OVERWHELMED WITH GOD: HIS TRANSCENDENCE

Glory to God in the Highest! He is the highest. Is the greatest. He is the Creator and we are his creatures. He is different than every other thing or being. He is transcendent.

Gregory of Nazianzus wrote a hymn about God’s transcendent nature:

O all-transcendent God what other name describes thee?/What words can sing Thy praises? No word at all denotes Thee. What mind can probe Thy secret?/No mind at all can grasp Thee. Alone beyond the power of speech, all men can speek of springs from Thee. Alone beyond the power of thought, all men can think of stems from Thee. All things proclaim Thee—things that can speak, things that cannot. All things revere Thee—things that have reason and things that have none. The whole world’s longing and pain mingle about Thee. All things breathe Thee a prayer, a silent hymn of Thy own composing. All that exists Thou upholds, all things in concert move to Thy orders. Thou art the end of all that is, Thou art one, Thou art all; Thou art none of the things that are, Thou art the whole. All names are at Thy disposal; how shall I name Thee, the only unnamable? What mind’s affinities with heaven can pierce the veils above the clouds?/Mercy, all transcendent God, what other name describes Thee?”

“How far is God known? And how far is God knowable?...We may summarise our answer in the statement that God is known by God alone. His revelation is not merely his own readiness to be known, but man’s readiness to know him.”[1] Even when we study the revelation of God from God, it is difficult for us to grasp or express his nature because it is yet beyond us. “We cannot conceive God because we cannot even contemplate Him. He cannot be the object of one of those exceptions to which our concepts, our thought-forms and finally our words and sentences are related.”[2]

God is transcendent—he is categorically above everything.

· “Thus says the LORD: ‘Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?”

· , “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? Declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Declares the LORD.

· , “they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. For ‘in him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.”

God is surpasses all his creation. He is outside the universe. No part of the universe is identical to him or part of him. God transcends time. He “lives” outside of time and space. He is by definition “timeless.”

“Transcendence” has been taken by many moderns to describe “existential awareness” of self. “For existentialists transcendence means “inner awareness” of one’s existence in relation to all reality, and therefore contrasts with affirmation of God’s external objective transcendence of the space-time universe. Evangelical theists, on the other hand, insist that God is a personal being who transcends spatio-temporal realities.”[3] This concept ignores the reality of God existing outside space and time. For moderns “transcendence” is a non-real reality. “Transcendence” became a way to describe the process of meeting psychological and social needs. Transcendence became the word to describe the existence which was beyond the individual’s own immediate thought processes. However, for God, “transcendence” is his real existence outside our space and outside our time.

MY TRANSCENDENT GOD

God Is Above Me

The only way I can know anything about God is through divine revelation. “What God withholds about himself and his ways is beyond our knowing. “His understanding is inscrutable” (, nas); no one can presume to comprehend his ways unaided (). “The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever” (, asv). Our knowledge of God’s nature and purposes is limited by his disclosure; not a morsel of information can be confidently asserted about God and his will beyond what he has chosen to reveal.”[4]

God Is the Foundation of Me and Everything

The only reason we can build upward is because there is something beneath us holding us up. The only reason we are here now is because God existed before time and space. helps us to see this reality. “Every house is built by someone and the builder of all things is God.” If God had not “built” and “sustain” us, then we would not be.

Job heard God himself talk about his own transcendence and creation of all things. God said, “Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Who enclosed the sea behind doors when it burst from the womb, when I made the clouds like a garment and total darkness its blanket, when I determined its boundaries and put its bars and doors in place, when I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; your proud waves stop here?”

God is Holding Me and Everything Else Together

he is “sustaining all things through his powerful word” (CSB). The “sustaining” or “upholding” refers to Jesus’ continual work of making the universe to exist. Just as your car requires fuel to run, the universe depends upon Jesus to exist. The Psalmist said, “Long ago you established the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will endure; all of them will wear out like clothing. You will change them like a garment, and they will pass away. But you are the same, and your years will never end” (). God told the ancient Israelites, “I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (). His promise is still true for us and for all creation.

YET HE IS NOT FAR OFF

This transcendence of God is all the more amazing when we consider how God is so closely involved with our universe and how God dwelt among us. “In Scripture, God is transcendent (view 1) in that he is exalted as Lord, as King. We should associate transcendence with the lordship attributes of control and authority. He is immanent (view 2) in the sense that he is covenantally present with us. So understood, there is no contradiction, not even a tension, between divine transcendence and immanence.”[5] “Some theologians speak as though God’s immanence immerses him in the world, hides him in the world, so that he can’t be clearly distinguished from it (view 4). Some people even think that when you look deep down inside yourself, you discover that you are God and God is you. But that’s not biblical. God is always distinct from the world, for he is the Creator and we are the creature. But God does come to be with us (the meaning of Immanuel, the name of Jesus in ), and that’s something wonderful and precious.”[6]

God’s immanence leads to devotion, worship, and service. “Our word enthusiasm comes from the Greek enthusiasmos which designates a state of having an inner god, or being inspired by an immanently resident divinity."[7]

RELATIONSHIP?

Its incredible to think that we might possibly have a relationship with the God who is so far above us. That is exactly the case. God has worked to be a part of our lives. He has revealed himself in creation. He has revealed himself in his Word. He has revealed himself in Christ. His glory is displayed by the church.

Is God on top of your life? Is God the preeminent Being and Priority in all your decision making? Is God the focus of your worship and your life?

[1] Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics II.1: 179.

[2] Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics II.1: 186.

[3] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 6 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 44.

[4] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 47.

[5] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 42.

[6] John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life, A Theology of Lordship (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 43.

[7] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 51.