Apart and Within
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I think I’ve mentioned before that I gave Annette a cat for her birthday in November. Well, the other night, as Annette was getting ready for bed, I noticed
There’s an old story about a man who had been promoted to vice president of his company. He was so proud of the promotion that he talked about it to everyone he knew. He would tell people at dinner parties, he told family members at the family reunion, he put it on Facebook. In fact, he found a way to work his promotion into nearly every conversation he had.
When Annette and I got married 50 years ago — wait, it’s only been 18 years, it just seems like so much longer — on
This went on for weeks, and finally his wife, who by now was completely mortified by his bragging, turned to him and said, “Listen, Bob: It’s not that big a deal. These days, everyone is a vice president. They even have a vice president of peas down at the supermarket.”
Sometimes we need our wives to cut us down to size, and that what had happened to Bob.
He was deflated, but he wasn’t sure he believed her, so the next day, he called the supermarket to find out if it was true.
“May I speak to the vice president of peas, please?”
“Of course,” came the reply. “Fresh or frozen?”
Sometimes we need our wives to cut us down to size, and that what had happened to Bob.
Now, I want you to remember poor Bob as we continue our study today on the attributes of God.
Today, we’re going to talk about two contrasting attributes. We’re going to look at God’s transcendence and God’s immanence.
Those are a couple of seminary words, so let’s take them one at a time, and let me give you the definitions as we go along.
We’ll start by looking at God’s transcendence.
Transcendence comes from the word transcend, which means “to be or go beyond the range or limits of something.” To be transcendent is to go beyond the normal or physical human experience.
Webster’s Thesaurus gives a variety of synonyms that help us get a handle on this superlative: supreme, incomparable, preeminent, surpassing, ultimate, unmatchable, unsurpassable.
When we think of the transcendence of God, though, we have to remember that each of His attributes is colored by His holiness, his “set apart-ness.” Therefore, God isn’t simply incomparable, and He is not just supreme. He is both of those things to a degree that cannot be measured.
Turn with me to Isaiah, Chapter 6, and we’ll dig into this matter of transcendence.
I think that the commissioning of this prophet gives us one of the best pictures in Scripture of this attribute of God. Isaiah describes the vision he had in which God called him to his ministry to the people of Judah.
1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
In the New American Standard Bible, the throne is described as “lofty and exalted.” Who can sit on a throne that is lofty and exalted? Only a king who is Himself lofty and exalted.
Isaiah continues his description of the scene in verse 2.
2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
Even the angels in heaven dare not gaze on the glory of God. And they make His status perfectly clear in their words:
3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Holy. Holy. Holy. The three-fold repetition here suggests a completeness of the holiness of God. God is completely and utterly holy. As I suggested earlier, his holiness pervades all of his other attributes.
The picture the prophet gives us here is of a God who is completely apart from human understanding.
Either way, the picture the prophet gives us here is of a God who is completely apart from human experience and understanding.
This was an experience that frightened Isaiah to his core.
I think it is not a coincidence that the prophet, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, ordered his book the way that he did.
Most of Israel’s writing prophets wrote about their commissioning into the ministry at the beginning of their books. But Isaiah’s call is found here, six chapters into this book.
He spends the first five chapters laying out a sort of court case that God is bringing against the nation of Judah, an indictment for their sins.
And then, near the end of Chapter 5, Isaiah pronounces six woes upon the wicked people of Judah.
These are known as woe oracles, and they lament the approaching death of someone.
Isaiah, who loved his countrymen, was mourning the judgment that God had shown him was coming on the nation because of its sins.
And then we move to Chapter 6, where the prophet tells us about his encounter with God. We see him describe God with word pictures that are hard for us to fathom — and that’s probably because the sight was hard for Isaiah to fathom.
“The whole earth is full of His glory,” the seraphim called out.
But
4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Confronted by this God — so great that the simple train of his robe filled the temple — so awesome in power that the voice of His angels caused the temple to quake — so beautiful that those very angels had to keep their faces covered — and so full of glory that heaven could not contain it — confronted by this God, Isaiah pronounced a woe oracle for himself.
In the NASB, that last verse reads, “Woe is me, for I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”
Confronted with this holiness, this greatness, this transcendence, Isaiah immediately recognized that he was in a dangerous position. Standing before the perfectly holy God, Isaiah recognized just who and what he was. And he was terrified.
The prophet Ezekiel, taken by the Holy Spirit into the presence of God, had a similarly frightening experience.
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26 Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man.
27 Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him.
28 As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.
None of what Ezekiel had seen or heard until this point had frozen him with fear. Not the four living beings, each with four faces and four wings and feet like bronze. Not the fire and lightning that accompanied them. Not even the wheels within wheels whose rims were full of eyes.
What made Ezekiel fall on his face in fear was the voice of God.
This should not surprise us.
Remember that it was the very voice of God that brought light into the universe.
“Let there be light,” He said, and billions upon billions of entire galaxies broke through the darkness.
This God is truly incomparable. He stands outside of His creation. He is something completely different than it. He is apart from it. He is OVER it all. He has authority over it all, and it was that authority, I think, that both Isaiah and Ezekiel were recognizing when they came into His presence.
“When Scripture speaks of God as ‘high,’ ‘exalted,’ ‘lifted up,’ it is not saying that he lives far away from us so that we can’t know him. Rather, it’s saying that God is King, that he is Lord. In other words, biblical transcendence is God’s lordship attributes of control and authority. [John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 13.]
1 John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 13.
And yet.
And yet He is also immanent.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “immanent” as “existing or operating within.” When used to describe God, the term tells of how God’s presence permanently pervades the universe. It’s much in the line of omnipresence.
But there is a fine difference between omnipresence and immanence. Omnipresence tends to describe a passive presence. Immanence tends to describe an active one.
We see the immanence of God at play in His creation of man.
7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
This is God present within His creation in an active manner. Look how God describes this immanence to Moses:
45 “I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God. 46 “They shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them; I am the Lord their God.
From the very beginning, this high and lifted up, exalted and transcendent God desired to be WITHIN the people He had made in His own image.
He breathed His very Spirit into Adam and Eve. He chose to dwell in a tent among the people of Israel. He sent His very Son to live among us as a man. And those who follow Jesus Christ in faith receive His Spirit within them to fulfill the comforting words of Christ to His disciples:
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
Transcendence speaks of a God who is “up there.” Immanence speaks of a God who is Immanuel, “God with us.”
The theologian Millard Erickson describes the tension between these two seemingly contradictory attributes of God, though he argues they are not, strictly speaking, attributes:
“God is present and active within his creation, but superior to and independent of anything that he has created. These biblical ideas must be kept in balance. The tendency to emphasize one or the other will lead to a faulty conception of God. While they are not attributes of God as such, they both affect his greatness and his goodness.” [Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 272–273.]
Going back to the prophet Isaiah, we find the transcendence of God and the immanence of God brought together beautifully in one verse.
1 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 272–273.
15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.
The high and exalted One, whose name is Holy, who dwells in a high and holy place, also chooses to dwell with the contrite and lowly of spirit.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus revives this blessing for the lowly of spirit.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Not only are they to be blessed with the presence of God within them, Jesus says that the poor in spirit are to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
So what does it mean to be poor in spirit or lowly of spirit? How can we receive this blessing?
This verse, in particular, is often interpreted to say something about God being especially close to the poor or near to those who are mourning.
Indeed, it is true God has a special heart for the poor. He instructed the people of Israel to take care of the poor — for instance, thy were to leave the gleanings of their harvests for the poor to gather, and they were not to take the cloak of a poor man as collateral for a loan.
In fact, it was, in part, because of the terrible treatment of the poor people within their midst that God brought judgment against the people of Judah. The very first woe that Isaiah pronounced against that people dealt with the greed that characterized so many of the people of that land at that time.
So God does, indeed, have a special heart for the poor, and through Paul and the other Apostles, He confirmed that He still does today.
And the psalmist leaves us little doubt that God is close to those who mourn.
But this verse is not really about those who are in dire straits financially, nor is it a verse of comfort for those who are grieving.
This is about your heart.
Have you become the new vice president of spirituality? Are you confident in your own goodness?
Blessed are those whose spirit tells them that they are utterly lost without the grace of God.
Blessed are they who fall on their faces before God with Ezekiel. Blessed are they who cry out with Isaiah, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!”
The great preacher John Wesley once wrote about having looked into his heart: “I see nothing but hell,” he said.
John Bunyan, the great Puritan preacher who wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” had this to say about himself: “When I saw John Bunyan as God saw John Bunyan, I did not say I was a sinner; I said that I was SIN, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.”
God chooses to dwell with the lowly of spirit and the contrite of heart. He does not choose to dwell with those who do not believe that they desperately need Him. Those, he leaves to their own devices.
The Pharisees of Jesus’ time were the most upright people of the land, at least in their outward actions. And they were proud of what they thought of as their righteousness.
So they were perplexed that Jesus, this man they considered to be at most a great teacher, spent so much time with sinners.
16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Who were the sinners in this exchange?
Well, the Pharisees thought the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the others who flocked to Jesus were the sinners.
And note that, at least in this instance, Jesus did not correct them in this regard. He surely would do so at other points in His ministry, but here Jesus simply noted that physicians heal sick people.
But what does a sick person have to admit in order to be healed?
Right. He has to admit that he’s sick.
And the Pharisees would not admit that they were desperately sick and desperately in need of a Great Physician.
Even when we talk about our physical health, there is something about many of us that keeps us from admitting that we need help.
We’re sneezing and honking and coughing and blowing, and we’ve been doing it for weeks, and we say, “It’s just a cold. I’ll get over it.”
We’re too proud to go to the doctor.
How much worse for us if we’re too proud to recognize that our sin has rendered us dead. Maybe you can get over your cold, but you cannot get over death — not without help from the God who has power over death itself.
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23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The first step toward receiving that free gift is in humbling yourself and admitting that you have been doing the work of sin and therefore deserve the wages of that work.
Jesus took what you and I — what all sinners — had earned in His death on a cross on Calvary.
And by His resurrection we know that all who believe in Him and make Him their Lord and master will then have eternal life.
You cannot receive this gift as the proud vice president or president of your own fate.
But even having humbled yourself to receive the gift, the road of humility is not over.
Pride is a pernicious thing. It creeps into our minds when we least expect it.
Someone compliments you on last week’s sermon, and there’s pride welling up within you.
Maybe you look at all the work you’ve been doing for the Lord and think what a good servant you’ve been lately. There’s pride again.
Perhaps you see all the work that’s taking place around your church and think how much better you’ll feel about having guests here in the next couple of weeks or months. Pride rears its ugly head.
The key in each of these situations is whether the glory is focused on you or on God.
HE is high and lifted up. Not me. I am sin from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. I am the vice president of nothing.
You may be the most righteous person in the room. Before God, however, you are ruined.
He transcends time and space, and yet He chooses to dwell within and bless the lowly of spirit, to be immanent in their lives.
Do you want God to bless you?
Humble yourself before Him. Acknowledge that you are utterly ruined apart from His grace.
You may well be the vice president of frozen peas, but God is the CEO and the owner of this and all the other companies.
You cannot bring God anything of worth. He created it all, and He rules over it all.
The only things you can bring to Him are the two things He desires: your broken spirit and your contrite heart.
God stands apart from us all, but He has desired since the Garden of Eden to live within us. Whether that happens, however, depends entirely on you.
Come to Him with those, and He will dwell with you and bless you.