God's Transcendence

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What Is Transcendence?

The word isn’t foreign to our vocabulary. We talk about qualities, virtues or ideas that transcend time and places.
We may say that love transcends language and culture. What do we mean? We mean that love isn’t limited or bound by differing languages and cultures, but instead, rises above them.
So, what does it mean that God is transcendent? It means that God is “above” or “beyond” or “over” his creation.
Deuteronomy 32:8 ESV
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
Isaiah 6:1 ESV
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.
The language of these verses usually gives us the idea of God being spatially removed from us—distant—in a far away location that is “above” the earth.
What problems could arise from only thinking of God in a far away place?
A faulty, unbiblical view of God
-e.g. something similar to Deism (17th century worldview): The universe was created by the transcendent God but then he left it to run on its own like a huge machine—like clockwork. God is distant and uninvolved as the world plays out according to how the machine was set in motion. God is not personal or close to his creation. This cannot be what transcendence is.
It seems to contradict his omnipresence
-Frame offers a possible solution to this by saying that while God is omnipresent, he “intensifies his presence in local areas, such as the burning bush of Exodus 3, the meeting with Israel at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19),” (Frame Systematic, p. 40) and the most holy place in the tabernacle and temple. So, while he’s omnipresent, he has manifested himself to various people in various times and places.
Transcendence doesn’t contradict his omnipresence. He transcends time and space—that is, he’s not confined within the parameters of time and space like the created universe is.
*Doesn’t mean he’s impersonal, and doesn’t mean he only resides in a far away location.
*We must never isolate one attribute of God from the rest of his attributes. As soon as we do, we’re not seeing or understanding God accurately. ALL his attributes exist and function harmoniously.
When you examine one attribute and try to comprehend it exhaustively, the other attributes act like guardrails to keep you from wandering into error. Omnipresence prevents you from falling into the ditch of limiting God to only one location (Heaven). Immanence guards you from falling into the ditch of seeing God as cold and impersonal—uninterested and uninvolved.
Transcendence is: Closely related to the idea of sovereignty, but less about God acting from a position of authority and control and more about God having the essence and substance of being distinct and independent from his creation.

How does God transcend his creation?

(in every way, but we’ll look at the big picture)
He is God in Heaven.
Psalm 115:3 ESV
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Psalm 113:5–6 ESV
Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?
Job 2:1–2 ESV
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
-Isaiah and John also saw the throne-room of God, where he dwells, is exalted revered and worshiped. The most intense center of his presence. (remember, Spirit, not body)
-His location or position implies authority and power. He is the Lord who reigns OVER all the universe.
He is Creator, everything else is created.
-He isn’t affected by creaturely limitations (or sin)
Psalm 121:3 ESV
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
Numbers 23:19 ESV
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
-Romans 1 teaches that our Creator transcends us, so are to glorify him with our lives. Romans 9 teaches us that our Creator transcends us, so we have no right to question what he’s doing.
Romans 9:20–21 ESV
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
*God isn’t small, inconsequential or impotent.
Sometimes we’re content to think of God like “the old man upstairs” who doesn’t mind being undervalued, ignored, and taken for granted. After all, Jesus took away God’s wrath, right? God’s been domesticated. He’s not like the God of the OT, angry and violent, right?
OR, we think we have him figured out. He’s too familiar to us—we think we know all there is to know about him, so we find him kind of boring and spend our time chasing other attractions and diversions hoping they’ll prove more exciting and satisfying.
Is this the God of the Bible?
Deuteronomy 4:24 ESV
For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Isaiah 33:14 ESV
The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”
Matthew 10:28 ESV
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
-A common indictment of sinners in the Bible is that they don’t fear God. I know we who have been adopted as his children don’t need to be afraid of him, as though he may change his mind and unleash his wrath on us. WELL, retribution is not coming for us BECAUSE he destroyed his own Son who stood in our place. It was gruesome and horrifying and it would have been us. That’s not something we get over. We should tremble in awe and wonder every time we think about it. He isn’t safe, but he is good.
The fear we ought never to lose, is the fear of awe and respect considering how great and powerful and holy he is, and how small and frail and sinful we are. He transcends us in his holiness, power, majesty, wisdom, worth, etc.
1 Chronicles 29:11 ESV
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
1 Timothy 6:16 ESV
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
*READ quote from p. 39 of Towzer.*
And what if we think we’ve already apprehended God?
The closer we come to God, the less we know—and the more we know we don’t know.
Just how much can we know God?
-If transcendence meant God is distant, impersonal and uninvolved with his creation, like the God of deism, very little could be known of him. The clockwork universe would be the only revelation about him, and we’d be limited to what we could ascertain from science and reason.
We’re not left to science and reason—God has revealed himself in Creation, and in his word. He’s only revealed what we need to know, and we see as a dim reflection in a mirror. There is still much greatness and mystery we can’t comprehend.
Psalm 145:3 ESV
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
Job 11:7–8 ESV
“Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?
*READ Job 38*
Psalm 8:4 ESV
what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
We need what Towzer calls a sense of “creature consciousness”. Like Abraham when he said:
Genesis 18:27 ESV
Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.
God is transcendent. He is exalted over all creation. In his nature and holiness, he is far removed from us.
A great gulf lies between me and the transcendent God, who is so high I cannot think of Him, so lofty that I cannot speak of him, before whom I must fall down in trembling fear and adoration. I can’t climb up to Him; I cant soar in any man-made vehicle to Him. I can’t pray my way up to Him. There is only one way: “Near, near thee, my son, is that old wayside cross.” And the cross bridges the gulf that separates God from man.
That nearness of God, his immanence, is what we’ll study on Nov. 8th.
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