Then of course, as he lived among sinners, he also was not corrupted by the temptations to sin like we do continually. As the King of his kingdom, the Lord is not ruling and reigning over that kingdom from a distant place, but he is there, executing the glory of his kingdom over the face of his creation throughout time.
This then leads us to God’s special presence or his gracious presence among his people. God’s presence can fill all space through all time and yet he specifically and intimately dwells with his people. Unbelievers are surrounded by God’s presence but spiritually they are separated from him. Only those who love God can experience the pleasures forevermore that only exists within the spiritual presence with the Lord.
For a NT church, the presence of God is explained most specifically by the work of Christ upon the cross. By removing the wall of hostility between sinners and their God, Jesus unites God with man by his Spirit. The church can say that God’s presence is with us because by His spirit, he dwells within each believer. Again, he dwells within us and yet still maintains his full and complete presence in all of creation.
This encourages David as it encourages all followers of the Lord.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.
This is the special, intimate, grace-filled presence of the Lord for his people. It comforts us in our most darkest days that we are not alone.
No doubt you have read or owned the Chistian poem “footprints in the sand.” Its authorship is unknown and it has had slight variations throughout time, but it goes something like this:
One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.
After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.
This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."
He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you."
I had that framed on my staircase as a young boy in my parents home. I read it often and to this day, it resonates with me of the presence of the Lord is joys and trials in our lives.
Jesus told his disciples of his presence with them even when he leaves their physical presence,
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
David leans in on the presence of God within the full scope of space on earth and he acknowledges the subject for next sunday, the all powerful working of God. He states that God is not just present, but he is actively and powerfully at work for him
10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,” 12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
Darkness is used here to intensify the worst of the created order. Darkness is always synonymous with evil and wickedness. Darkness literally brings out our fears, our worry and the greatest temptations to sin. If David is using darkness to emphasis the worst of creation, God is not affected by the darkness. His powerful statement, “even darkness is light to you” shows that God is our refuge in the most fearful and troublesome environments. Why? beacuse God is the creator of both and in his power and in his presence he might our hope in confidence in our greatest times of need.
Now finally, we want to look at the second divergence from God’s omnipresence. We have already looked at Deism and now we are going to consider Pantheism. The beliefs of pantheism sounds similar to what we have discussed today IF YOU ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS.
TWO STATEMENTS:
God is everywhere
God is in everything!
Which one is true and false?
Pantheism states that God is in everything. In this pulpit, in the trees, in all of us. Simply put everthing comes forth from God’s essence and being. Creation comes from him, not creation comes by his creative hand, as Christian orthodoxy teaches. Since you we and all creation are a part of God, then the goal is to be absorbed once again into his being and essence. This is called nirvana (not the 90’s rock band).
For the pantheist, there is no good or evil in this world since all things come from God. Morality is simply an illusion of the mind that we have been duped into beliving. The goal of the pantheist, which includes both Buddhists and Hindus, is to liberate the mind, freeing oneself from the illusion of good and evil.
Finally, the pantheist denies the personal nature of God. Being a part of God’s nature is not personal but impersonal. This belief denies the transcendence of God above creation. He is not united with the universe, although his presence is everywhere in his creation. Pantheism also rejects the personal struggles with the nature of sin and evil in the world. Pantheists see no need for salvation from Jesus from their sin, they just need to recondition the mind.
A W Tozer tells the story…
Canon W. G. Holmes of India told of seeing Hindu worshipers tapping on trees and stones and whispering "Are you there? Are you there?" to the god they hoped might reside within. In complete humility the instructed Christian brings the answer to that question. God is indeed there. He is there as He is here and everywhere, not confined to tree or stone, but free in the universe, near to everything, next to everyone, and through Jesus Christ immediately accessible to every loving heart. The doctrine of the divine omnipresence decides this forever.
Tozer, A.W.. The Knowledge of the Holy . Fig. Kindle Edition.
In the end, church the omnipresence of God is a hope and comfort for those who believe. His spiritual absence in the lives of unbelievers is a reason for them to shutter in fear. This separation, pictured in Adam and Eve cast from the presence and place of God, which is a result of sin, is why Jesus Christ came into this world to offer his life. He reunites us to God in relationship.