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

6031 Linden Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90805