God's Omnipresence Revisited
The
Omnipresence of God
God
the Father can be known through his character, that is attributes, which give
us an understanding about Himself. It is
easy to accept that He exists, and to throw out and easily accept terminology
such as omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience.
Such three plus syllable words could stop us in our tracks. However, God, our creator, our deliver, and
our friend provides information, in the Bible, so that we might know Him. This knowledge of Him is what distinguishes
Him from other gods, inanimate objects, ideologies, and theories. In short, God Is!
I
believe in thinking about God, as expressed as the Father, his immensity, that
is possessing a nature that is without extension, and subject to no limits of
time of space, but within contains itself the cause of space. I Kings 8:27 states "But will God indeed dwell on the earth?
Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this
temple which I have built!" Romans
8:39 says, "nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." To re-assert what King Solomon expressed, and
that is God cannot be contained by any space imaginable. He is a being who exists without size or
dimensions in space.
Immensity
is infinity in its relation to space. Though we have limitations and boundaries, God is not
subject to the law of space. God is not
in space. It is more correct to say that
space is in God. Yet space has an
objective reality to God. For example,
with creation, space began to be, and since God sees according to truth, He
recognizes relations of space in his creation.
God
is not equivalent to any part of creation or to all of it. Some argue that God is everything that exists
or that God is everything. The Bible
points out that God is present everywhere, in his creation, but is also
distinct from it. The analogy of a
sponge filled with water may be helpful.
Water is present everywhere in the sponge, but the water is still
completely distinct from the sponge.
This
is somewhat baffling. This is an
incommunicable attribute, which provides
a description regarding one of His characteristics and nature. He is unlimited with respect to space. Omni in Latin means "all". His omnipresence can be defined or understood
to mean that He does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at
every point of space with his whole being, yet He acts differently in different
places.
This brings a stark reality that He is
everywhere. Psalm 139:7-10, Jeremiah 23:23-24, and Acts
17:27-28 tells us that God is everywhere, we cannot flee His presence, and that
He is not far from us. In Psalm 139:7,
David speaks to His omnipresence.
Jeremiah 23:23-24, God rebukes the prophets who believe their words and
thoughts are hidden from God. His retort
is that He is everywhere and fills heaven and earth. As well in Acts 17:27-28, Paul is emphatic in
telling the religious Athenians that God Is and is not unknown! Moreover, God is present in his whole being
in every part of space. The Apostle Paul
stands firm and through his affirmation that ,"In him we live and move and
have our being."
Talk to you soon,
Pastor James P. Norman Jr.
Artesian Well Church
Long Beach, CA 90805
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