Theological Term of the Week

omnipresence
That perfection of God whereby he is infinite with respect to space, with his whole being present everywhere all the time, yet he cannot be contained by space. (See immanence.)

• From scripture:
  

  Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? 2Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.(Jeremiah 23:23-24 ESV)

  Where shall I go from your Spirit?
  Or where shall I flee from your presence?
  If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
  If I take the wings of the morning
  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
  even there your hand shall lead me,
  and your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:7-10 ESV)

• From Omnipresence by Isaac Watts:

  In all my vast concerns with Thee,
  In vain my soul would try
  To shun Thy presence, Lord, or flee
  The notice of Thine eye.
  
  Thy all-surrounding sight surveys
  My rising and my rest;
  My public walks, my private ways,
  And secrets of my breast.
  
  My thoughts lie open to the Lord,
  Before they’re form’d within;
  And ere my lips pronounce the word
  He knows the sense! mean.
  
  Oh wondrous knowledge, deep, and high;
  Where can a creature hide?
  Within Thy circling arms I lie,
  Beset on every side.
  
  So let Thy grace surround me still,
  And like a bulwark prove,
  To guard my soul from every ill,
  Secured by sovereign love.
  
  Lord, where shall guilty souls retire,
  Forgotten and unknown?
  In hell they meet Thy dreadful fire,
  In heaven Thy glorious throne.
  
  Should I suppress my vital breath
  To ‘scape Thy wrath divine;
  Thy voice would break the bars of death,
  And make the grave resign.
  
  If wing’d with beams of morning light,
  I fly beyond the west;
  Thy hand, which must support my flight,
  Would soon betray my rest.
  
  If o’er my sins I think to draw
  The curtains of the night;
  Those flaming eyes that guard Thy law
  Would turn the shades to light.
  
  The beams of noon, the midnight hour,
  Are both alike to Thee:
  Oh, may I ne’er provoke that power
  From which I cannot flee!

• From Body of Divinity by Thomas Watson:

  If God is everywhere present, then for a Christian to walk with God is not impossible.God is not only in heaven—but he is in earth too. Heaven is his throne, there he sits; the earth is his footstool, there he stands. He is everywhere present, therefore we may come to walk with God. “Enoch walked with God.” If God was confined to heaven, a trembling soul might think, “How can I converse with God, how can I walk with him who lives above the upper region?” But God is not confined to heaven; he is omnipresent; he is above us—yet he is about us, he is near to us. “He is not far from each one of us.” Acts 17:27. He is not far from the assembly of the saints, “God has taken His place in the divine assembly,” Psalm 82:1. He is present with us, God is in everyone of us; so that here on earth we may walk with God.

  In heaven the saints rest with him, on earth they walk with him. To walk with God is to walk by faith. We are said to “draw near to God,” Heb 10:22, and to see him, Heb 11:27, “As seeing him who is invisible,” and to have fellowship with him. 1 John 1:3, “Our fellowship is with the Father.” Thus we may take a turn with him every day by faith. It is slighting God not to walk with him. If a king was in our presence, it would be slighting him to neglect him, and play with the pet. There is no walk in the world so sweet as to walk with God. “They shall walk in the light of your countenance.” “Yes, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord.” It is like walking among beds of spices, which send forth a fragrant perfume.

Learn more:

1. Blue Letter Bible, Don Stewart: Is God Everywhere at Once?
2. Notes on Attributes of God: Omnipresent
3. David Legge: The Omnipresence Of God (mp3)
4. From my attributes of God posts: God’s Omnipresence

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

May one who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord's supper?

One who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not yet assured thereof;[1] and in God’s account hath it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it,[2] and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ,[3] and to depart from iniquity:[4] in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed, for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians)[5] he is to bewail his unbelief,[6] and labor to have his doubts resolved;[7] and, so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord’s supper, that he may be further strengthened.[8]

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God's Omnipresence

In preparation for this week’s theological term, this is another reposted and re-edited piece from the past.

That God is omnipresent means that he exists everywhere. There are many more statements of this aspect of God’s infinitude in scripture than there are of his eternality. Psalm 139 has a well-known description of God’s omnipresence:

Where can I go to escape your spirit?
Where can I flee to escape your presence?
If I were to ascend to heaven, you would be there.
If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be.
If I were to fly away on the wings of the dawn,
and settle down on the other side of the sea,
even there your hand would guide me,
your right hand would grab hold of me.(7-10 NET)

There is no “going from” or “fleeing” God, because He is present everywhere. God doesn’t just see into every place, but his power—“his hand”—is there. He acts in all places. If God’s activity—his power—is in every place, then the whole of God’s essence exists in every space, since his power is one aspect of his indivisible essence.  All that God is can be found in every place.

Scripture tells us that God is everywhere present, but we also read there that God is not contained in space. From one of Solomon’s prayers:

“God does not really live on the earth! Look, if the sky and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!…” (I Kings 8:27 NET).

God cannot be contained in creation; the universe cannot hold him. The boundaries of the highest heaven can’t enclose our God. God’s presence is everywhere within creation, but God does not dwell within creation. Indeed, he cannot dwell within creation. We can understand from this that God is both in every space and yet beyond space.

Paul tells the Athenians that all people “live and move about and exist” in God (Acts 17:28). God is our place; God is the place for his creatures. Paul says that God himself has set times and fixed limits to our placement, and those set times and fixed spatial limits are all within God, ensuring that he can always be found by us.

This statement—that in God we live and move and have our being—makes me think of a fish tank with fish that live and swim and exist within the environment of the tank. Of course, seeing God’s omnipresence and our relationship to it like fishes in a fish tank has some problems. For one thing, the whole essence of the fish tank doesn’t exist in every spot a fish does. A fish needs to move from one place to another to experience all the fish tank can offer it, yet all of God—all of what he is for us—is in every place we are. Then, too, the fish tank ends right beyond where the fish can go. The fish tank is contained in space, just like the fish are, only in a little more space; but we know from the verse from 1 Kings quoted above that there is nothing “containing” God. However, in the same way that the fish are contained in the waters of the fish tank—they do not leave its presence no matter where they swim—we are contained within our God’s presence. He is always there, “not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).

If we are one of God’s own people, understanding this should be a great comfort to us. Not even an insignificant sparrow dies apart from God, so we can know that everything that happens to us takes place in God’s presence, too. He is there beside us and in us and around us with His guiding hand—a right hand that can grab hold of us when we need it. Nothing happens to us outside of the presence of God himself, so nothing happens outside the knowledge and the power of the God who is forever working good things. Every circumstance of our life belongs to our good God, for what is a circumstance but a time and place where God is? Why would we not trust him in everything?

Of course, that God is omnipresent also means that none of our sins are hidden from him. I can hide my sins from other people, but never from God, who is privy to everything about me because nothing exists outside of his presence. Knowing this ought to spur me on to righteousness, and also to confession. And when we come in confession of our sins, we can be assured that he is always there to hear us, for he is never far away from us. Since he cannot be contained in temples, it is not necessary for us to go to a particular location for prayer or confession. He is always and everywhere with us, ready to hear us.

Here’s a little side note that occured to me while thinking about God’s omnipresence: Omnipresence is an attribute of God alone. No creature possesses it, so it is not something that Satan has. Do you unconsciously think of Satan as omnipresent—knowing all and being everywhere? He isn’t. He may have millions of minions, but even they—the entire lot of nasty helpers, along with their evil captain—aren’t omnipresent. When we think of him as omnipresent, we are elevating him to a position he doesn’t have, giving him an attribute that belongs only to God. It’s not a dualistic system we live and move and have our being in, and that’s a good thing. No, we live in a creation in which the right always has the upper hand, because the King of Righteousness is eternal and omnipresent and infinitely powerful, and his enemies—as created beings—aren’t. We can trust in this, too.