The Omnipresence of God
By this I mean that God, in the totality of His essence, without diffusion or expansion, multiplication or division, penetrates and fills the universe in all its parts.
Psalm 139:7 says, "Whither shall I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
For God is never so far off as even to be near. He is within. Our spirit is the home He holds most dear. To think of Him as by our side is almost untrue as to remove His shrine beyond those skies of starry blue. So all the while I thought myself homeless, forlorn, and weary, missing my joy. I walked the Earth myself God's sanctuary. (Fredrick William Faber)
Speak to Him then, for He heard, and Spirit with spirit can meet; closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet "As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart." (Alexander Pope)
The enemy thinks we shouldn't battle him in to affect his effort to separate humanity from God. As silly as it may sound, the devil believes this. Satan's number one goal is to separate human beings from God so that they will be ultimately destroyed.
If God is everywhere, how is there room for the universe? How is there room for us? Finally, how is there room for Satan and his kingdom? The only answer is that God is not material but a spiritual supernatural being whose presence does not exclude finite existence but rather makes such existence possible. This universal presence God has to be learned gradually by a systematic teaching, learning and Spirit filled developing.
It requires great faith and leading to go out from where you are naturally as a soul, and yet hold that God would be with you no matter where life's journey would lead you. In explanation of this attribute, we can say God's omnipresence is not potential but essential.
I reject the idea of some that represent that God's essence is in heaven, and only His power is on Earth. His essence and His power is in us. When God is said to dwell in the heavens, we are to understand the language either as a symbolic expression of exaltation above earthly things, or as a declaration that His most special and glorious self-manifestations are to the spirits of heaven.
We do not need to go up to Heaven to call Him down, or into the abyss to call Him up (Romans 10:6-7). The best illustration is found in the presence of the soul in every part of the body. The mind seems not be be confined to the brain only. Natural realism in philosophy, as distinguished from idealism, requires that the mind should be a the point of contact with the outer world, instead of having reports and ideas brought to it in the brain. All believers in a soul regard the soul as at least present in all parts of the brain, and this is a relative omnipresence no less difficult in principle than its presence in all part of the body. The soul may be omnipresent in the body or even in the brain, the Holy Spirit may be omnipresent in the universe.
If finite things are modes of the infinite, each thing must be a mode of the entire infinite: and the infinite must be present in its unity and completeness in every finite mind as present in all its thoughts must be regarded as the best analogue to God's omnipresence in the universe.
God's omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. So the measure of faith is not a part of His faith, it is all of His essence of faith. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal (having no material value but giving evidence of value as a franchise). I reject the materialistic representation that God is composed of material elements which can be divided or sundered. There is no multiplication or diffusion of His substance to correspond with the parts of His dominions. The one essence of God is present at the same moment in all.
God must be present in all His essence and all His attributes in every place. "He Is." Though God extends beyond creation's rim; each smallest atom holds the whole of Him. From this it follows that the whole Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time He fills and governs the whole universe, and so the whole Christ can be united to, and can be present in the single believer, as fully as if that believer were the only one to receive of His fullness.
In mathematics, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, but we know of the Spirit that every part is equal to the whole. Every church, every true body of Jesus Christ, has just as much of Christ as every other and each has the whole Christ.
God's omnipresence is not necessary but free - we reject the pantheistic notion that God is bound to the universe as the universe is bound to God. God is immanent in the universe and is qualified by His transcendence. God might at will cease to be omnipresent, for He could destroy the universe, but while the universe exists, He is and must be in all its parts. God is the life and law of the universe - this is the truth in pantheism, but He is also personal and free - this qualified and supplemented however by God's transcendence.
The boasted truth in pantheism is an elementary principle of Christianity, and is only the stepping-stone to a nobler truth - God's personal presence with His church. The Talmud contrasts the worship of an idol and the worship of Jehovah: the idol seems so near, but is so far whereas Jehovah seems so far, but is so near! God's omnipresence assures us that He is present with us to hear, and present in every heart and in the ends of the Earth to answer prayer.
The uniformity of nature and the reign of law are nothing but the steady will of the omnipresent God. Gravitation is God's omnipresence in space as evolution is God's omnipresence in time. God being omnipresent, thus contact with Him may be sought at any moment in prayer and contemplation. Indeed it will always be true that we live and move and have our being in Him as the perennial and omnipresent source of our existence.
I thank you for your continued viewing and reading. If this Blog and its contents have been a blessing to you, then I ask, with God's leading, that you consider supporting Artesian Well Church.
Talk to you soon,
Pastor James P. Norman Jr.
Artesian Well Church
6031 Linden Avenue
Long Beach, Ca
Psalm 139:7 says, "Whither shall I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
For God is never so far off as even to be near. He is within. Our spirit is the home He holds most dear. To think of Him as by our side is almost untrue as to remove His shrine beyond those skies of starry blue. So all the while I thought myself homeless, forlorn, and weary, missing my joy. I walked the Earth myself God's sanctuary. (Fredrick William Faber)
Speak to Him then, for He heard, and Spirit with spirit can meet; closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet "As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart." (Alexander Pope)
The enemy thinks we shouldn't battle him in to affect his effort to separate humanity from God. As silly as it may sound, the devil believes this. Satan's number one goal is to separate human beings from God so that they will be ultimately destroyed.
If God is everywhere, how is there room for the universe? How is there room for us? Finally, how is there room for Satan and his kingdom? The only answer is that God is not material but a spiritual supernatural being whose presence does not exclude finite existence but rather makes such existence possible. This universal presence God has to be learned gradually by a systematic teaching, learning and Spirit filled developing.
It requires great faith and leading to go out from where you are naturally as a soul, and yet hold that God would be with you no matter where life's journey would lead you. In explanation of this attribute, we can say God's omnipresence is not potential but essential.
I reject the idea of some that represent that God's essence is in heaven, and only His power is on Earth. His essence and His power is in us. When God is said to dwell in the heavens, we are to understand the language either as a symbolic expression of exaltation above earthly things, or as a declaration that His most special and glorious self-manifestations are to the spirits of heaven.
We do not need to go up to Heaven to call Him down, or into the abyss to call Him up (Romans 10:6-7). The best illustration is found in the presence of the soul in every part of the body. The mind seems not be be confined to the brain only. Natural realism in philosophy, as distinguished from idealism, requires that the mind should be a the point of contact with the outer world, instead of having reports and ideas brought to it in the brain. All believers in a soul regard the soul as at least present in all parts of the brain, and this is a relative omnipresence no less difficult in principle than its presence in all part of the body. The soul may be omnipresent in the body or even in the brain, the Holy Spirit may be omnipresent in the universe.
If finite things are modes of the infinite, each thing must be a mode of the entire infinite: and the infinite must be present in its unity and completeness in every finite mind as present in all its thoughts must be regarded as the best analogue to God's omnipresence in the universe.
God's omnipresence is not the presence of a part but of the whole of God in every place. So the measure of faith is not a part of His faith, it is all of His essence of faith. This follows from the conception of God as incorporeal (having no material value but giving evidence of value as a franchise). I reject the materialistic representation that God is composed of material elements which can be divided or sundered. There is no multiplication or diffusion of His substance to correspond with the parts of His dominions. The one essence of God is present at the same moment in all.
God must be present in all His essence and all His attributes in every place. "He Is." Though God extends beyond creation's rim; each smallest atom holds the whole of Him. From this it follows that the whole Logos can be united to and be present in the man Christ Jesus, while at the same time He fills and governs the whole universe, and so the whole Christ can be united to, and can be present in the single believer, as fully as if that believer were the only one to receive of His fullness.
In mathematics, the whole is equal to the sum of its parts, but we know of the Spirit that every part is equal to the whole. Every church, every true body of Jesus Christ, has just as much of Christ as every other and each has the whole Christ.
God's omnipresence is not necessary but free - we reject the pantheistic notion that God is bound to the universe as the universe is bound to God. God is immanent in the universe and is qualified by His transcendence. God might at will cease to be omnipresent, for He could destroy the universe, but while the universe exists, He is and must be in all its parts. God is the life and law of the universe - this is the truth in pantheism, but He is also personal and free - this qualified and supplemented however by God's transcendence.
The boasted truth in pantheism is an elementary principle of Christianity, and is only the stepping-stone to a nobler truth - God's personal presence with His church. The Talmud contrasts the worship of an idol and the worship of Jehovah: the idol seems so near, but is so far whereas Jehovah seems so far, but is so near! God's omnipresence assures us that He is present with us to hear, and present in every heart and in the ends of the Earth to answer prayer.
The uniformity of nature and the reign of law are nothing but the steady will of the omnipresent God. Gravitation is God's omnipresence in space as evolution is God's omnipresence in time. God being omnipresent, thus contact with Him may be sought at any moment in prayer and contemplation. Indeed it will always be true that we live and move and have our being in Him as the perennial and omnipresent source of our existence.
I thank you for your continued viewing and reading. If this Blog and its contents have been a blessing to you, then I ask, with God's leading, that you consider supporting Artesian Well Church.
Talk to you soon,
Pastor James P. Norman Jr.
Artesian Well Church
6031 Linden Avenue
Long Beach, Ca
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